Is Sunday rounding off the week or starting it? Either way tonight I was back at SWG3 for a costume party courtesy of Finnish latex warriors Lordi. As I arrived at the venue I could hear the band starting and rushed in, though I didn’t actually know who it was!
The Italian five-piece are a superb choice of opener, in of both musical style and appearance. They’ve got great tunes to go with their costumes, and stage presence that other bands would kill for. Singer Herma is to blame for a lot of this. She’s a great person to have fronting the band and is also the person who creates and build all of their costumes, stage scenery and props. And she can bloody sing.
The rest of the band are every bit a part of the package. Obviously comfortable on stage and looking incredible, they make making noise look really cool. Herma’s costume changes are seamlessly built into the set, so everything flows really well around the music. We aren’t treated to the full show due to “health and safety” reasons, but this only acts as a way to tease people into coming back and seeing them should they visit again ing their new release Horror Vacui.
Tonight showcased the strength of their material from “(Human) Is Overrated” through “Raise the Dragon” and the awesome finisher “Makin’ Angels”. The audience was very much into them and it was obvious how many were there to enjoy their performance when, within a minute of their set finished, I found myself surrounded by… nobody. The front rows of the hall wandered off towards the merch stand to have their photos taken with the band (and hopefully pick up shirts and the like), a definite sign that the band had done well.
Sick n’ Beautiful deserve to do well partly because they’re great entertainers, and also because they’re lovely people who’ve worked their arses off!
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Not to be outdone by some Italian upstarts, Lordi kept the audience waiting through the entire of KISS’ “Gods of Thunder” once the lights went down, followed by a recorded intro to ramp up the tension that bit more. Eventually… finally… the horror schtick began as the strolled on stage and Mr Lordi himself entered through a doorway in the middle of the stage. The set looked fantastic and, like Sn’B before them, the costumes were very much a part of the show without being the whole thing.
Again, not the first time I’ve seen Lordi and one thing I from previous shows is the humour. Mr Lordi is very self-deprecating and genuinely funny, and it’s almost a shame those damn songs get in the way of his chatting with the audience. OK, in fairness the songs aren’t bad…!
With promises of “deep cuts” this evening, there’s always the fear that the lack of familiarity with the material could dampen the audience a little bit but that didn’t happen tonight. Partly this was due to the stage setup, props and humour. Partly it was due to the lesser known songs still being pretty damn good.
Every band member was given a chance to shine, and even the drum solo (a cover of the Knight Rider theme? Hell, yeah) didn’t feel like filler. As with the openers there were costume changes, but this didn’t interrupt things and there were plenty of little skits and disembowelments to distract the audience.
Musically it was actually a great mix of well-known and lesser-known material. “Who’s Your Daddy?” up against “Call Off The Wedding” and “Girls Go Chopping”, a decent chunk from new album Limited Deadition, and the inevitable classic “Hard Rock Hallelujah” to round off the evening actually made this the best Lordi show I think I’ve seen to date.
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Photos by Skull Lens Photography
[…] over the last few years, the most recent being genuinely by chance as I didn’t know they were ing Lordi! Each time they’ve impressed, their live show is excellent, and each time they’ve […]