My ears are still ringing and I haven’t completely come down from the high of last night yet. It wasn’t the perfect start to the gig though, as I was so tired and feeling generally very grumpy. The grumpiness wasn’t helped by the fact that we got to The Spitz before 8pm, just to find out that Johnossi wasn’t coming on until 9.30pm… The turn out wasn’t very big and from the people who were there I’d say about 80% were Swedes. But then, it was Johnossi’s first ever gig in London (album comes out next week in the UK – go get it!). Perhaps one day, when they’re super famous, we can reminiscence over seeing them arrange their own merchandise, mainly consisting of sticking t-shirts on the wall with duct tape. 😛

So at about 8.40pm Sounds Like Violence came on. And they did indeed do exactly that. On a scale from 1 to 10 the sound level was ‘ear bleed’. It was one of the physically most painful experiences of my life. I don’t quite understand what is the point of having the volume so loud that you can’t make out a melody or the lyrics or nothing, just a painful wooooo sound. So yeah, can’t really say much about that set as I couldn’t really make out what they were singing. It looked a bit like energy and volume over content from where I was sitting…

Finally at about 10pm, after the stage was completely rearranged, Johnossi came on. They kicked things off with Press Hold, and at once reclaimed all the hopes I’d had for seeing them live. Their energy was just intoxicating. I suppose it’s one of those things – some people just have charisma (and talent) and some don’t – and it is instantly recognisable on stage. It’s so cool how these two guys, with just drums and a guitar, blew the (4-piece) warm-up band out of the water within the first minutes of their set. While Ossi concentrated beating the hell out of the drum set (managing to break at least a couple of drum sticks), John really worked the audience. He managed to make me feel like he was singing just for me, with frequent eye contact etc., and afterwards Sooz was musing over the same thing. Of course it helped that the space was relatively small and the crowd wasn’t that big, but it’s still a wonderful talent to be able to make all your audience feel special. Of course that’s not his only talent. For such a tiny bloke, the strong voice that he projects comes as such a surprise. His voice has such a lovely gravely tone to it, that it can make your knees week. Highlights of the set for me were Man Must Dance and the eagerly awaited Execution Song, which really got the crowd going. The only new song, which is not on the album, that they played was 18 Carat Gold. After the gig I was on such a high, which can only be a sign of a kick ass event. When I got home I had to listen through the whole album and relive the live experience. Thanks Johnossi, I really hope you’ll make it big one day!