Insomnium may refer to some form of dreamstate or dream interpretation, but to me the band mostly represented a weird feeling of déjà vu. I have seen the name around for so many times by now that I almost felt I knew the band without ever actually having heard a single note of their music, and more unexpectedly, vocalist and bassist Niilo Sevänen seemed creepily familiar to me, a feeling I couldn’t shake off for their entire gig, without ever finding an explanation as to why this was…

”Copenhagen, fuck yeah! First time in Denmark and boy are we happy to see you!”
- Niilo Sevänen (vocals/bass)

The music however rang no bells in my apparently oddly connected memory banks, and there was no recognition on my part when the gig began with a lengthy intro, accompanied by a small but enthusiastic cheering from parts of the crowd, indicating that at least someone in here knew who the band was and what they were about…
The sound was clearly Finnish, no doubt about that, and it wasn’t too far away from the headlining act of the evening, Children Of Bodom, from what I could hear, although they were more focused on a death metal direction, with some clean vocals thrown in once in a while by guitarist Ville Friman. Insomnium’s music was definitely both a better fit for the tour and a better fit for my ears than that of Medeia, and their performance, while not as wild as the aforementioned band, was also tastefully played out.
Still, there was something missing, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on that led me to not getting completely engaged in the show…

Luckily, there were several others that did though, and Insomnium got a warm welcome on this their first visit to Denmark.
The front began headbanging as soon as the music started up for real, and Sevänen and the rest of the guys were good at leading people into the moments where applause and grooving to the tunes were appropriate, getting a pretty solid response out of the crowd throughout their time on the stage.
For my own part, I noticed about half way through that getting a nice cold beer in my hand definitely lifted my spirits and made it easier to enjoy the rest of the gig; an even and solid warm up without any pronounced highs or lows.
Insomnium could clearly deliver the goods both musically and performance ways, and just because I didn’t get into it this time around, I feel confident that this isn’t a band I should write off just yet.