No pain, just gain for Warmen at Tuska

Hard to believe, but Warmen's appearance at this year's Tuska festival was only the 4th live show of the band's 10-year career. In their interview with Janne, skullsnbones.com asked the founder member, whether it is difficult working in more than one band at the same time: "'Warmen is not that active. We would love to be more active. Tuska was our fourth show ever. We didn't expect this great of a response.' The response was indeed great; it was as if Warmen was a legendary act. You couldn't get under the giant canopy they had set up ... the main stage would have been a better option for them because everyone at Tuska wanted to see them."


A feature of the latest Warmen album (Japanese Hospitality) is, of course, the guest singers, and at the Tuska show these included Timo Kotipelto, Joona Gaegea, Passi Rantanen and Alexi Laiho. The heat and dust inside the tent (as well as the special effects smoke) made for somewhat challenging conditions for the vocalists at times, and Janne added to Timo's problems by fucking up the intro for Eye of the Storm so that Timo got the wrong note, but as Janne said, Mirka fucked up the ending so it really wasn't Timo's fault. Whatever, it was only their 4th gig and the band had a good laugh about it and were clearly enjoying the show. Alexi Laiho's "surprise" appearance as the final guest singer, dressed in Hawaian shirt and sunglasses, was, of course, enthusiastically received by the audience, even if he did seem to have some trouble at times remembering the lyrics for Somebody's Watching Me!



The interaction onstage between Janne and his brother Antti made for an entertaining ingredient which will undoubtedly continue in future Warmen performances. Hopefully, now that Warmen have signed a contract with King Foo entertainment, Finland's biggest booking agency, there will be more opportunities to catch them live (though maybe not anytime soon, with Children Of Bodom about to embark on the Black Label Society Berzerkus tour, and their 7th studio album due for release early next year).



But if we won't get to see Warmen again for a while, what about the hugely talented guitarist Antti? A former member of Craydawn and The Scourger (the latter split up last year), Antti was to have joined Finnish band Survivors Zero as supporting guitarist on their US tour earlier this year, but visa problems meant that the tour had to be cancelled. Word was that Antti and some members of The Scourger were planning a new joint project, so we asked Antti to fill us in: "We have a new band but we don't have any name for it yet. Same guys but different singer. We have recorded a 3-song demo for record companies and we are currently looking for a deal!" Chances are, they won't be looking for long!



SETLIST
Japanese Hospitality
Eye Of The Storm
Spark
They All Blame Me
Goodbye
My Fallen Angel
Lying Delilah
Separate Ways
Somebody's Watching Me


Many thanks to COB forum member Celeb for photos and gig report