6

Soporiphic

69 Eyes (or the Helsinki Vampires as they like to call themselves) have been together since the early 90s and more recently have been out on tour with the likes of Wednesday 13 in the UK. They are not afraid to acknowledge their goth/horror influences and certainly look the part al dressed in black, eyeliner, tattoos, you get the picture.

There’s a pretty big crowd for them in the Tuborg tent although they are forced to wait a good five minutes due to technical problems right at the start of the set. When they do finally get going it’s as you’d expect but their glam horror metal makes far less of an impact than I’d expected. The tunes are all a bit mid paced and average and you feel like they really need a punk injection to get them going. Singer Jyrki doesn’t have a great voice and there’s nothing overly catchy about the songs either. The crowd however are largely partisan and judging by the pitch of cheers between songs they are largely female.

‘Gothic Girl’ draws heavily on the Sisters of Mercy and this being the case the music doesn’t lend itself to an exciting performance. Towards the end they show no signs of picking up the pace or injecting any shred of excitement and it’s all rather dull. The simple fact is that there are plenty of bands that do this style far better from the aforementioned Wednesday 13 and Sisters of Mercy to Alice Cooper. They look the part but fail to deliver on every other front.