Sharing Inspiration

One of the most famous Finnish metal music bands Stratovarius held a concert in Beijing in September. Stratovarius has gained big success in many countries but prior to this had never come to China. On the average Chinese audience is in general oriented towards more conservative music than heavy metal music. Therefore it was a great and nice surprise to see the enthusiasm of the large audience waiting for Stratovarius. The queue in front of Beijing’s Mao Live House was quite long extending even outside the club house.

The Mao Live House is Beijing’s premier concert venue. Now the large concert hall was almost full, mostly of local people who seemed to be very excited about the Finnish band.

After the warm-up of a local heavy metal band, Stratovarius immediately took the audience with a very professional but still cosy touch. The vocalist Timo Kotipelto built a very tight connection to the audience by telling them the backgrounds to the songs, sharing the band’s experience about Beijing and sharing every now and then the microphone with the audience. It was surprising to see the Chinese audience remembering the lyrics by heart and singing along during the whole concert.

I haven’t known Stratovarius’ music very well and now I was very pleased to learn how melodic and light it is. So metal music can be melodic too! It’s true that Stratovarius’ music contains elements of both power metal and symphonic metal and the band is one of the best examples of Finnish melodic metal music.

The Beijing concert represented very professional entertainment, both as to the music and the show. It offered a very good overview on Stratovarius’ music over the years. The band was first found in 1984. After several changes in name, style and personnel it has found its personal voice and style. The latest Album Polaris came out last May.

As part of the Finnish Expo 2010 -related cultural programme, Stratovarius’ concert certainly contributed towards building an image of Finland as a country of talented high level artists. They certainly paved the way for the follow-up of Finnish music in China.

Mikko Karppinen

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