Early in the day on Saturday I started seeing some tweets that the Friday evening performance by the Finnish Rockers HIM had been cancelled just before the band was going to take the stage based on the groups singer, the enigmatic Ville Vallo, having suffered a severe asthma attack and needing to be hospitalized. At the time there was no official word from their tour press so all hoped that this was merely a scare and the run of dates would get picked up for the Saturday appearance. From here I observed cancellations being listed on Ticketmaster while the bands Unofficial Street Team Twitter informed all that the full run of six dates had been cancelled. While this news started making the rounds on numerous other websites, the released details about what had happened have only just a moment ago come to light from their official press outlet. Now I could do my own post on this as I prefer to wait than speculate on anything and this is because as a writer I have been following and reporting on the band HIM since before there was even a PiercingMetal to begin with and you can see our views on them HERE. Please pardon the fact that Chimaira also came up in the search, I cannot control that sadly.

Official Statement:
HIM’s North American tour (which was due to kick off in Los Angeles on May 3rd at the House Of Blues) has been cancelled due to unforeseen medical circumstances. HIM’s lead vocalist Ville Valo has been diagnosed with severe asthma with presumptive pneumonia. Tickets for all dates will be refunded at the point of purchase. HIM will be back later this summer as part of the Rock Allegiance tour.

HIM’s Cancelled Tour Dates
May 3 – Los Angeles, CA- House Of Blues
May 5 – San Francisco, CA- The Fillmore
May 8- Chicago, IL – House Of Blues
May 9 – Toronto Canada -Danforth Music Hall
May 10 – New York, NY – Irving Plaza
May 12 – Philadelphia, PA – Theatre Of Living Arts

These dates all appeared to have been sold out, and I knew for sure that NYC’s pair of shows were but obviously his good health is much more important than shows. I’ll close up now with the sending of good vibes and get well wishes to Ville Valo in hope that he recovers from this asthma attack fast enough to get this tour back underway at full strength. “Parane pian”.

Terve, terve my friends. Now I know that we are a tried and true US based Heavy Metal and Hard Rock website, but it is without question that we have a strong level of support for our Finnish Metal providers and with that in mind we wish them all “Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivää” or Happy Independence Day if my translation is correct. Bear with me since I really do only know about five or six phrases.

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Kind of shocking isn’t it. I know that I never expected any news like this, but let’s recap the story as it played out from the other day until early today. My Saturday morning on 9/29 was begun by coffee to wake me from the needed slumber after Down’s killer NYC show, when the Finnish Ambassador (my friend Sam in reality) sent a text to inform me that Anette Olzon had fallen ill, was in the hospital and that Nightwish had performed without her by using Alissa White-Gluz and Elize Ryd as Metal Understudies for lack of a better word.

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It’s been awhile since we’ve found our no longer new Finnish friends in Naked doing a New York City gig so when the chance to check them out once more came up I was very happy to participate in the fun. It was St. Patrick’s Day in New York and you can read that as overall mayhem and serious drinking that leaves people numb for a couple of days afterward. It’s honestly not a day that I generally head into the city, but since I needed to be there for the evening’s Hank 3 show, I replied to the text from “The Muff” and said that he could count on our coverage. What better way to celebrate one’s Irish heraldry than with some good old fashioned Finnish Glam Rock. The interesting thing about this show was that it would be held at the Riff Clothing store and be a “stripped down” version of the band (meaning only The Muff and his other guitarist Zack Schleidecker). Please click the logo below to see the full on concert report and enjoy the photos taken, but then get back to this blog posting to enjoy the side images from the event and some video that was taken.

Click Logo To Read The Concert Review

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And now for something completely different

It’s without question that Finland has been delivering some seriously amazing Metal bands to the scene for the last few years and while there are numerous favorites among the fans, I have to cite that Nightwish was my first foray into their provisions.  I first heard of the band in 1999 and was not even doing my Metal Scribe thing yet but they remain one of my own personal top picks to this day.   From this point I began to look into some of their other groups such as Sonata Arctica, Finntroll and so on.  All of these wondrous sounds would come in handy to my mental musical palate once I began to write about it.  Since becoming the Master and Commander of the PiercingMetal universe I have attended a score of concerts that the Finns have brought to our shores and based on the coverage on the site have been fortunate to meet a lot of wonderful musicians from this faraway land.

Today this bountiful provider of Metal celebrates their 94th Independence Day and I just wanted to send them all a hearty “Happy Independence Day” and raise my glass with a very loud “Kippis”.   To celebrate the occasion I copied the tag for “Finnish Metal” which was used on every concert piece that features one of their bands.  Clicking the Finnish flag below will launch that search and you can enjoy the findings.  My hope is that most of you know all the bands already but if you do not, then it is high time to do a little research and eventual purchasing.  I am pretty sure you will like what you hear.   The core website can be searched for those bands via the main page.

