Line-up

Headliner
Airbourne Last time in Helsinki: 8 years ago

Venue

Allas

Kajatanokanlaituri, 00160, Helsinki, Finland

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Airbourne biography

Hailing from the town of Warrnambool, Victoria in Australia in 2003, Airbourne have brought back to the mainstream, a classic rock sound driven by guitars and gritty vocals, adorning catchy choruses that have earned the band a global following.

Brothers, Ryan and Joel O’Keeffe, came together to form a band in 2003 and recruited David Roads and Adam Jacobson. They worked at the Hotel Warrnambool and would bring their instruments to work so that after their shifts they could jam out song ideas. They went on to win a competition, called Push-On in Melbourne. It was their self-funded eight track EP entitled “Ready to Rock” that appeared in July 2004, that fell into the hands of Capitol Records whom they signed a five album record deal with.

It was a journey to the US for the band to work on their debut studio album, “Runnin’ Wild” with Bob Marlette who had produced albums with Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper. The album was released in Australia on June 23rd 2007, and they released three singles from the album; “Runnin’ Wild”, “Too Much Too Young Too Fast” which featured on Guitar Hero; World Tour and “Diamond in the Rough”. The album made it to the top 30 of the ARIA Albums Chart in Australia, and even managed to chart in Austria, Switzerland and France. Nearing the end of 2007, they supported Kid Rock and Korn and at the start of 2008, they moved permanently to the US. Their album by this point had charted on the UK Albums Chart, and on the Billboard 200.

At the beginning of 2009, Airbourne headed back into the studio to record their sophomore album “No Guts. No Glory”. It was later released on March 8th 2010. The song “Born to Kill” was played on BBC Radio 1’s Rock Show. It reached the top 20 on the ARIA Albums Chart, and also in five other countries. They were fortunate enough to support Iron Maiden on their Final Frontier World Tour from July 20th to August 1st 2011. The band announced in November 2011 that they had been working on a new album. That album would be called “Black Dog Barking” and would go on to reach to top forty of ten countries.

Live reviews

“Guitar music is dead!” is a phrase that has not been infrequently thrown around over the past decade. Yet whilst rock music might not dominate the mainstream, this is clearly a falsity. One band which refuses to let hard rock die is Australian quartet Airbourne, who have released some of the finest fist-pumping riffs since 2003. Playing Gibson Explorers with big, wild, curly hair, they certainly look the part. Releasing three studio albums thus far, they have proven that their riotous and energetic music could have stood up against the biggest hair-metal bands of the 80s.
Their set at German festival Rock Am Ring in 2013 brought enough power and vigour to have induced severe concussion in the audience from the sheer amount of uncontrollable head-banging. Their music is made to be played in stadiums, to which they received a roar of appreciation as they played tracks “Running Wild,” “Diamond in the Rough” and “Black Dog Barking.” After the atmospheric intro, they ran out to stage going straight into “Ready to Rock,” with the crowd certainly feeling the band’s massive energy, jumping wildly in appreciation.
One of the best things about Airbourne is simply that their music is just pure fun. Too often humour is lost due to artistic pretensions but the likes of Airbourne restore a sense of reckless joy that comes from just having fun, rocking out with your friends. Hearing their songs takes you back to a time when posing in front of a mirror with your guitar slung low made you feel fantastic and full of wild dreams of playing to thousands of people. Listening to Airbourne keeps this spirit alive, eroding any self-consciousness and embarrassment at raising your devil horns and ferociously nodding your head.

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