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Jasmina Schreck reviews Oulu’s Heavy Metal Carol Concert . . . 
Christmas is drawing near. For most people it’s a time of tranquillity and Christmas Carols. The bravest ones end up in the nearby church, where there might be a more or maybe less talented choir performing them. A very different approach to those traditions was born with the “Raskas Joulu” tour, which was established three years ago. In “Raskas Joulu” Christmas Carols are still played… but by metal bands. ‘Raskas Joulu’ is gathering a couple of musicians from various metal bands that play Christmas carols in a somewhat heavier way than you might be used to it under the family’s Christmas tree. From 2005 on heavy metal carol concerts have been arranged in several Finnish towns and are now so popular that they last all the way through December, touring the country. Oulu’s ‘Raskas Joulu’ concert this year took place in Teatria the evening before Independence Day. The ‘Raskas Joulu’ event in Oulu was combined with the Dimebag Beyond Forever tour in 2007. It has been a kind of tradition amongst Finnish metalers to honour the legendary guitarist of the US- heavy metal band Pantera, “Dimebag” Darrell Abbottin, who was shot and killed onstage in December 2004. Idols Winner This combination of two different tours in one evening shifted the starting time of the pre-Christmas celebration to almost 1am leaving a relatively empty concert hall when two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer and a keyboard player entered the stage. The line-up for this year’s ‘Raskas Joulu’ tour consisted of all the members of Idols winner, and heavy metal star, Ari Koivunen’s live band as well as varying vocalists for each show. The organisers provided Machine Man’s Antony Parviainen, Charon’s J-P Leppäluoto and Hevi-Ari himself for Oulu’s concert. During the show, which featured typical Finnish Christmas songs such as “Ensimmäinen joulu”, “Ilouutinen” and “Sydämeeni joulun teen”, it was noticed that only the first two singers mentioned managed to dress appropriate to the occasion and appear in a shirt and tie, while Ari showed up in a festival t-shirt and camouflage trousers. However, not everything must be based on clothes – it was J-P with his way of singing and head banging that turned the show into what was to be expected: A ‘heavy’ Christmas. The audience that was left at this late hour could at least easily be animated to sing a Finnish version of “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” under the guidance of Leppäluoto. Slices of Cheese And, of course, Christmas is also a time for fun and games. Towards the end the Dimebag Beyond Forever crew came up with the idea of disturbing the show a bit by storming onto the stage – not wearing anything else but a very short shirt, leaving little to the imagination.
In addition to this some for the time being unidentified flying objects could be observed how they were making their way from the stage to the audience – as it turned out later it were slices of cheese. The Raskas Joulu tour will still continue till 28th December when the last concert will be played in Levi, Lapland. 
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