Finland’s pride and joy Amorphis has almost always been a very pleasant acquaintance, but the last show we saw with them, the special acoustic show at Wacken in 2013, saw a pretty tired and washed out version of themselves, and now the question was whether this was a sticking trend or a one-time fluke.

“Hello there, show me some hands!”
- Tomi Joutsen (vocals)

After a nice, calm intro, Amorphis turned the blast on with last album opener Shades Of Gray, and there was no 50 about it! If this was any indication of things to come, the band was back on top and ready to kick asses from here to, well, right back here after completing the circle I suppose.
It wasn’t that they were overly energetic on stage, in fact it was as usual mostly Tomi Joutsen who was moving about, but the fact that they were present in what they all were doing shone through all the same – this was a powerful delivery without being pushed through in an obnoxious way. The guitarist were of course headbanging some at fitting times, and bassist Niclas Etelävuori was swinging pretty well, but as mentioned above, it was all without trying too hard.
Joutsen held the audience captive between songs as he called for responses both in the way of applause and shouts, and during the songs his amazing vocals soared over the plain, helped along by yet another great audio mix by the capable Metaldays sound engineers. These guys deserve a lot of credit for presenting Amorphis’s multi-facetted music in such a good way where we were allowed to follow the sonic landscape as well as can possibly be expected at a festival.

That Amorphis’s popularity was as good as it ever was, was easily seen on the huge crowd they had pulled.
Just as on stage, the action was pretty mild at start, but the enthusiasm could clearly be detected in the deafening chants that were heard both during and between songs.
Physical participation was actually rather mild throughout, with the one exception of the abnormally large amount of crowd surfers sailing by at all times from a few songs in until the end – instead it was the aforementioned shouts and chants that filled the air. That, and a lot of singing – Amorphis can deliver some extremely catchy songs when they want to, and this evenings setlist was filled with them!
And of course there was Vulgar Necrolatry, the Abhorrence (a band which also houses guitarist Tomi Koivusaari) cover taken from the debut album, The Karelian Isthmus, which was a gift from the band to “all the party people” as Joutsen put it.

This was a fine display of a band really finding their element again – scenic surroundings, heavy distortion, and epic songs, all wrapped up nicely in a powerful performance. Amorphis was back on top, and any apprehension that might have existed before the show was completely washed away by the silent waters of the thousand lakes.

Setlist:

Circle Intro
Shades Of Gray
Narrow Path
Silver Bride
Sky Is Mine
My Kantele
Thousand Lakes
Into Hiding
Nightbird’s Song
Vulgar Necrolatry (Abhorrence cover)
The Wanderer
You I Need
Hopeless Days
The Smoke
Black Winter Day