By Andrew Bansal
Dec. 7th 2011, Key Club, Hollywood CA: Having missed their previous LA show in early 2010, I was pretty excited when I found out that finnish folk metal band Korpiklaani was coming back for a North American tour to promote their latest album “Ukon Wacka”, along with support from Arkona, Polkadot Cadaver and Forged In Flame. I wasn’t familiar with these support bands at all, but heard a lot of great things about Arkona in the past few days, from people who were planning to go to this show. In fact, judging from the pre-show talk, I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that the number of people here for Arkona was just about equal to the Korpiklaani fans. But more than anything, I was eager to see what it’s like to be part of a Korpiklaani show, and how they would sound live.
I got into the venue at around 8 o’ clock, after going through horrendous disdain and disrespect dished out to me by some of the Key Club security staff. The little dude at the front door wouldn’t let the tour manager escort me inside for my interviews, because according to him, “Nobody goes in until the doors open.” So the tour manager and I walked around to the back of the venue to try our luck there. Same thing. The dude working the back door wouldn’t even let me stand in that area. I told him that the tour manager had asked me to wait there for the interviews, and this is what he said: “It’s not the tour manager’s club, and nobody can argue with me. So get the fuck out of here.” I never get into verbal fights, leave alone physical ones, but I really wanted to this time. I still didn’t. I walked away. That guy sees me at the venue for every fucking show, and still treats me the same way every time. I’m starting to feel that it’s a racist thing. Somehow the interviews got done and I got into the show. Sorry to bother you with this rant but I wrote this in the faint hope that someone from the venue’s management reads it and things change. I do everything I possibly can to promote these shows and it’s utterly disgusting to have to go through this every time.
Anyway, I forgot about all of that and focussed on the actual show. The pre-show bullshit never affects my review of the show, because I’m so used to it by now. By the time I got in, the first local opener was already done, so unfortunately I can’t write anything about them. The second opener was surprisingly a Latvian band called Relicseed. They’re obviously not a local band, and aren’t part of this tour either. Based on their set and the crowd’s response to it, I can safely say that the band picked the wrong gig. Their music wasn’t suited to this folk metal gathering, and wasn’t even remotely similar to that of the headlining acts at this show. They sounded more like a late 80s/early 90s Metallica-influenced band, and they even did a cover of “Blackened” to close out their set. They need to work on that cover quite a bit, because it wasn’t exactly well done. Or may be they did it badly on purpose just to give us the real present day Metallica live experience.
It was finally time for the touring line-up. Forged In Flame was the first of them to hit the stage, followed by Polkadot Cadaver. I have no idea who put these two bands on this tour, because neither of them justified their spots on this bill and completely failed to impress the crowd. I was more than miffed. There are lots of other, much better bands that deserve to tour with Korpiklaani and would fit a lot better with the Finns’ music. Our own, Southern California-based bands like Nekrogoblikon and Helsott are just two examples. After seeing half of Forged In Flame’s set, I went to the pizza place close by and stuffed myself. I was hoping for the next band to be better because I couldn’t humanly eat anymore and could do nothing else to kill time. But nope.
In the case of Polkadot Cadaver, not only was their music weak, but their singer was also disrespectful to a member of the crowd, saying “Arkona is up next. Be patient you fuck!” I didn’t think it was cool for him to be addressing the crowd in that manner. It was a bit nasty. Either way, the next song they did was a Michael Jackson cover, and once again, I headed straight for the exit door.
I was really enjoying “Repulsive Salvation”, until I realized that it was just a Skeletonwitch song stuck in my head from the night before. It was time to come back to reality and head back in to watch Arkona’s set. I could hardly hear the guitar. The guy playing the wind instruments seemed too loud in the mix, and that started to bother me more and more as their set went on. After hearing good things about them recently, I checked out their albums at home and liked the music a lot. But last night, it almost sounded like a different band up there. The mix was largely wrong. Nonetheless, they do have a very talented singer, and she did a great job, even though her stage mannerisms were a bit over-the-top. I was as happy as anyone at the club last night to see this Russian band make the long trip and play their first ever Hollywood show, but to me their music on the albums didn’t translate the same way on stage. Their fans seemed to have a great time though.
Korpiklaani hit the stage at 11 PM. Just two nights ago, they parted ways with their violin player and decided to continue this tour as a five-piece. I was curious to see how that would turn out, and what they would do to cope with it. They simply made their accordion player do all of the violin parts in addition to his own parts, which was a bit of weird way to solve the problem, to be honest. Just like with Arkona and the wind instruments, Korpiklaani’s accordion was way too dominant in the mix. Frontman Joanne Jarvela’s guitar was audible enough, but I couldn’t hear the other guitar at all. Their sound wasn’t turning out to be what I had expected and imagined in my mind. At this point, a friend of mine was kind enough to buy me a beer. But downing that Newcastle made no difference whatsoever, and I still couldn’t enjoy the music. Don’t get me wrong, I really do enjoy Korpiklaani’s albums, and as I said before, was looking forward to this show. But I cannot lie. They really did not do it for me as a live band last night.
I respect and admire a band like Eluveitie, because they employ all kinds of instruments on their albums, but still play everything live in their shows and recreate the exact same sound. My respect for them has grown even further now, because I really do appreciate them for making that kind of effort to tour as an eight-piece and to put on a great show for the paying fans. The Korpiklaani fans in attendance here last night clearly saw things a lot differently than I did, and they were enjoying every minute of it. But the band was definitely lacking in their sound, and I expect and hope for a better show next time.
Overall, it was a very disappointing evening from start to finish. It was supposed to be a folk metal show, but turned out be more “folk” than “metal”.
Rating: 5/10
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