My review of The Midnight gig in Helsinki on 17 September 2025:
When The Midnight starts a little after eight, I look around for Tim McEwan, but he's nowhere to be seen on stage. A quick online search and a Reddit thread suggest that Tim isn't on tour with the band. What a shame. Instead, the live band group is completely different from 2019, when I last saw The Midnight at Tavastia Club. Back then, Tim played electric drums, and there was a guitarist, saxophonist and a singer in addition to the vocalist Tyler Lyle. Now there is a drummer (yes, real drums), a lead guitarist, a saxophonist-keyboardist, and another guitarist. In addition, Tyler is of course tweaking the synthesizer machine of his own in between.
I have to say that these real drums don't create the right atmosphere. I like the electronic softness of The Midnight and synthwave. The rough drums make Midnight sound like a cheap rock band when they play live. The band also seems to be doing weird, different versions of their songs live these days. The only song I really enjoy, and which gives me chills, is Shadows. The audience sings along nicely to some of the songs, but for example the "singing" parts during Gloria fail out miserably when it takes too long before the final vocal part without instruments, where the audience doesn't understand or dare to sing along anymore. At Tavastia, the audience sang so loudly that it was great to listen to. Now the drums and instruments in general are way too loud so that you can't even hear the audience singing before it stops completely.
Overall, the gig is a bit of a disappointment, 3/5, when their debut gig in Finland in 2019 was a solid 5/5. Well, at least I went. I probably won't go to another city to see this band a third time, even though they are my all-time favorite.
#TheMidnight #Synthwave #Music #LiveShows #LiveMusic #Electronic #ElectronicMusic
