My familiarity with the BACKYARD BABIES only stretches to ‘Minusu Celcius’ and ‘Brand New Hate’ and looking around the fairly young crowd I wasn’t sure how many people were here just to see THE RASMUS. Although I had no doubt that the babies’ combination of sleazy rock and punk attitude would go down well with any crowd.

They opened up with ‘Degenerated’ off their self titled latest album. With catchy riffs and some Axl Rose style vocals courtesy of Nicke Borg it set the stage for the rest of their set. After a few stand up sleazy rock songs came the hilariously titled ‘Fuck Off And Die’ (well I thought it was funny). About mid set you do get the feeling your watching a one trick pony and some of the songs lack the depth to keep your attention, but enough of being a sour puss!

Hearing Dregen’s guitar work in ‘Minusu Celcius’ you understand why it was picked for guitar hero III. An awesome song that quickly had everyone singing along. You have to hand it to them for never letting the tempo drop, which in the case of Dregen needing to take his top off during the sweat dripping performance. Rolling out the WILDHEARTS-esque ‘Dysfunctional Professional’ and ‘People Like People Like People Like Us’ to leave the Wulfrun on a high note.

After an exhausting set by the BACKYARD BABIES a longer than normal change over was welcome, but after nearly 30 minutes the crowd was ready for more. With my knowledge of THE RASMUS being even more feeble than my knowledge of the babies I wasn’t holding out much hope for them to top their stellar performance.

Stage left their appeared to be a cluster of Finnish flags, possibly the Finnish appreciation society? The pace at which they were waving Finnish national flags went to new heights as THE RASMUS hit the stage! They opened with the introspective ‘Livin In A World Without You’ off the Black Roses album. Followed by the punchy feel good ‘In My Life’ this was turning out to be totally different from my memories of the unbelievably wet ‘In The Shadows’ being played endlessly on Kerrang.

Next up were some absolute stunners, listening to ‘Falling’ might have to be another of my guilty pleasures, while the macabre lyrics and sound to ‘Immortal’ lent some edge to the performance. Hats off to Lauri Ylönen who barley stands still throughout the entire set, although their were some minor sound problems Lauri kept the audience entertained with some Biff Byford style “do you want a fast song, or a slow song?” banter and to my surprise the answer from the crowd was for a slow song, that would never happen at a SAXON show! Each to their own, even my pet hate for ‘In The Shadows’ is now in doubt having heard it live.

Rating:

BACKYARD BABIES 4.5/5.0
THE RASMUS 4.2/5.0

Review and Photography by Alexander Shaw(Photo Gallery)