Lordi at The Button Factory | Review

One time Eurovision winners Lordi took their ‘Tour Beast or Not Tour Beast’ tour to Dublin’s Button Factory on Thursday, and what a show it was to behold. We couldn’t miss this one!

This monstrous metal band are clearly keen on theatrics, they entered the stage one by one, each of them in their budget-horror-movie-esque attire and roaringly launched into their set. What unfolded in the Button Factory is hard to put into words because there was so much going on. Events that were elaborated throughout the show included a theatrical decapitation, and snow, which cascaded over the audience during It Snows in Hell. They also had a very Spinal Tap moment in which an apparently menacing skull got stuck half way through its ascent above the stage and had to be coaxed by stage hands.

Things really kicked off five songs into the set with Who’s Your Daddy? At this stage the crowd was well acquainted with the band’s cartoon-esque performance style as Mr. Lordi bounded around the stage wiggling his fiendishly long ‘fingers’ at members of the audience, and Keyboardist Hella, the zombie doll, twitched in time with the music. The audience responded well to a familiar song , Blood Red Sandman, during which Mr. Lordi was dressed as a demonic sandman – the kind that brings you less than calming dreams, you would assume. Delightfully he began tossing confetti out into the crowd.

The most bizarre thing about the performance was that underneath the nightmarish façade Mr. Lordi is quite a chatty guy. Before I’m The Best he delivered a motivational speech, telling audience members that they are the best at being them. Touching, even coming from a beast. This was when the comedic side of the band shone through, with Mr. Lordi being adorned with a sash, tiara and a rose, to which he responded quite tearfully, fanning himself in delight of his being crowned ‘Mister Lordi 2013’. He looked very pretty indeed.

The highlight of the main set was undoubtedly Devil is a Loser, with the crowd responding uproariously. At this stage it wasn’t even surprising that the frontman sprouted wings. Their faux-goodbyes were hardly over before they returned to the stage with a four song encore, which of course included Eurovision winning track, Hard Rock Hallelujah. The lead singer pounded around the stage with his axe; no that’s not a colloquialism for a guitar, he actually had a microphone stand that was also an axe, delivering the song in anthemic fashion.

What a show these guys put on. While they were certainly not archetypal Eurovision winners, they are probably the cheesiest heavy metal band in existence. A true air of suspense existed every time they left the stage between songs, as the crowd wondered what largely unnecessary yet atmosphere-appropriate prop would appear next.

What also can’t be overlooked is the talent of the band; one would think with so many distractions going on they may be masking not only their faces, but perhaps a lack of talent. That wasn’t the case as we saw in particular with drummer Mana’s thundering drum solo and guitarist Amen’s phenomenal drop-tuned thrashing on his instrument of choice.

The band finished on a song that asks the question “Would you love a monster man?” (quite a poignant song if you take away the image of the band), with a performance as unpredictable as that probably yes, yes we would.