So, only 14 years after they first formed, AURI played their first ever international show, and landed up in Manchester to do it, in the austere Theatre of the RNCM, which was actually a perfect choice given its acoustic credentials. This is one of the Top 5 music universities in the world while this band demands to be heard properly.
The two came together perfectly.
It wasn’t sold out. About 500 of the 650 seats, which surprised me, but I suppose that inflation, zero economic growth, financial hardship and a 40-quid price tag on the ticket conspired to ensure that was the case. These are hard times for musicians, whatever their pedigree, and even harder for many of their audience.
That said that audience was sourced from far and wide. I sat next to a lady from North Wales while I heard several London accents evidently belonging to folk who couldn’t wait a few more days for their turn. (At the show’s finale a group at the front started chanting “Auri, Auri” like a bunch of soccer fans but it came out as “ ’Arry, ‘Arry” as if Royalists noting that young Windsor had just turned up, hand in hand with Megs).
Having watched many videos of the band’s short Finnish tour I wondered what audience demographic they might attract. Most of the Finns seemed to be on the young side but tonight the average age was much higher and the pace pedestrian. Making their way slowly through the vast musical complex and up a challenging flight of stairs to the Theatre doors many looked like MPs strolling to the sound of the division bell in the Commons.
There was the odd Nightwish T-shirt on show (many readers will know that three of the six-member Auri live band are also full time in that seminal group), usually sported by bearded twenty somethings. But the vast majority of folk had the air of ex members of the Peace Corps, or of a reunion of the Woodcraft Folk from the 1960s.
Gentle, peaceful people, a world away from the screaming sirens of the multiple police cars outside on Booth Street, scrambling to the scene of the latest stabbing.
But that is exactly what Auri is all about. There might be an air of mystery about them, the suggestion that they inhabit the same woods where the elves and trolls of Tuomas Holopainen’s Nightwish imagination hang out but at the end of the day what they represent is the good in the world, or at least what is left of it; the diametric opposite of the bad and the ugly that resides over a border just 20 kilometres from their Kitee base in Finland.
Their songs are the stuff of happy dreams and never of nightmares. Melodies to lull yourself to sleep to, or to fan the flames of the campfire chat before turning in for the night. “Goodnight John-Boy”, “goodnight Jim-Bob”.
Leading them is Johanna Kurkela, a woman with the grace of a gazelle, the physical looks and slight frame of a Goddess, the voice of an angel and the most dramatic red hair you have ever seen. I’m assured it isn’t a wig but it is so long that it even acts as a bum warmer against the early autumn chill of a September Manchester evening.
And she’s in great shape, effortlessly sitting down on the floor and standing up without using her hands. And she knows her way around a violin, especially the vibrato.
I’ll stop there. I’m starting to sound like a fanboy.
But as sweet as that incredible voice is, sat right behind her on keyboards with a permanent beaming smile on her face is another Johanna – Iivanainen – whose voice is even more beautiful.
Of course the two know each other well from their work in the band Altamullan Road so you would expect their harmonies to be good. But they aren’t good.
They are sensational.
Forget Floorgasms for a minute and learn a new word. These are Aurgasms and you feel them as they climax through every nerve and fibre in your body.
The stage set up followed the Finnish examples perfectly. I wouldn’t exactly say that no expense was spared in the simple woodland scene but I was taken aback by them playing the first four songs illuminated only by the candles in the lantern lights dotted around the stage.
Finnair having been on strike for most of the summer I concluded that the lighting must still be stuck at Customs at Manchester Airport.
Finally it came on, the simple cascade lighting playing its part in intensifying the mood and drama. You don’t need stacks and stacks and stacks of the stuff.
The 19-song set was split into two with a convenient toilet break for the older audience members that had spent a little too long at the bar. I recall Hugh Cornwell (ex The Stranglers) doing much the same at The Academy and no sooner had he left the stage than I was trampled out of the way by a heard of wildebeest stampeding towards the exit.
This set contained work from each of their three albums but not so many tracks from the recently released ‘III – Candles and Beginnings.’
Both halves were introduced by the growing sound of the chords from ‘A boy travelling with his mother’, the last track on the new album and an 11-minute masterpiece that is the finest piece of prog I’ve heard since the 1970s. How I wish they would actually play it live but realistically they would probably need more than the 12 arms available to them to do it. Perhaps one day?
