Bodom mania grips the United States

Children of Bodom bring extreme metal to the U.S. charts on a North American tour that takes in the boondocks as well as the big cities

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By Vesa Sirén in Sayreville, NJ
     
      "Silent Night...", growls guitarist Alexi Laiho, starting the antiphon ritual.
      "...BODOM NIGHT!" roars back the audience of perhaps 2,000 packed into the Starland Ballroom in this corner of New Jersey, and the band kicks into one of their live warhorses, taken from the 1999 album Hatebreeder.
      Silence is very much NOT the order of the night.
      The Espoo-based band Children of Bodom play extreme metal faster and more precisely than anyone out there.
     
Tonight's gig is definitely "out there", in the middle of nowhere, on the outskirts of the small town of Sayreville (pop. c. 42,000) in Middlesex County, New Jersey, a long way from the fleshpots of New York or Jersey's bigger cities.
      It is by faithfully playing dates like this, out on the margins, that the group has grown to be a million-seller and to feature in the U.S. Top 40 lists.
      The Starland in Sayreville is the second gig of a 21-date COB headlining tour that goes coast to coast across North America and winds up in Honolulu, before the band head off for four gigs in the Far East and then trek back to Moscow for a show on October 24th.
      Warm-up acts for this U.S. and Canada leg of the tour are death metal/metalcore band The Black Dahlia Murder from Michigan and Skeletonwitch from Ohio.
     
The front row fans packed against the rail growl and gurgle the lyrics.
      Fists punch the air, fingers are held up in the traditional heavy metal "sign of the goat", with the index and little fingers extended while holding the middle and ring fingers down with the thumb.
      The punters pogo up and down, bathed in sweat, and dodge other fans who are crowd-surfing over their heads, generally to be safely brought down to earth by the security staff in front of the stage.
     
"FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK! BODOM UURGGGHHH!" one heavy devotee bellows from below the raised stage.
      Further back, by the mixing desk, stand the rock police, the fans who listen to the music with a more analytical ear.
      Analysis or no, even here many hands can be seen tripping across an imaginary fretboard almost as blindingly fast as the nimble fingers of 30-year-old Alexi Laiho, who was recently voted world's best metal guitarist in a Guitar World readers' poll.
      Laiho is also, naturally, featured in the magazine's list of "The 50 Fastest Guitarists of All Time".
     
The band are also being listened to intently by players of the new Guitar Hero 5 video game, the soundtrack of which features Children of Bodom's Done with Everything, Die for Nothing from the successful 2008 album Blooddrunk, which went to No.22 on the Billboard lists in the week of its release.
      "He's the best guitarist of all time", explains Sam Fisher, 13, displaying a fine set of orthodontic braces.
      "I'm trying to learn his solos, but they are so damned difficult. He's just incredibly fast."
      Jay Johnson, 22, is also trying to emulate Laiho's guitar technique.
      "The arpeggios are blindingly fast and his picking technique with the plectrum is so smooth it's out of this world."
     
There are 50-somethings in the crowd, too, some of them not accompanied by their kids.
      "Bodom rule", say 51-year-old Todd Marshall and 49-year-old Ariane Lenshoek. "We've always been metal fans."
      Some of the fans are draped in blue-and-white Finnish flags.
      David Oliveira and Ernie Barbosa also have the HIM heartagram symbol on their wrists.
      Finnish band knowhow is present in abundance.
      "Yeah, Alexi's old band Impaled Nazarene [Laiho was with them from 1998-2000] really broke Finnish extreme metal in the States", claims Dan Phillips confidently.
     
Roughly one-third of those present at the gig are women.
      Three of them have donned home-made "Roope 'N' Roll" T-shirts for the occasion, as a mark of respect for the band's rhythm guitarist Roope Latvala.
      "It's a dumb joke, I know, but we dig Roope", says Becky Ondra, who has flown in from Pittsburgh for the gig.
      The 39-year-old metal veteran Roope Latvala is remembered for his role in the 1980s thrash metal outfit Stone, and has also played with Waltari and with Sinergy, a band that featured a rather younger Alexi Laiho on guitar, and Laiho's ex-wife Kimberly Goss on vocals and keyboards.
     
