During the second song, “Vampire Heart”, you could still feel the emotion of the crowd as they continued chanting the chorus line to the song.  During all of this, a bra even flew over my head and landed right in front of where I was taking pictures.  With this being the first time for me to see HIM, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but one thing was for certain people love this band.

For a group that started in 1995 as a cover band in Finland playing songs from artists such as KISS, Danzig, and Black Sabbath, they have come a long way.  They were almost unknown in the states for so many years until skater, Bam Margera, began using the heartogram symbol and playing their music on his TV show.  They started catching peoples attention and began to build a large fan base here in the US.  For some time now, they have been very well known in Europe and have drawn huge crowds there.

Their stage set was very impressive as huge chandeliers hung from the ceiling and candles lit parts of the stage.  The lighting really made the show, giving each song its own feel.  But don’t think for a second that HIM is all lights and props.  They come with one of the most amazing voices in Ville Valo I have ever heard.  His stage presence is felt by all, but felt even more is the large range his voice has.  He goes from deep growls and melodic lyrics to powerful wails, bringing their music to life.

Not to be outdone by Ville, Linde and Mig’e both took the spotlight with guitar solos during the set, as well as Gas’ drum solo on one of the biggest drum kits I have ever seen.  With it’s three huge bass drums that have the HIM logo across them, Gas filled the theater with drum beats that you could feel deep into your chest.  Their live show translates very well with all the songs sounding just as you would hope to hear them.

They seemed to play through a never-ending set going through song after song.  One of the things I remember most is before playing “Killing Loneliness”, Ville told a story of how a friend of his had been hooked on drugs, and said during his addiction he gave him the title to the song by saying the drugs killed his loneliness.  The crown really seemed to understand.  After Ville preformed the song, he said with a  little grin, “All that stuff I said before was just bullshit.  Its just a love song…”

At the end of their set They went in to a encore and played a few more songs but what really made the night was the last song they played was a cover of Black Sabbaths “Iron Man” and if you didn’t know any better you would have thought Ozzy and Sabbath were  up on stage. And with that final gift they left the stage with fans showing them much deserved applause.