I’m not going to list the songs played; all that stuff will probably be on SetList anyway by the time you read this and I didn’t hear any variation from the Finnish gigs. I had my personal favourites of course. ‘Duty of Dust’ stood out early on, also ‘Aphrodite Rising’, “the first song we ever released” as Troy Donockley shouted out in what was almost the only non-musical verbal communication of the entire evening (see later).
‘Them thar chanterelles’ finished the main set with a mesmerising piece of dancing from Johanna K (that makes her sound like a Franz Kafka character, doesn’t it?) while both ‘Shieldmaiden’ and ‘Pearl Diving’ – Auri’s own ‘Ghost Love Score’ – allowed them to let rip with the closest they get to rock.
But the essence of Auri’s magic can’t be measured in individual tracks. There is a unifying feel good ambience to their entire performance, even in the tracks that are darker, that I find difficult to attribute to just about other band. They often soar but any band can do that. What matters is the spot that soaring hits and only Auri knows where that is. The G-spot now succumbs to the A-spot.
And they are tight. Lord, are they tight. This was only their seventh ever gig and with a three week gap since the sixth. You’d think they’d been playing live for years. But then with Kai Hahto setting the pace behind his kit, what else might you expect?
I knew what to expect. These are musicians at the very peak of their profession and they delivered to order. “Just as I suspected, you’re just what I expected” to paraphrase ‘Pearl Diving’.
My North Wales neighbour asked me to describe it as “perfect” for that was how she saw it. And musically it was. But a critic is supposed to criticise, like it says on the tin.
I was disappointed there was not a single cover played. They’d hinted there would be “surprises” in the set but I don’t know what they were. Perhaps singing in the dark for the first few songs?
I’d hoped for only one cover and that was Nightwish’s ‘Lanternlight’, especially as (a) the stage was adorned with the things; (b) it has yet to be performed live by Nightwish; and (c) I am convinced that Johanna Kurkela together with Troy Donockley would have more than done justice to it vocally.
And I’ll add (d) – it would have brought the freaking house down.
A peculiarity of the gig to me was that there was hardly any talking whatsoever. Perhaps a grand total of 20 words that weren’t sung.
That isn’t unique by any means. Anna Calvi for example is renowned for her lack of communication at gigs – “I prefer to let my music do the talking” or something like that is her mantra. But she gets pilloried for it.
I’m not convinced that a foreign band playing gigs in the UK should be failing not only to communicate something of the meanings of their songs (even allowing for the fact that Auri songs can have multiple implied meanings) or that they shouldn’t make at least an attempt to reach out to the audience.
Perhaps crack a joke. Get the old City/United rivalry going on derby match weekend even if a large part of the audience isn’t from Manchester. Or remark that they went shopping this afternoon in Manchester and got piss wet through. Build a bridge. Create a gap in which the audience can prepare for the next piece of sublime music rather than fire song after song at them like machine gun rounds.
You can never assume that everyone in your audience knows your material back to front and inside out.
And it’s even more absurd when you realise that Troy Donockley is an acknowledged master of that sort of quick fire jokey chit-chat. He barely spoke all night.
Take the song ‘Blakey Ridge’ for example. It concerns a geographical feature in North Yorkshire close to where he lives, not a million miles from Manchester, and a pub there that is familiar to the Auri trio. In fact Troy could have driven home to feed the cats, have a cup of tea and then a pint or two in the Lion Inn after the gig before heading up to Edinburgh for the next one.
But not a single word about this before or after the song.
Putting all that aside for the moment, if you are still thinking about seeing Auri while they are in the UK, just do it. There is no knowing when the next time will be, if ever.
Edinburgh and London you are in for the treat of your lives. You are about to be charmed to death.
I’ve no photos from the night. I’m not David Bailey. Their heads would be missing. To keep you company here is ‘Pearl Diving’ from one of the Finnish gigs.
A bit about the group. Auri’s live band is:
Full time Members:
Johanna Kurkela – vocals and violin (other bands Eye of Melian, Altamullan Road and solo work)
Tuomas Holopainen – keyboards (other band Nightwish)
Troy Donockley – guitar, pipes, mouth harp, all-round multi-instrumentalist (other band Nightwish)
Additional live musicians:
Kai Hahto – drums and percussion (other bands Nightwish, Wintersun and solo work)
Johanna IIvaniainen – keyboards (other bands Altamullan Road et al and solo work)
Mikko Iivanainen – guitars.