Becky Ondra and her friends each paid USD 40 for a more expensive VIP package that entitled them to admission plus a meet & greet session with the band earlier in the afternoon.
      The fans got a photo opportunity with the band members and autographs everywhichwhere - on skin, T-shirts, albums, and posters.
      Beginner axe-heroes brought along their Alexi Laiho signature model guitars for the great man to sign.
      "The VIP ticket was well worth it. They are so nice! And Roope liked our shirts."
      Sure enough, Roope Latvala is now out front playing in a Roope 'N' Roll shirt given to him by the trio.
     
As the gig wears on, it becomes clear that the Starland Ballroom's P.A. system is not exactly state of the art.
      Even though the band have their own mixing desk along for the tour, the wooden building resonates to such a degree that from time to time everything is drowned under the twin bass-drum barrage of percussionist Jaska Raatikainen's kit.
      Bodom's trademark 1980s thin synthesiser sound brings in the high register over the low bass boom, while the guitars pound away in the mid-range.
      Laiho's solos could be lifted up higher in the mix. When he lets loose, the Paganini of extreme metal is worthy of the hearing.
     
Laiho's audience interaction is straight out of the heavy frontman manual: "Motherfuckin' New Jersey! Areyoufuckinready to hear some Old-School-Bodom!!!"
      Whether they are ready or not, the band stick to older material, and not one number is heard from the new CD (released on September 22nd) Skeletons In The Closet.
      This new compilation album puts together between 14 and 18 (there are three versions for the European. U.S., and Japanese markets) covers that the band has played during its career, plus a few new ones thrown in.
      "No, we have enough to do with our own material", Laiho explains the absence after the set.
     
As a result, the fans in New Jersey don't get a chance to hear for instance a workout of the most controversial track on Skeletons, a cover of Britney Spears' Oops, I Did It Again.
      This was apparently a bridge too far for some, and had outraged diehard COB fans burning the band's albums and T-shirts on bonfires - well, at least if one is to believe some of the wilder online discussion forum threads.
      "We had to grumble a bit, but it's good they did it", admit 14 and 15-year-olds Jake, Nathan, Sam, and Tom, who don't offer up their surnames for the Finnish media.
      "They are so original. They've got so much energy, and the keyboards bring a distinct sound of their own."
     
Nearly the entire audience seems to have come here in their own cars. I see just one drunk over the whole Saturday evening.
      There is no age-limit on the GA (general admission, no seating) gig, but you have to be 21 to get to the bar.
      Few seem to be very interested, anyhow - they'd rather get down the front and as close to the band as possible.
      After a set lasting just under 90 minutes, Alexi Laiho wishes the fans a "fucking good night". Many drive straight home, but a good few hang out in the parking lot by the tour bus.
      "I'm hoping they'll come out and say hello. Or if I might get a plectrum or a drumstick. Any kind of souvenir of the gig would do", says a diffident Chris Curtis, one of Children of Bodom's younger American fans.
      Sayreville is Bodom'd. Next stop, Clifton Park, NY. The tour goes on.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 26.9.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Children of Bodom - back in Finland for a change (11.11.2008)
  Children of Bodom top British rock album lists (24.4.2008)

Links:
  ESP Guitars: The Alexi Laiho Signature Series
  Silent Night, Bodom Night from the Starland Ballroom (19.9.2009) on YouTube - one of many numbers from the gig that were uploaded
  Children of Bodom official site
  Children of Bodom (Wikipedia)
  Scythes of Bodom blog
  Children of Bodom Discography (Wikipedia)

VESA SIRÉN / Helsingin Sanomat
vesa.siren@hs.fi