It’s a rare occasion when a band makes it all the way down from Finland to play on Australian shores. Many Australian fans of Finnish bands are reserved to knowing that they may never get a chance to see some of their favourite bands live for that plain and simple fact. Thankfully for many fans of melodic death metal, Saturday night saw the one and only Wintersun play the final show of their first ever Australian tour in Brisbane at The Brightside – a feat that many thought would never happen.
Perth’s Claim the Throne opened the proceedings, and touring in support of their recently released album “On Desolate Plains”. The band performed incredibly well in the tight and confined space they were left on stage, and while they weren’t afforded much of an opportunity to move around, they seemed relatively confident with what they were left with. The sound did seem a tiny bit off in terms of the mix, with the vocals drowned out by all the instruments, but apart from that the performance was a fitting way to begin the night.
Second up for the night were Orpheus Omega, and the Melbourne quintet put on a good display and managed as best they could with the same limitations that Claim the Throne had in terms of stage space, but they made it work. Their performance garnered a great reception from the crowd, with a lot more people moving and moshing compared to Claim the Throne, even culminating in a Wall of Death during their final song. Musically their set was tight, but their performance seemed a bit lax compared to the last few times that they have toured Brisbane. However, they still did a wonderful job in amping the crowd up for the oncoming headliner.
Wintersun was something else entirely and made sure that their first performance in Brisbane was going to be one to remember. Visually, I must admit I was trepidatious about how the band was going to look on such a small stage, and how the band would go without their enigmatic frontman Jari Mäenpää performing as a vocalist only without his guitar, but impressively the band managed to pull it off to great effect.
The impressive drumming of Rolf Pilve provided the perfect platform for the dual guitar work of Teemu Mäntysaari and Asim Searah to work immaculately, freeing Jari up to rouse the crowd. Not to leave him uncredited, Jukka Koskinen on bass performed incredibly well, managing to work his way around the tiny stage to impart his basslines upon the crowd.
The intimate setting afforded the fans a ton of opportunities to get up close with the band. This resulted in some scares where crowdsurfers almost fell on the band, so it was lucky that the crowd eventually caught onto it and sent the crowdsurfers away from the stage.
Playing through a selection of older works and three of the tracks off The Forest Seasons, the crowd showed enthusiasm for the entirety of the bands set. While it was a quiet beginning to the show, the intensity shifted tenfold when the band performed Suns of Winter and Stars around the midpoint of the set and it was from that moment on that the crowd seemed to be having the time of their lives.
After playing what was undoubtedly one of the hottest shows of their career, Wintersun still managed to take some time out to talk to the crowd, shake hands with the fans, and thank everyone for coming out. Signing off with a promise from Jari that “We will be back again soon” was a reassuring nod that this tour had been a success, and showed positive signs for the return of Wintersun to Australian shores in the future.