Charon is a comparatively small band from Finland that plays a mixture of melodic and gothic metal. In their home country they are pretty well-known but here in Germany they still seem to be a band with a small fan base even though they were supporting Nightwish on their 2002 tour. After having released their 5th album “Songs for the Sinners” they were finally to come back to Germany for their first own headlining tour. Unfortunately, they played only three shows in Germany set to take place in Lübbenau (a small city in East Germany), Berlin and Hannover. Well, none of these cities are anywhere near where I live but I just couldn’t see this opportunity pass me by. So I found myself driving to Hannover on a cold February day and I was lucky to miss the big snow chaos here by two days. Well, the location was a lot smaller than I had imagined it and very unconventional because there were actually cinema seats, believe it or not (the place usually serves for theatre or comedy shows as I read on some flyers)!

The support act Schierling was a local band and that’s what they sounded like. I could hear influences that range from classic heavy metal to hardcore, from rock to emo. They seemed to still be experimenting with their sound and just couldn’t convince me even though I try to give every band a chance. Nonetheless, some people were really enjoying them and the show had its funny moments anyway, for example when two people from the audience demanded the vocals and guitar to be turned up! Other than that Schierling is one of the few bands that actually sing in German for which I surely respect them.

When the stage was prepared for Charon, some of the Schierling fans left while others entered the room. The club was more or less filled and if I had to guess I would number the amount of people at about a hundred. I had definitely expected more because after having released five albums a band like Charon should have more people coming to their shows. But that wasn’t up to me to decide and a small gig like that has its advantages for sure. Despite the small crowd the five Finns gave a great show. The set list left no room for complaints:

Charon started with “Colder”, which is also the opener on “Songs for the Sinners”, though without vocals in the beginning because the microphone didn’t work even though it was checked together with the instruments before the show. All gesturing towards the sound guy didn’t help so J.P. had to take the mic of guitarist Lauri until his own was fixed. Fortunately, there were no further coincidences and the sound was in fact surprisingly good. The show went on with “Guilt on Skin” and “Bullet”. The girls in the audience were highly pleased with vocalist J.P. who in return flirted with some of them while he was singing. He also used the breaks between the songs to tell stories, for example that Finnish people don’t like to go to concerts on Sunday nights because they can’t get drunk since they have to work Monday morning. He was also surprised that people were quite qualm in between the songs. In Finland, people used this time to chat about the latest rumors. Believe me that it isn’t a rumor that the band was obviously enjoying their show and the fans – and the fans were enjoying Charon. During “Little Angel”, their biggest hit so to speak, they sang along the chorus enthusiastically. Another highlight was “Ride on Tears”, the ballad “4 Seasons Rush” was also well-perceived by the audience. The regular set ended already after “Deep Water” but no one was ready to let them go yet. After a few minutes, Pasi entered the stage again and played a few notes of AC/DC’s “Hell Bells”. Nice gag as I thought. Three more songs were played and with “House of the Silent” -of which I really like the long solo part at the end- the show was over.

A little later the guys came back to sign autographs and speak to the fans that had stayed. I took the chance to get to know a bit more about the tour and how everything had gone so far. What really surprised me was that this gig had been the best of the German shows regarding location (Pasi told me that they had a very poor sound system at one of the other gigs and his amp even broke down during the show). Nonetheless, they want to come back to Germany in fall. Let’s hope that they are going to play some more shows next time and that more fans will come to see them because Charon are worth seeing for sure!

Set list:

Colder
Guilt on Skin
Bullet
If
Bitter Joy
In Trust of no one
4 Seasons Rush
Ride on Tears
Rain
Desire You
Sister Misery
Little Angel
Come Tonight
Deep Water
Encore:
As We Die
At The End of our Day
House of the Silent