Click The Flag To See "Finnish Metal" Postings

One day I will get myself over there and absorb a little more of their culture.  Having seen some of my friends photos and knowing there is even more cool music makes me pretty firm in this idea.  When I do that you can be rest assured that there will be both Metal and Personal blogs written up about the journey.  Of course I will need to learn a little Finnish but luckily I have Sammy The Ambassador to help me along in that regard. Stay tuned.

Our new friends in the band Naked were continuing their US “Double Down” Tour with an appearance at a venue known as Otto’s Shrunken Head down on the Lower East Side. This Tiki Bar makes for a very interesting atmosphere as there is a cool bar in the front and a performance space in the rear.  Naked had returned to the USA after their earlier in the summer visiting and were adding even more gigs to the agenda before heading back home to Finland.  I caught them last week when they played at The Bowery Electric and while there were a number of shows in between my own hectic schedule kept me from only being able to attend any of the other shows except this particular evening so here we were again.   Click the bands logo below to enjoy the full on concert report and then come back here to the blog so you can scroll deeper into the posting for images and viewpoints that are only presented in this space.

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Finnish Glam Rockers Naked were back in town and preparing to lay down some musical good for the next two weeks with their USA Invasion Part Two. I caught the band back in May at the Big City Rebels 4 show which is documented in another post in the blog and website but that tale is one for you to look up after digging into this one. I liked what I saw from the band and felt that with their return that I would also offer up some support in words and photos. Click the bands logo below to be taken to the full concert report on the main PiercingMetal.com site.

The Bowery Electric doesn’t have one of the big glaring marquees like we find at Best Buy Theater or our unofficial home base of B.B. King Blues Club so the presented visual of the show poster will have to suffice for your hungry eyes.

Tonight's Musical Menu

Fans of the band might be interested in my NYC wanderings with The Muff shortly after their Big City Rebels 4 gig.  We had a photographic adventure that you can enjoy easily by clicking THIS LINK.

About a week ago I attended the Big City Rebels 4 concert over at The Studio at Webster Hall and this kick ass Rock Show featured Vains Of Jenna as a headliner with Naked from Finland as direct support.  The gig also found the local talents of Natasha Komis and The Deafening added for good measure.  My main reason for attending was to catch Naked in action and after the show the bands lead singer Muff and I decided to do a little NYC wandering and networking while he was still in town.  The rest of the band had returned to Finland after their several show invasion and while he remained for the duration the time was ripe to book more shows and meet the people that can move the band in the proper direction.  Up.  After meeting publicity peeps we wandered around one of the area parks and snapped some images for posterity.  I recanted my doing something slightly similar when Jyrki 69 was last in town with The 69 Eyes and decided to do something similar yet different featuring Muff.  Take this blog posting as an invitation to join us on the wandering and to enjoy some of the NYC scenery that was captured along the way.  After the lunch, Muff and I wandered through Washington Square Park.  To bypass a chance of a photograph in front of their amazing arch would be criminal.

Muff & Washington Square Park Arch

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and they’ve immediately moved over to……..no one else!!!! Now that kind of news surprises me and hence has been included in this line of observations. I am kind of shocked because its not often that a band like H.I.M. makes such a drastic parting and doesn’t immediately roll over to another label of note based on their own status in the music world. I had been following them since around 2002-2003 and my own first foray into their sound came with “Razorblade Romance”.

I wasn’t even doing my music journalist stuff as a serious passion at this time but it would be soon after and I swore that this would be the kind of groups I would pay a lot of attention to. Solid and accessible despite no one in my circle of friends even knowing what they were all about at the time of my original recommending. Since becoming a writer in later part of 2003 I have watched the fan base for Ville Vallo and the rest of the guys in H.I.M. grow to a sizable force and to find them without a record label of note in 2011 was a pretty strange thing for me to see being the case.

Click the Heartagram to see our coverage of H.I.M.

While I know a few labels pretty well after reviewing their wares and repertoire over the years I had to say that I didn’t feel as though some favorites like Nuclear Blast Records or Napalm Records were the best place for a band like H.I.M. – I also didn’t think Roadrunner Records or Metal Blade Records were suitable either based on the differences that they currently offer. Of course on one hand maybe RR would work since they have their Finnish countrymen Nightwish for a few years and have done right by them. Personally I think I would like to see H.I.M. land on Universal Music in some fashion. That might be the best home for their kind of Melodic Gothic Love Metal. Stay tuned to see what happens and let’s cross our fingers for everyone in H.I.M. – They are one of the most enjoyable providers I have seen over the years and I don’t want them to become a faded memory.

I’ve been fascinated with what Apocalyptica does in concert since the first time I caught them live a couple of years ago and now I try to always attend their regional shows if it is possible.  This time around the Finnish cellists were doing a co-headlining tour with Japan’s Dir En Grey and they were a band that I had never seen outside of some videos on festival compilations before so it intrigued me all the more.  Click the logo below to be taken to some photos from the night and the full concert report on PiercingMetal.com – Then scroll down for some of the side visual observations that we like to use the blog for.

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