I didn’t listen to “Halo Of Blood”. I could blame it on the roller coaster that my life has been lately, but let’s face it – if I really wanted to listen to CHILDREN OF BODOM‘s latest album, I would have found the time to do so. Despite reading/hearing lots of good reviews about it, I just didn’t bring myself to it, as COB‘s songs have sounded pretty much the same to me since “Blooddrunk”. But I wouldn’t miss them live in my hometown. Even though the concert in 2011 was better – they sounded tighter, their attitude had a bit more of spunk – this was still a great gig that I’m glad to have experienced. Plus the amazing light show they brought along gave me the chance to take some cool pics with my point-and-shoot compact camera, as I didn’t get a photo pass for this.
I did hear “Transference” that afternoon, when looking for a video to go along with my Facebook status update regarding my presence at Hard Club, but to say I wasn’t impressed is an understatement. Still it worked very well as the concert opener. I guess that some songs just sound better on stage than in a studio.
I chose the “Everytime I Die” video, in case they wouldn’t play it that night – a quick overlook at setlist.fm showed me they were choosing between that one and “Angels Don’t Kill”. I love the latter, but “Everytime I Die”, along with “Downfall”, were the two songs that made me fall in love with them back in the day. They did play it though, “Angels Don’t Kill” being the choice for Lisbon’s show the night before.
The reason behind this choice is that one of the songs in “Halo Of Blood” that’s been picked for the tour is “Dead Man’s Hand On You”, which is also a ballad (as far as ballads go in the COB realm, that is). So three of them would be too much of a stretch.
“Towards Dead End” was a nice and unexpected surprise. As Alexi Laiho himself said, it was something they had never played in our country in previous tours. I honestly can’t remember if that was also the case for “Kissing The Shadows”, but I wasn’t expecting that one. As for “Lake Bodom”, despite not really a surprise, it felt really good to see they still haven’t let go completely of “Something Wild”.
There were several top moments in this concert, especially in the “classics”, but as I will always consider “Hate Crew Deathroll” their masterpiece, the performance of its title-track was a personal highlight for me.
“In Your Face” was the single song of the encore, but the show had been on for one hour and a half – and without any solo, not even the guitar vs. keyboard duel between Alexi and Janne Warman, thank God. Don’t get me wrong, I think those duels are brilliant, but after these many years, I prefer listening to one more old song than a solo, no matter how skillful that is. As I was saying, no one could complain. And considering how hard the fans cheered and sang along, I guess no one did.
Front Row Forever 