LIVE REPORT: Merta & Machinae Supremacy
On the Rocks, Helsinki; October 28th, 2023
After the release of a few bangin’ new singles this year, Machinae Supremacy played a couple of shows in our neighborhood, the first at Dark River Festival in August, followed by a short headlining tour that passed through Oulu, Tampere, Tallinn (Estonia), and ultimately finished at On the Rocks in Helsinki on October 28th, 2023. Seeing as how I’m a big fan and considering that they had Merta as an opening act, who I’d worked with once in the past and found to be entertaining, both as people and musicians, I had to be there for this one!
Samsung Galaxy S20
Finnish fans of MaSu are generally pretty lucky, considering the band tour here more than pretty much anywhere else. Though they’ve been fairly quiet since the 2019 release of “Into the Night World,” the band has, as mentioned, been releasing a few singles in recent months, with the most recent coming out on October 20th: “WARRIORS, pt. 1 (Final Stage).” So, even though there wasn’t a new album to celebrate, there were at least a few new songs to get us hyped up for something fresh.
Interestingly, this event started with a new opener for these guys: local up-and-coming act Merta, whose name has been lurking around my notice for some time now, since they shared some shows with Ember Falls at the end of 2021, and then opened for Arion when I was selling merch for them at Olympia-kortteli in Tampere in April of this year. They seemed really interesting, funny, and energetic, so I was pretty curious to give them a proper chance at long last.
The venue was decked out in Halloween attire, with the odd devil and/or wizard seen in the crowd, which had already packed the venue quite full for Merta’s set. While I have yet to listen to their albums and I’m simply no good at gauging Finnish lyrics on the fly, I did find the energy to be quite impassioned and the music to be heavy and catchy, and there was some creative use of electronic elements to flesh out their sound, making this a really intriguing show and I’ll have to keep an eye on them in the future!
I’m usually complaining about people not moving at shows in Finland, so I was pleased to see a lot of wiggling around in the crowd. In fact, they were quite willing to respond to the band’s prompts, be it to put their hands up or turn on their phone lights for a ballad, and even singing along to the lyrics in the last song—not bad! In fact, in a moment so rare that it’s something I’ve maybe never seen in a club in 14 years, the crowd called for an opening band encore, though there wasn’t time for the band to oblige, unfortunately.
The floor was outright packed well before it was time for Machinae Supremacy to hit the stage—it seems as though the show sold out not long before it started—perhaps it’s time for them to go up a venue size? In fact, I would encourage it, because a packed-to-capacity On the Rocks is a bit of a nightmare when it comes to both comfort, sound, and temperature. Changing things up a little from the norm, they started out with “Truth of Tomorrow,” greeted the crowd, and then went into their fresh new cover of Essenger’s “Empire of Steel,” which I was pleased to see move up in the setlist, as Robert Stjärnström was sounding great. The crowd rewarded the performance with raucous applause, as was well deserved.
“Laser Speed Force” is a surefire banger live, so it naturally got the crowd moving, while “Renegades” (which goes straight into “Nova Prospekt”) had them put their fists up, chanting along—the crowd was indeed pretty wild on this night! The sound guy, Mika Tyni, got a shout-out for fixing an issue with the drums before they continued with “Player One,” a classic fan favorite, and people were jumping up and down during “All of My Angels.” “Dark City” had a pretty magical guitar part, where Jonas Rörling, Andreas “Gordon” Gerdin, and Tomi Luoma told a pretty slick story with their instruments. This was then followed by a Finnish favorite, “Indiscriminate Murder is Counterproductive,” which made the crowd go full bonkers.
An album was announced for release in the near future, with that new track, “WARRIORS pt. 1 (Final Stage),” acting as the flagship single from 2023. It made for a great live track and all the digital elements and chiptunes are wonderfully executed. Those with a keen eye might have also spotted Ingeborg Ekeland in the crowd, who made an appearance on stage during “Pendulum” and fortunately didn’t leave until the end of the show, meaning that she stuck around to sing along with “Force Feedback” and “Through the Looking Glass.” This was a rare treat, as the last time she performed at a show with them was when Nosturi was still around, back in 2017.
Other notes? Well, I certainly can’t say I was expecting to see a hippy dance circle, but that definitely happened! Overall, this was a really solid show, dampened only by On the Rocks’ bad lights and suboptimal sound system, which just can’t handle good loud music. Otherwise, this was a well-chosen selection of songs that were equally well-performed, with a little something special at the end, so hopefully the sold-out crowd enjoyed themselves as much as we did!
Setlist
Truth of Tomorrow
Empire of Steel
Laser Speed Force
Renegades
Nova Prospekt
Player One
All of My Angels
Dark City
Indiscriminate Murder is Counterproductive
Rise of a Digital Nation
WARRIORS pt. 1 (Final Stage)
Encore
Pendlulum ft. Ingeborg Ekeland
Force Feedback ft. Ingeborg Ekeland
Through the Looking Glass ft. Ingeborg Ekeland
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