Sounds of a Playground Fading

Metaltown 2012 - Part 17: GOJIRA!

Can you remember, what was the very first thing I wanted to share with you after I spent 500 euros, travelled 2000 kilometers and had the most awesome festival experience ever?

Few days before Metaltown I saw Gojira at Sonisphere Finland. It was the best performance of the day, easily better than Machine Head or even the “mighty” Metallica. And after Metaltown I saw Gojira in Nosturi which was their first club gig in Finland and for me the best club concert I’ve ever been to.

Concidering my experience in live events, I’d say both of those statements are quite flattering for any band. And then there was the gig in Metaltown - THE BEST CONCERT I’VE EVER BEEN TO! And I don’t think it’s going to change any time soon.

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I was still hungry after Hammerfall’s gig so I went to buy some more food. But this time, just for fun, I decided to order it in Swedish. It wasn’t an easy task because I’m not really good at Swedish. On the menu they had this one thing I managed to translate: “nudlar med kyckling”. I understood it is noodles with chicken but I had no idea how to pronounce ‘kyckling’ :D So when it was my turn I just said ‘nudlar’ and luckily that was enough to get me what I wanted =)

I was in Sweden for over 2 days and the only Swedish words I used were ‘tack’ (thank you) and ‘nudlar’ (noodles). Everything else went just fine in English. But still in Finnish schools the teachers say how important it is for us to learn Swedish. Bullshit I say!

Anyway.. I enjoyed my noodles while listening to Anthrax but it wasn’t amusing enough because of the rain so I went early to Close-Up stage. Nasum was still playing in there but soon it was Gojira’s turn to take the stage.

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When the Close-Up stage emptied up a little I went as close to the stage as possible. Gojira was something I didn’t want to miss. But I could have been little more excited about it. My shirt was still wet, I was feeling cold and tired and my neck and everything else were still sore from all the headbanging on Friday. Spending the night in a tent on a field without any mattress wasn’t that comfortable either :P

Few minutes before the showtime a fellow metalhead said to me that I should take off my rain poncho because it was going to be hot in there. I followed his advice and now I am eternally thankful for him.

Because when the gig started, it seriously was hot in there! Everyone and everything went just mad while Gojira played Oroborus. The pit was huge and fun and amazing and brutal and nothing like that pointless jogging in a circle. And somehow the crowd managed to stay LOUD at the same time. I fucking love you Swedish metalheads, you are more than perfect!

Along with that, all the negative things just disappeared. I wasn’t feeling cold anymore, I was filled with energy and even the pain and stiffness were gone.

Gojira played the same setlist that they played in Sonisphere. That was great because in the first time I didn’t know the songs that well but this time I knew what to expect.

The second song in the set had probably “the heaviest riff in the universe” :P The song is called of course, The Heaviest Matter in the Universe. The pit kept growing and the awesomeness went even further.

Up next was another song from the album From Mars to Sirius called Backbone. For me this album isn’t as good as The Way of All Flesh and L’enfant Sauvage but I’ve always thought Gojira’s awesomeness compared to others is as much as the distance from Mars to Sirius :P Therefore I still enjoyed the gig more than I’ve been enjoying ever before.

As a sidenote I have to say that before this gig I didn’t realize how good looking blue hair is. I bring this up now because there was this one girl with blue hair and damn she was cute. And the 4th song of Gojira’s set was called Love. I don’t have anything to say about the song because I don’t even know what it sounds like. It’s probably one of their old songs.

The best gig ever continued with one more old song, Flying Whales, that has really fun intro riff. Otherwise the song is little more calm than others so we had our rest before the last three songs.

First was my favorite Gojira song, Toxic Garbage Island. I didn’t have favorites before this gig but it instantly became my favorite after I realized how headbangable it is. Yet another perfect moment in a perfect gig.

Next was the first time Swedish people heard the new beautiful amazing heavy song L’enfant Sauvage. Usually the crowd slows down when they hear new songs because they don’t know what to do but in Metaltown it was exactly the opposite, they partied even harder!

The last song of Gojira’s very short setlist was obviously Vacuity. It’s like In Flames gig ends always with My Sweet Shadow and Stratovarius with Black Diamond. But why shouldn’t Gojira end with Vacuity? It’s amazing song that people expect to hear and it never leaves anyone cold.

*Click here* for videos! I especially like the description of the Vacuity video clip because it tells a lot about the show and why there isn’t that many videos:

I stoped filming to join the moshpit! :D

and that’s a perfect way to end this gig review of a perfect gig! :P I hope you enjoyed!

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Review of the Medeia / Jaakko & Jay / Khroma gig is coming very soon! I’ve already written most of it.