Turisas opened this evening, the first one on the European leg of the tour, with a bang. Or more precisely, with a loud and lasting rumble. Towards the end of this, there was an enthralling speech over the speakers, presenting the band, after which they entered the stage and started their set in a strong way with Battle Metal.

The young stand in girl I mentioned in my last review was (correctly commented by Morten) Netta Skog (accordion), who now holds a permanent position in the band; as for the rest of the band there were no changes, neither to the members nor the energy they put into their show. And they were happily and loudly greeted by the ‘ready for war’ fans of Copenhagen; some in full war-paint and some in their normal attire, but all ready to raise their horns to the might of the Finnish war god.
As I said, all the band members seemed really fired up, but for me, it was clearly violinist Olli Vänskä who in his lively performance stood out the most (go violin-metal!). A picture that will stay with me for a while is the violin – accordion battle during In The Court Of Jarisleif, where Matthias ‘Warlord’ Nygård (vocals), Jussi Wickström (guitar) and Hannes ‘Hanu’ Horma (bass) all danced arm in arm and jumped into each other in the background. Later, during the ‘La la la’ part of that song the whole room joined in and sang and jumped straight into the next song, the disco classic Rasputin.

Of course, between songs Nygård was more than happy to entertain us with some anecdotes and the like; like when he told us how happy he was to be back in Europe after a long time touring the US and only drinking piss, now he could finally taste some real beer again.
Also, after the show was done Turisas was quite reluctant to leave the stage; only doing so after several finishes to the last song and then some thanks. After this was done it was time for some hand-shaking with the people in the first row, and even after this was done you could still happen to see at least some of the band as Skog made a guest appearance in the Dragonforce concert and both Nygård and Wickström could be found by the merchandise stand at the end of the evening having an unofficial meet & greet.

The way I felt it, the evening was complete after the Turisas show and anything Dragonforce would dish up was pure bonus. Both sound and light had been good; the atmosphere was perfect and both band and crowd had had a great time. The only thing I would have changed, had I been given the chance, was to give them a longer stage-time. 7 songs were not nearly enough to satisfy my thirst.

Setlist:

Intro
Battle Metal
A Portage To The Unknown
The Messenger
One More
In The Court Of Jarisleif
Rasputin (Boney M cover)
To Holmgard And Beyond