Live Review - Korpiklaani at Leeds Rio's 5/12/08

It takes a certain kind of band to play at the same venue three times in the space of one year and still draw a packed crowd – and Korpiklaani are one such band. They never fail to disappoint and are one of, if not the, most entertaining bands on the live circuit right now. After 3 support bands, Korpiklaani don’t actually take the stage until gone 10.30pm and the crowd have been in the venue drinking since 7pm (some clearly for longer than that) so everyone is clearly in the mood for some folk-metal jigging and from the opening notes of ‘Wooden Pints’ the floor doesn’t stop moving all the way through the set. Not many bands can get a crowd dancing and moving like Korpiklaani – their anthems to beer, forests and a pagan culture long-shared between the UK and the Scandinavians (but sadly long forgotten here in Britain) just force you to wave your limbs around and dance like a fool without a care in the world, and in such unstable times, there’s something incredibly appealing about that.
Nobody comes to a Korpiklaani show to stand still and hear songs that make you ponder all of life’s worries, if you do, then you’re at the wrong gig. No, everyone hear is in the mood for a good time and Korpiklaani deliver, as they always do, with their accordion and fiddle-tinged brand of folk-metal that is currently at an unprecedented height of popularity, particularly in the UK. The aforementioned ‘Wooden Pints’, along with good-time anthems like ‘Journey Man’, ‘Let’s Drink’ and ‘Happy Little Boozer’ bring the house down, but it’s a rousing finale of ‘Beer Beer’, complete with a stage invasion from the other bands on the bill (courtesy of the fact that it’s the last night of the tour) that really epitomises what Korpiklaani are all about – drinking, dancing and having fun. And to those who would sneer at Korpiklaani and the rest of the seemingly never ending collection of folk/battle/power metal bands emerging in the last few years as being ‘cheesy’ or ‘gimmicky’ miss the point entirely. Yes, Korpiklaani are probably the best of the bunch and many others (including tonight’s support acts) have a long way to go to catch them but what all of these bands epitomise is a simpler time, and one that, by the looks of it, was a whole lot more fun than what the 21st century has offered us so far and they’re contributions to bringing the happy element back to metal shows should be applauded and not casually overlooked. Thanks to bands like Korpiklaani, it’s now ok to have fun at metal gigs again and what can be wrong about that? After tonight, you can keep your ‘original’ or ‘technical’ bands because, for £15, many of us want to drink and dance to some actual songs and there’s no better soundtrack than Korpiklaani. Forget all the depressing ‘credit crunch’ rubbish and go see Korpiklaani and put a smile back on your face again – go on, you know you’ve wanted to for ages and remember, it’s now perfectly OK!