What I shot instead of the Misfits: Poisonblack @ KuopioRock

Exactly as the title says, at KuopioRock due to scheduling issues I had the choice of shooting either the Misfits or Poisonblack. As a long time Sentenced fan (thanks to my lovely wife), the choice was obvious and I headed to the side tent to enjoy some brooding dark Finnish metal. Honestly, Misfits doesn’t really even ring any bells of recognition for me.

As I mentioned, Poisonblack played in a tent, so while the rest of the festival had good diffused light from the cloud covered sky, the stage in this case was very dark. The darkness of the stage was made even more difficult for photographers with the limited amount of front light they used in the beginning of the set. The light was so difficult to shoot in that I quite quickly decided to leave the pit and shoot from the audience.

Leaving the pit fairly soon was aided by the fact that it wasn’t too deep and the stage was fairly high. While the poses from the pit can be quite dramatic, I often like shots with a bit less of nasal cavities.

It was quite odd to listen to Ville’s voice singing something other than Sentenced, especially since it was the first time either of us saw him live. We are quite annoyed with ourselves for missing Sentenced’s farewell tour. We have listened to them a bit (Spotify only has the latest album) and the gig was good. At least I didn’t have any complaints with the sound.

My relationship with Poisonblack is a bit odd, as noted I like Sentenced very much. Ville’s music has much of the same as Sentenced, but isn’t quite as dark and gloomy and the riffs are a bit lighter. Note that any comparisons to Sentenced are made to the Sentenced of the last few albums. Anna found a great way to describe them this week when we went to buy tickets to their gig in Joensuu: Poisonblack is Sentenced’s girlfriend – a bit less extreme.

See more pictures of Poisonblack in our gallery.