Once upon a time, in the late '70s, punk rock as such had exhausted itself; that's when the first post-punk representatives appeared, and in the '80s, "gothic rock" became quite popular — though by the '90s it had lost its relevance. It was replaced by gothic metal — a persistent and hopeless stereotype: first, the genre definition itself arguably has no right to exist; second, it shares only one thing with gothic rock — the image. At the start of the 21st century, the world learned about a new demiurge of heavy music — "love metal" — an even more laughable definition, yet a whole slew of bands instantly fell under it. If we take the general characteristics: plaintive vocals, extremely primitive delivery, fairly banal lyrics about love with suicidal motifs, and so on. The movement immediately established itself as one of the most commercial, while simultaneously meeting a skeptical and aggressive reaction from the majority of metal music fans. What are these bands? HIM, the inventors of the term; today's CHARON; today's TO DIE FOR — SENTENCED cannot be placed here; they were always a worthy band of very high caliber.
So, THE 69 EYES — one of Finland's most famous bands today. The genre is hard to define, but they fit within love metal's framework, with several caveats, as a certain distinctiveness can't be denied. First, the band is 15 years old and their debut album came out as far back as 1992 — at that time it was straightforward glam rock. That period ended in 1999 when the band changed their sound and became what they are now. What sets "The Eyes" apart from most similar bands is their quite specific vocals — entirely in the low register, rather quiet (vocalist Jyrki's range is quite limited), and an overly light sound.
The band is one of Finland's most actively touring acts. The majority of concerts are given at home; among other countries, THE 69 EYES perform most frequently in Germany. They had been to russia twice — in 2003 and 2004 — and this year they took part in an MTV show and also gave two concerts in moscow and one in st. petersburg. I had the chance to attend the first moscow concert (both took place at SDK MAI), which I'll describe below.
The concert was scheduled for 8:00 PM and, to great surprise, started practically on time (a symbolic 15 minutes late). Archie, Bazie, Timo-Timo, Jussi, and Jyrki appeared and almost immediately launched into the title track from the latest album, "Devils." The last album was clearly the focus — of the 20 songs performed that day, 7 were from it.
There was no sold-out crowd that day, and this was quite predictable: KORN were playing in moscow on the same date, and unlike THE 69 EYES, it was their first time. Besides, tickets weren't particularly cheap, there was another moscow show the next day, and the band had already visited moscow twice — they were of real interest only to loyal fans, since monotony is the band's calling card.
The sound was surprisingly good — and consistently so throughout the entire concert, from beginning to end. There's actually an explanation for this. The band plays very "lightly," if you can say that. Let me draw a small comparison: the recent CANDLEMASS concert in these same walls. Messiah, one of the best and most powerful vocalists in metal, was very hard to hear during the first songs — his vocals were frankly drowned out by incredibly heavy guitars, which typically pair with growling. Jyrki, on the other hand, is a rather weak vocalist, but he was very easy to hear — and this is obviously solely due to the instrument sound. Jyrki's voice is quite close to the album sound: low, rather quiet, with a very narrow range and not particularly expressive. This isn't a case of near-whispered but bone-piercing vocals like Johan from TIAMAT or Aaron from MY DYING BRIDE possess. Jyrki's timbre is the embodiment of measured calm.
The audience — that's a separate conversation. First, you'd be hard-pressed to find such a number of children — 10, 11, 12-year-olds — at any other concert of heavy music. The average age of attendees was 14-16, and about 70% of those in the hall were female. At the same time, there were older people too, and many came as families. In total, there were no more than 400-450 people. The crowd danced throughout nearly all the songs while simultaneously singing along, with particular excitement during the band's hits like "The Chair," "Gothic Girl," and others.
By tradition, gothically dressed girls came to the concert with flowers. At the finale, Jyrki extraordinarily aesthetically (or at least it clearly seemed that way to him) took rose petals into his mouth and blew them across the hall. The musicians were quite friendly, yet at the same time rather reserved — throughout the show, you could feel that every detail was carefully rehearsed, including their stage behavior.
The concert lasted just under half an hour. After "Lost Boys," which crowned the main set, a brief encore followed, and the band reappeared onstage. In the finale, Jyrki said he hoped to see everyone at the repeat concert the next day.
A brief and sobering conclusion: the concert was interesting and decent in its own way, which absolutely cannot be said about the performing band as such. (An enthusiastic report didn't materialize, but I tried to be objective.)
Special thanks for the provided accreditation.
Setlist:
1. Devils 2. Nothing On You 3. Betty Blue 4. Christina Death 5. Crashing High 6. The Chair 7. Hevioso 8. Wasting The Dawn 9. Don't Turn Your Back... 10. Gothic Girl 11. Sleeping With Lions 12. Feel Berlin 13. Wrap Your Troubles... 14. Sister Of Charity 15. Framed In Blood 16. Dance Damour 17. Lost Boys Encore 18. Forever More/Beneath The Blue 19. Brandon Lee