Metal Music Blog

Dudes, year 2007 is soon history. A couple of days more and a new year begins with new challenges. This has really been an interesting year of metal music and my humble blog. I launched this blog in October and since then I have been writing articles almost on daily basis. It has really been a lot of fun for me because I love and breath metal music. My articles have covered topics that I am personally interested in, and I have written about many interesting bands such as Trivium, Children of Bodom, Arch Enemy and Lamb of God.

The amount of visitors in my blog has grown steadily and it is glad to see people find my blog. In 2008 I will continue writing about bands, but I will also cover new topics. Some of them are “secrets”, but I can say that interviews are coming next year. I will perform a complete facelift which means I will introdude a new theme with higher usability. It is going to be staggering! Many things will happen next year, so stay tuned. This blog is going to develop very much. We have prepared this for weeks.

In 2008 we are going to introduce guest bloggers. If you are interested in publishing your articles, reviews, interviews or anything interesting for metalheads, send me email to furious.anger AT yahoo.com. Otherwise stay tuned in order to see our “guest blogger search campaign”. Our humble goal is to become the number one metal music video blog in blgosphere and we rednecks are really going to make it!

Thanks you for this year and welcome back in January 2008! I wish you all the best for 2008. Bang your heads and enjoy the world of metal music!

ROCK!

Some say we Finns are grazy enough to figure out really weird ideas, such as Air Guitar World Championships. Can you believe that we have also Wife Carrying World Championships, Rubberboot Throwing World Championships, Cellphone Throwing World Championships and Mosquito Killing World Championships? Yes, they are all real contests, and I have joined once Moquito Killing WC. Now we have also Air Guitar World Championships!

Air Guitar playing means that you act like playing a guitar. So you do not have any real guitar in your hands, you are just acting like playing a guitar. Playing air guitar is said to be a subcategory of dancing. Air Guitar World Championships was born in Oulu in Finland in 1996. Since then the contest is held yearly, and year after year it is getting bigger and bigger happening. It has turned to a profitable business.

This year’s winner in Air Guitar World Championships was Ochi “Dainoji” Yosuke, the same dude who won last year as well. This victorious air-guitarist shows some magic riffs and moves in the video below. Check out how he tunes his amplifier, makes some last-minute checkouts and talks to his crew. He is a professional air-guitarist. Notice his furious and aggressive style as well as his staggering outfit, the tiger shirt! This “Tiger-Dude” is really awesome. Listen to his tiger roar!

Tiger is really my idol, but let’s see a couple of more videos. Here is the Shaking Devil from Italy playing some good old rock and roll! Look at that speed. He must be exhausted after hour gig. I just wonder what I would play in the contest. May be Wintersun’s Beyond the Dark Sun.. no, in fact I would play Pantera’s Cowboys From Hell. Rock!

You really gotta have some balls when you enter the Air Guitar Championships stage. Check out this dude. He plays with great passion. Notice his cool rock and roll leopard overalls.

Playing air guitar is a great show in which you better have a good choreography in order to win. Check out how this guy combines his acrobatic skills with rock and power metal. It is also important to have an interesting persona and this dude makes sure that his tattoos are seen by the audience.

Cool competitions here in Finland, right? For more about Air Guitar World Championships, check out their website. Would you like to join the 2008 contest?

Now when all the packages are opened and you have eaten well, it is time to stop and listen to good music. No, not metal music today. Yesterday we played Twisted Sister, but not today. Today I provide you a Christmas song video from one of my favourite “non-metal” music artists, Andrea Bocelli. This Italian opera tenor is absolutely a great artist with a faboulous voice. As a 12-years old kid Andrea Bocelli was hit by a football, and because of that he is blind. He is one of the best selling tenors in the world.

Andrea Bocelli sings in Italian and one of his masterpieces is Con te partirò sang together with Sarah Brightman. That one piece staid in German TOP-10 list for six months. Before his music career, Bocelli studied law in Pisa university and he hold PhD degree. Here is one of the great pieces from Andrea Bocelli, a Christmas song Adeste Fideles.

Stage diving is the act of leaping from a concert stage onto the crowd below. It is very common nowadays that people jump from the stage towards the audience, and this is called stage diving. It is not only the artists who dive, but also the corwd. People climb to the stage in order to jump. When done wrong or when failed, stage diving can cause serious injuries. This article provides you few videos of failed stage dives. Stage diving is common in big festivals and in concerts of known bands, such as Trivium, Soulfly and System Of A Down.

When I was twelve, I went to see my hometown band’s gig in our neighboring town. I remember there was around 25-30 people in the audience while the band was playing. Suddenly someone climbed to the stage and jumped. Everyone moved away and the dude hit the floor. I remember thinking “what was the point”? Well, later on I have understood what was the point, but on those days stage diving was as usual as that you see a supernova. This happened in 1986 in Lapland in Finland, and the guy was more than very drunk.

So what did I learn from my experience? First of all, stage diving includes some risks, so you must understand what you are going to do if you go stagediving. Next you need to have crowd enough so that you won’t just hit the floor. The crowd must be willing to receive stage divers, and this is usual in metal festivals. Do not try stage diving in a non-metal concert in which people are not aware of this act. Make sure you are not too drunk. Ok, may be you say “who cares”? In that case you are taking higher risks, and that is fine with me. The point is that if you are jumping very drunk, you might get injured because you might not understand the situation well. What do I mean with injuries, is that you hurt yourself seriously. It is possible to fall on your head, spine or neck, and that might paralyze you. After one failed stage dive you might not move your legs and hands never again.

Let us have an example of a failed stage dive. A picture tell more than thousand words. There are 24 still pictures in one second of a video, so these videos might tell more than zillion words. Now, watch this to see a failed stage dive due to lack of people in the crowd.

In the next video we see what happens when nobody is going to catch you. Guy does a big jump like a pros, but nobody is going to catch..

Good? Better is coming.. Next we see how far stupidity can go. This guy is brave. He takes speed more than enough, jumps high, and with his feet ahead! And the crowd? Amazing five kids in the audience! You can guess the result.. I hope that dude did not hurt himself. This really reminds me my experience from more than 20 years ago.

When talking about injuries and landing on your head, this next video is a great example. I can only say, do NOT repeat this. This is insane. I have never seen anything as stupid as this act.

All right, metalheads. Go banging your head in metal festivals and go stage diving, but know your risks. Take it easy. Do not make mistakes that might paralyze you for the rest of your life. Rock!