First show of the year promised to be a hearty, fun-filled ride with the Finnish power metal band Sonata Arctica. Oddly enough, there was no support band for the evening, but for us, that only meant that we would skip the appetizer and go straight for the main course!

What should have been a promising start of 2013, as well as a highly enjoyable evening, quickly crumbled before our eyes though and turned to disaster.
But let’s take it from the top, shall we?
We arrived at Pumpehuset in high spirits, and already on entering the upstairs concert hall I was positively surprised about the amount of people here – sure, we weren’t nearing sold out or anything, but there were still a lot more people than I had guessed would show up!
Working my way forward I managed to find a good spot on the left-hand side of the stage just as the lights went down and a symphonic piece of music began rolling out of the speakers. This brought out loud cheers from the audience, proving that Denmark was ready to receive whatever the Finnish boys had to offer, but it was still nothing compared to the deafening roar that came when the musicians and finally Tony Kakko, who was the last one to enter, took the stage. At this point things were not just proceeding to plan, but exceeded my imagination!

The band went straight into Only The Broken Hearts (Make You Beautiful), the opening track off their latest album, the oddly named Stones Grow Her Name.
I must admit that I haven’t exactly kept up to date with the releases from Sonata Arctica for a while, and thus this, as several others, was completely new to me, and due to a very unfortunate sound mix in the beginning of the show which had almost no audible guitars or vocals where I was standing, it didn’t exactly get the best introduction...
Sound quality aside (it did improve throughout the show), a far greater problem quickly showed its face as well – the band was moving swiftly from song to song without reaching out to the audience in between with some comments or anything, and if this wasn’t bad enough, they weren’t really making an effort to connect during the songs either! Except for Kakko, who despite being sick did move about some in the beginning before losing strength some three or four songs in, the rest of the guys were mostly standing in their spots without doing much. Keyboardist Henrik Klingenberg was probably the most interesting to watch as he at least tried some poses up on the podium beside the drums where he was standing, but he was very far from the energy that he used to display in the past. It was also nice to see a smile on bassist Marko Paasikoski’s face, as he usually looks completely serious, but that was also the extent of it I’m afraid.

The audience didn’t give up on their favourites however, and even though there wasn’t much movement except for the raised and swinging arms during the songs, the cheers and the amount of applause Sonata Arctica was receiving between songs certainly exceeded what the band was doing to earn them.
As I mentioned, Kakko was feeling a bit under the weather and while he was treating himself with some straight up Finnish throat medicine (red wine, Pepsi and honey), the Danish fans were more than happy to shout and/or sing along to the songs; this was made evident already by the end of the second song, Black Sheep, but instead of also ending there it just kept on building and building. Both new and old songs got the fan treatment, and thus I Have A Right began with a nice sing-along before kicking in, and other memorable moments was the side against side “Hey” in The Last Amazing Grays, and further sing-along’s in the classic FullMoon and Replica.

It was also when we reached FullMoon, fourth song from the end, that we finally saw the band pull themselves together a little bit more, and Klingenberg, Paasikoski and Elias Viljanen started to change places with each other. Completely stiff and rehearsed looking, but at least they moved and trust me, at this point it felt like nothing short of a miracle!
Whether it was intentional or not I will leave unsaid, but we got a little something to smile over as well as Replica was delayed due to the fact that Kakko refused to begin singing until he got Viljanen to sit down next to him on the stage, and it took a short time before the guitarist caught on.
Moving slowly but steadily along, we now reached the second to last song of the evening. Cinderblox was another track from the latest album, and even though my face was contorted into a grotesque (and probably amusing) “what the fuck” expression when it began, I soon caught on to the fun energy of it and enjoyed it far more than I had the earlier songs from this album which had been played here. The bands energy slowly increased still, enough to make them play what I can only expect an improvised little jam before the last song about, well, it being the last song.
For the grand finale we got Don’t Say A Word, and finally we saw the band light up in a way that was reminiscent of their glory days – this had a direct effect on the crowd as well, and as if they had only waited for an excuse, they began nearly as one man to jump along to the rhythm of the song!
After this, the only things left were the Vodka farewell, and a deep bow as well as the throwing of some picks and sticks.

As you will have guessed by now, the disaster part I mentioned in the beginning was the utter lack of performance from the bands side – Don’t Say A Word saw a lift but it was far too little and much too late to save face for this once great band. Also, playing only slightly more than an hour as the main act without any support bands just isn’t good enough!
This night was little more than a bad rehearsal night, completely bereft of energy and presence. I can only hope that they pull it together for the rest of the tour, but you won’t see me jumping out of my seat to catch them again anytime soon.

Setlist:

Only The Broken Hearts (Make You Beautiful)
Black Sheep
Alone In Heaven
Shitload Of Money
The Gun
The Day
I Have A Right
The Last Amazing Grays
Solo (Viljanen)
Last Drop Falls
Paid In Full
Losing My Insanity
Broken
Solo (Klingenberg)
FullMoon
Replica
Cinderblox
Don’t Say A Word
Vodka Song