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On May 8th, HIM put on a great performance at the Tempe Marquee Theatre in Arizona. This was the setlist for the night, though it may not be in the exact order as I‘m not sure if I recall it correctly.

Buried Alive By Love
Wicked Game
Right Here In My Arms
It's All Tears (Drown in this Love)
Your Sweet 666
Join Me
Bury Me Deep Inside Your Heart
Beyond Redemption
Death Is In Love With Us
Loose You Tonight
Razorblade Kiss
The Sacrament
Poison Girl
Soul On Fire

Well, Kill Hannah played first, and although they were a bit better than expected, I didn’t really take any sort of liking to them, nor to 18 Visions who played second. I won’t go into any more detail on them because HIM’s what it was all about.

HIM came on stage at about 10:10 PM after a pretty long wait (well, it was about 15 minutes but it seemed a lot longer, especially in that brutal heat. It was so damn hot in there, and water bottles were thrown out to just about everyone in the crowd but myself, by both Ville and the security people) after 18 Visions finished playing. I made it up to the front row and was there for about the first 3 songs that HIM played, but after that I was pushed back to the 2nd row of people.

But anyways, HIM came on stage and started it off with Buried Alive By Love. (Oh, and just to point it out, Gas didn’t have his 3 bass drums with H I M spelled out on them at the show. And, of course, Ville drank and smoked his way throughout, periodically saluting and waving to us)

The crowd was a lot more supportive and responsive than I had thought they would be. To be honest, I was expecting most of the people there to know next to none of their songs besides maybe what’s on Razorblade Romance. But I was surprised when it sounded like just about everyone was singing along with Buried Alive By Love (not to mention during the song someone threw on stage the flag of Finland, which Ville went and placed near the drum set), and were screaming “Buried Alive By Love” when Ville stepped back to let the crowd singe the interlude to the chorus.

Most everyone sang along to each and every song, and Ville seemed happy/surprised by that fact, although it seemed like I was the only one there who knew Loose You Tonight =/. But anyways, yeah, after Buried Alive By Love they played Wicked Game. Right before they started quieting down to go into the 6th verse of the song, I and the people around me could smell something that smelled like something was on fire. We turned to our right to see some guy run up on stage and point out to Linde that the PA was on fire. So the song had to be stopped and the guys walked off stage as the PA fire got taken care of. They came back on about 5 minutes later and finished up Wicked Game. I thought the whole fire incident was handled by them quite well, and Ville was joking about it throughout the show, about how it “wasn‘t an accident.”

After that, they went straight into Right Here In My Arms, It’s All Tears and Your Sweet 666. Before Your Sweet 666, Ville explained that there are a lot of people who tend to think that the song’s about “Satan,” and right when he said that much of the crowd started frantically cheering.

Ville then chuckled and said “Well, sorry to disappoint you all, then, because it’s not,” then proceeded to tell of its real meaning. (I can’t remember what exactly he said about it, so I won’t try to repeat it) Then came the ever-popular Join Me to which the crowd was screaming every lyric of. Following that was Bury Me Deep Inside Your Heart, and before they started playing it, Ville said, “This one’s for all you tough guys out there who say it’s just sweat running from your eyes down your face.” Afterwards came an awesome performance of Beyond Redemption, followed by Death is in Love with Us and Loose You Tonight.

After that was time for a little interaction with the crowd. One fan screamed out “Don’t Fear the Reaper!” to which Ville chuckled and explained that it would be impossible for them to play that even if they wanted to, because without the female voice it’d “lose all its sentimentality.” He also explained that they tried to play it live once with Mige singing along with Ville, but it didn’t work out too great because of how Mige sounded.

The band had a good laugh at that as Mige shrugged his shoulders in embarrassment. After that discussion, someone from the crowd (who was probably drunk) shouted out “Circle of Beer!” Ville just laughed at the guy and mumbled the word “beer” a few times before explaining to him that it’s “Circle of Fear, not Circle of Beer,” and they “unfortunately wouldn’t be playing that tonight.”

Then it was time to continue with the show as they played The Sacrament, followed by Razorblade Kiss, Poison Girl, and then ending it with another amazing performance of Soul On Fire. HIM walked off stage (Gas with the Finnish flag around his neck after throwing his drumsticks out into the crowd - I just missed catching one; damn) as the crowd demanded an encore, but unfortunately there wasn’t one, and the show ended at about 11:45 PM.

It was really a great experience and it was even better than I had though it would be, and I expected it to be absolutely great to begin with. Everything about it was amazing (except the heat).. The songs they played, the interaction, the crowd, etc. I guess all I can do now is hope HIM comes back to AZ for their next US Tour.

“and The Path goes on..”