sonata arctica live

The night began with Norwegian band Triosphere, while the crowd were still entering the venue. It was a well received, although short set taking songs from their two albums. The band left the Glasgow crowd with a good impression for their first time in Scotland.

Labyrinth followed up with a disappointing performance. The band, formed in Italy in 1991 gave it their all and did have fans in the crowd but for the most part, the high energy levels set by Triosphere dropped to almost zero.

Sonata Arctica were welcomed warmly back to Glasgow and played a set covering their entire career as they toured with their latest album, Days of Grays. There appeared to be some tension with bassist Marko Paasikoski and keyboard player Henrik Klingenberg smiling rarely for the band’s entire set. Despite this, the lowered energy levels were back up and higher than ever.

Frontman Tony Kakko did a good job of keeping the crowd entertained with stories about his inspiration for some of the songs from the set, including William Shakespeare, his first car, friends and Facebook, or rather the idea of Facebook since it was not around when the band wrote Blank File. It took several attempts for the band to begin another song from their first album, Ecliptica, with Kakko first breaking into a rap and then a totally different song. Eventually, the audience did get a sing-along favourite, FullMoon.

No Sonata Arctica set would be complete without a rendition of the Vodka song, during which Kakko attempted to switch the word ‘vodka’ for ‘whisky’, promising a Scottish crowd he would try scotch after the gig.

by Jeni Thomson