Manchester Night and Day Cafe – 01/02/23
The Von Hertzen Brothers consistently deliver, I’ve seen them a few times now and even though by now, I know exactly what to expect, they still blow me away, every time.
A group made up of the three brothers, Mikko, Kie and Jonne and completed by Sami Kuoppamäki on the drums and Robert Engstrand on keys. The band have such a unique sound, I have never seen or heard anything quite like them and I am a huge fan.
The band played Manchester’s Night and Day Cafe; a lovely venue that is in danger of being shut down, and it was pretty packed. Kicking off at 9pm, the next two hours were a real musical treat!
Kicking off with ‘Day of Reckoning’ and ‘Blue Forest’, we were immediately thrust into the incredible sounds of the bands latest album. There is something amazing that happens when these guys are on stage together, the musical chemistry the brothers have is indescribable; ‘magical’ comes to mind! Mikko greeted the crowd saying he wanted to play those two tracks before launching into an older song. They take us back to 2013’s ‘Nine Lives’ album for the next one, ‘Flowers and Rust’, a treat to see such a stadium ready anthem on such a small stage!
The setlist progressed and Mikko dedicates ’Freedom Fighter’ to the people of Ukraine which gets an applause from the Manchester crowd. He then dedicates ‘Trouble’ to the ‘f@&king twat who is causing it all’, as he calls for Putin to ‘F@£k off and leave Ukraine alone’, yet another big cheer!
I really liked ‘Trouble’, Kie makes use of the raised platform at the front of the stage for the intro as Mikko complete with his 335 takes a step back. As the vocals begin and the song builds, the energy in the whole club slowly builds up with the band. The whole band are up to eleven by now and the crowd are loving it! Definitely a highlight of the show.
‘New Day Rising’, ‘The Promise’ and ‘Long Lost Sailor’ are all fan favourites, with the capacity crowd singing along at full pelt with the band. And then almost as quickly as the show begins, the band are leaving the stage and the crowd are shouting for more.
The near two hour set has just gone in the blink of an eye, but there’s more, besides, they’ve not played my favourite song yet! The band re emerge to a huge cheer, and thank everyone for coming before kicking their encore off with ‘Sunday Child’, a song that if I’m honest, I wasn’t overly familiar with, but what a great song it was. The crowd were loving it, the band were on fire and if that had been the end of the show, we’d have all gone home happy. But the brothers had one more song up their sleeve, the bands not so secret weapon!
I talked about the effect that ‘Peace Patrol’ had on me in my last review, a song so powerful it literally transports you somewhere else. This is the third time seeing the brothers play and that song still blows me away. The way it builds, the way the crowd sing along, even after the band stop, this is a song that needs to be played in a 70,000 seater stadium, it is that big of a song. A fitting finale to a monumental show.
A Von Hertzen Brothers show is something to behold, something that you simply have to experience. This is a band that are destined to play the big stadiums of the world and the music is epic enough to fill them. I absolutely loved it, two hours of musical perfection in Manchester, I would say the Von Hertzen’s have quickly cemented themselves in my list of my favourite bands and are up there, very close to the top!
