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It is with much
embarrassment that I have to admit we totally missed the set this band
performed a few years ago at an earlier Gods festival. The reason being
we’d peaked too early on the beer and were tucked up in the back of
the venue having a feeding frenzy trying to sober up. I remember when
the band came on at the time we all turned to each other and gibbered
… damn these sound good, wish we were sober enough to venture to the
front to watch them.
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Knowing
what we’d missed last time was a cracking performance that
had impressed our more sober pals, who had made it down the
front to see them that time, we were careful not to make this
year a repeat performance of that sorry occasion.
Last time I remembered seeing the band wandering around the
venue and thinking … oh what funky little hair cuts, they
look like a load of hairdressers.
Today
however when they took to the stage it was more … just how
big do you need those sunglasses to be?!?
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Mind later in the set
this turned more to Phroaw! when lead guitarist Erkka Korhonen started
stripping off his clothes. Yes indeed, call me sexist but there’s
nothing quite like a tasty looking bloke taking his clothes off to perk
the day up.
The first couple of songs didn’t sound like they gelled as much as
they perhaps could have. I wasn’t entirely convinced whether they were
supposed to sound experimental or not. The sound production again was a
bit of a let down and it was hard to make out just what the lead singer
Kimmo Bloom was singing for those first couple of songs. Thankfully
things soon settled down and the band went on to do a set which seemed
to really set the place alight.
Indeed all five musicians are quite a powerful force to recon with once
they found their feet and really got the show on the road. The whole
room was clapping away when they played the newbie ‘Son of a Gun’.
Its rousing anthem like chorus, together with its gentle melody really
seemed to appeal to the masses and soon had us all joining in and
singing along.
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Kimmo
Bloom’s strong yet finely tuned voice lifted up the songs to
higher levels that saw them swoop and soar. ‘Open your
Heart’ was a typical example of this. Truly beautiful to
hear performed live. Similar to the way people used to say
Journey’s songs always sounded much heavier live, I think
Urban Tale fall very much into the same bracket, but in a good
way, not a bad way.
Stripping and early problems aside, the band did a very
impressive set which saw us hurtle towards the CD stall to
snatch up a copy of their new album. Given that a large
proportion of the songs they played today were off it we knew
it would be money well spent.
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Trying not to be
cruel, but at the same time being brutally honest, I would have to say
that Urban Tale brought so much more life into the days proceedings than
some of the other better known bands. Dare springs to mind as a big name
band that were originally billed as headliners, but later moved to
second slot. They were one of the most boring and tedious acts of the
whole weekend and compared to the likes of Urban Tale, Talon and
Evidence One, they should have been ashamed of themselves.
Forgot the egos and the past conquests of some of these bands higher up
the bill on both days. Surely the whole point of a festival is to
promote the here and now. Urban Tale gave a performance that was very
popular with a huge percentage of the crowd who came along to watch the
weekend’s performances. I’m sure a lot of people would have liked to
have seen some of the older, perhaps tired bands moved down to make way
for these newer bands. Perhaps next time they play the Gods we’ll
manage to shunt them up the bill a bit more?
Setlist included: King of
Hearts, Doris Day, Open your Heart, Son of a Gun, Still Strong, Runaway
Train, Daylight, Circus, Starship of Giants, The devil in Me
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