Burning Hearts and Fågelmannen in After Eight, Jakobstad, Finland

A visit for a gig at the Jakobstad (Finland) After Eight will allways be a good one. After The Holy, which later also performed at the showcase festival Euro Sonic in Groningen, The Netherlands, it’s now the turn of Burning Hearts from Turku Finland to win our heart as well! Local heroes Fågelmannen tried to do the same.

Burning Hearts has been playing quite some time and made already some records, starting with ‘Aboa Sleeping’ in 2009, then in 2012 ‘Extinctions’ and their latest album ‘Battlefields’.  They made a remarkable video for ‘Work off art’, so eager to see how they perform live. The indie band consists only of three band members, the female voice of Jessika Neuman and the guitars and voice of Henry Neuman and on the drums played Niko Kivikangas.

It was an easy and calm start with the song ‘Atacama’ to get it going. 
More rhythm, nice voice, supporting guitar and drums got into play with ‘Folie a Deux’.

‘Work at art’, the song where they made a work of art visuals for, sounded a bit more electric. The mix was not totally good, missed the voice of Jessika Neuman, the eclectically sounds got the most attention, too bad. ‘Seabirds’ started and ended with the sound of seabirds, the tempo was quick and a bit loud on the drums. 

A familiar beat reminded of the Kristine W- song ‘Feel what you want’ at the start of ‘Bodies as Battlefields’, a good groove with guitar and warming voice. The lyrics talked about, bad dream, but didn’t sounded so bad at all! ‘Ticket’ to a new life was a more calm song so Jessika Neuman was better to hear, also the duo-singing with her husband was of a high level. The last song they played was a bit of everything: good vocals, clean guitar sounds, and solid drums as the backbone of the song. Away from the lonely ‘Into the wilderness’.

The base of Burning Hearts is great, good voices and playful and meaningful guitar playing makes their songs strong and they never get to the stage that they bore you.

Fågelmannen

Change over from English to Swedish. A trio of men got on stage, a nice looking Beatles Bass guitarist, a lead guitar player, Mikael Andersson and the lead singer, Mecki Andersson, who played also classical guitar. 
The solo project from Mecki Andersson is called Fågelmannen they produced until now one record, ‘Passagen’

They started with an intro where they made sure the audience would remember their name Fågelmannen by singing it several times. The most listened song of them on spotty was ‘Andra Sidan’, the other side, it sounded like a happy song, with a crisp guitar sound and wel sung together. 

‘Var e vi nu’, we are at the After Eight tonight with this catchy sound where all instruments are present but the bass pops out a bit. The saxophone that played along on the album ‘Passagen’ was missed unfortunately in their live performance. Another song ‘Ea’ (Electronic Arts), with good balance of all the instruments, so they all are heard and can shine. 

‘Söndagmorgon’ was a new song and had a strong beat which pushed back the rest a bit. They did not play with someone on the drums, that came from a box. ‘Ut i natten‘ with a heartbeat as the backbone. Sometimes a rap song than a nicely sung duet, always with playful guitars riffs. ‘En slagsymbol‘ again was a well arranged song, more on the rocky side of the pallet, so they showed that they are able to play all kinds of music. The bass ended the song. 

Fågelmannen

‘Silversprayade boots’ they played together with the support act of the day, Burning Hearts. Their guitarist played the guitar upside down. ‘Min stad‘ that was Jakobstad, was the closing song of the night. They went out with a blast. 

Also, Fågelmannen would be nice to hear and see again. They have a great catchy sound because of the ‘Simplicity’ of their song they keep your attention where it should be on the music. So again it was a great night out in Jakobstad, Finland where they know apparently how to make entertaining music.

Photo’s (c) Hans Kreutzer

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