Faith No More – an immense experience and exceeding ambience created and served to the eager festival crowd by Mike Bordin, Roddy Bottum, Billy Gould and the one and only Mike Patton, a man without a measure and a verbal acrobat extraordinaire.
The Second Coming tour and this year’s festival received a worthy closure when the Ilosaarirock’s own adopted son Mike Patton orchestrated the performance of the century on (and at times, off) the Main Stage. The people got what they came for – the Patton show was as staggering, mercurial and full of surprises as expected.
The road to Ilosaarirock has been long and instead of the last year’s italo-charmer, FNM presented the listeners with different Patton – more rugged, sometimes defiantly temperamental, a grown man with an aggressive but gentle caress for the audience.
Growls, roars, croaks, yells, barks, whispers, sighs, rapping, operatic style and just plain old singing, seasoned with a megaphone. The man’s repertoire seems endless; it’s pointless to try to describe in words what the maestro’s vocal chords are capable of, that’s something everybody have to find out by listening themselves.
The hypnotic tones of Midnight Cowboy eased the gathered masses into the show, whereas the following From Out of Nowhere saw Patton kick into full gear and the microphone stand flew into the midst of the photographers. Be Aggressive was already Patton as we like him – screaming, beatboxing, with a manic gleam in his eye.
The cameramen managed commendably to capture the many faces of the vocalist on the screen, so that all might have a go at trying to read the inner workings of the man they came to see. Patton is at the same time a cameraman’s dream come true and their worst nightmare; a true artist, uniquely expressive but also conscious of his status and unpredictable in his movements.
The frontman conversed with the audience in his trademark style, and played around with the Finnish words known to him; kiitos and Joensuu were repeated throughout the gig in different variations. At times the maestro was seemingly a little bit frustrated with the audience’s contribution and always found something to comment on. “Oh my goodness, I’m coming into my pants”, Mike graciously reported when he finally was happy with the people’s participation rate during Epic.
At the beginning the listeners saw Patton’s back more than usual, but in the latter half of the gig, Mike’s stage dive and consequential crowd surfing truly made the connection between the band and the audience. The comment, “I feel like I got raped”, was highly descriptive of the physically vigorous encounter.
The keyboardist Roddy Bottum showed himseld a true gentleman when he was able to wrest the floor for a moment at the end of the show to give thanks to the tour crew and the audience, and afterwards through Twitter, to the whole of Finland: ”it’s true… 20,000 drunk finns can’t be wrong. FNM rule. and thank you. what a fucking glorious country”.
In addition to the more ferocious acts, the FNM extravaganza offered romantic melodies and moments full of love, partly with new lyrics and arrangements. In the middle of I’m Just a Man, Patton snatched a camera from one of the cameramen and what followed was a video shoot, Patton style, as both the camera and the man ranged in the front row. A communal falling-in-love was a fact during This Guy’s In Love With You at the latest, and Mike’s heart-piercing appeal “say that you’re in love with this guy”, was met with the only possible reply. Yes, we do love you Mike, notwithstanding, and because, all your quirks.
Text: Mirka Sunimento
Translation: Jari Rytkönen
