Finnish alt Rock icons The Rasmus brang their energetic mannerism to Manchester on the spooky night of Halloween. Having released a new album last month called Rise they will be spoiling us tonight with not only loads of gems but quite a few surprises too.
Opening up was Italy’s very own upcoming alt-rock stars Overlaps who spiced up the mood with their electronic rock antics. They were very energetic and get the crowd sucsessfully pumped. Overlaps are fairly new to the scene, over the past few years they have released several albums; their self-tittled 2018 debut and later release In Your Room in March 2020 just as Covid hit!
During their set they play brand new single ‘Love Coma’, a perfect mix of electronic rock with catchy upbeat lyrics that will get you dancing with people full whack or alone – it’s a certified banger you heard it here first! And also a great starting point if you’ve not heard Overlaps yet. Their set was a prime example of why you always check out the support bands as you never know what gems you will discover!
Time for The Rasmus! Opening up with ‘First Day Of My Life’ the band jump about straight into the action and the crowd join in with fists in the air, there’s great energy on the room. We are also in for a treat because we get to see the new guitarist Emilia “Emppu” Suhonen in action and she did not disappoint, an absolute machine with her guitar, she plays like she’s been with the band for many years!
The Ramsum work on how sweaty the night is, the more sweat the more awesome the gig – Lauri Ylönen shows us just how sweaty he is by squeezing his t-shirt and laughing at the fact we are halfway through “and it’s that moist”! So far it’s truly been a fantastic show which of course wouldn’t happen if the crowd weren’t as energetic singing and dancing along to every track!
Things get a little bit slower when the acoustic guitar is whipped out. You can feel the love on ‘Not Like The Other Girls’ and ‘October and April’. But to lift the mood back to being bigger than the moon, feel good track ‘Sophia’ is played when Lauri whips out a Kazoo! The band discovers the venue is bouncy so of course everyone gets asked to bounce and then Lauri says back in the late 90’s in Paris they did this and the stage collapsed. There are loads of fan favorites tonight including ‘Black Rose’ and what’s that…. it’s the spooky surprise song ‘Ghostbusters’.
Getting serious for a few moments The Rasmus talk about a horrible story involving a man and his kidnapped daughter in Austria many years ago and this song is dedicated to the daughter who survived the ordeal, the track is ‘Living In A World Without You‘.
The show finalises with tracks like ‘F-F-FFalling‘ and of course the song that brings out our inner child and screams immortality on the dance floor ‘In The Shadows’; This song is dedicated to the Ukrainians, moments before the song began Lauri spoke about Ukraine and how dire the situation really is.
An encore soon happens and a wild Eero Heinonen appears. Just one man and his bass guitar and singing by himself “don’t look back in anger” which was a surreal moment and being in Manchester is a huge win for the crowd! The band return with ‘Jezebel’, Emilia is speechless and says the crowd should be hired as a professional choir due to the outstanding performance/engagement. Like most things the show has got to end and with ‘Sail Away’ and halfway through whipping out the Ukrainian flag, a fitting tribute to end the night!
