Sonata Arctica

Live at The House of Blues

Hollywood, California

September 29th, 2014

Review and Photos by Travis Baumann

Finish Power Metal legends, Sonata Arctica grace us with their presence once more. Sonata means song and Arctica is as it sounds, so their name translates to Song of the Arctic referencing the influence of their homeland.

They have been around for many years now and have consistently put out melodic albums that move between melancholic wonder to upbeat, almost joyful pieces.

There is a definite Gothic mood to some of their pieces but at the same time, they are one of the more happy bands in the genre. The lead singer has a signature melodic voice that sets them apart from nearly all the other bands in similar vein, and their song writing is definitely a thing of its own, bordering on more accessible rock at times.

2014 saw the release of their latest full length album, "Pariah's Child" which in their own words moves back towards older material with a focus on their love and identification with wolves as well as a sense of isolationism, being the offspring of a lone or outcast member of society.

Sonata Arctica are touring the world in promotion of this new release and have assembled a great selection of support acts as well with Xandria and Delain as part of the tour.

Sonata Arctica took the stage while their atmospheric keyboard intro played. The lead singer, Tony Kakko is very energetic and always filled with a positive attitude that exudes from the stage.

The first song of the set was "The Wolves Die Young", off of the new album. They have a very devoted cult following and the audience was able to sing along right from the get go. They did a song called "Losing My Sanity" next, which I wasn't familiar with but it was a good song.

They have put out so many albums over the years that there is just too much good material to hope for so after you have seen them a few times you just sit back and see what comes. They played "My Land" and "Sing in Silence" before hitting another song off the latest release with "Cloud Factory".

The set would go in spans as such with them taking it back in time for a few songs and then returning to the latest release for a song we have not seen live before.

They did the crowd favorite "Black Sheep" followed by "Letter to Dana" and then "Flag in the Ground" which lead into "I Have a Right", a single off their previous release, until they hit back with the latest material landing on "X Marks the Spot".

Their headlining sets are always extensive and tonight was no different. They closed out with another quintet of songs from various albums including "Tallulah", FullMoon", "Kingdom for a Heart" and finally "San Sebastian".

They departed the stage to uproarious applause that lead straight away into chanting of "Sonata! Sonata!". Without too long of a delay, they returned to the energetic crowd and played "Blood" off of "Pariah''s Child".

They hit upon the excellent "Wolf and Raven" before closing out the night with a personal favorite of mine, "Don't Say a Word".

This lead directly into an outro of "Vodka", which is basically an old Finnish drinking song for more of the name sake, and they usually play it during the concert in some fashion as it is a super happy boozing song and a great way to leave the audience with big smiles on their faces while the band took a bow and departed.

As usual, Sonata Arctica gave us an uplifting, awesome show that ended on a very upbeat note.

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