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Tuska Open Air 2011 - Day 3 - 7/24/2011 - Suvilahti - Helsinki

That feeling of tiredness and satisfaction, mixed with a little of nostalgic memories as you slowly come back to reality, is what normally characterize the last day of a festival. Nonetheless this time is the same, as I approach to Suvilahti way earlier than the previous two days. The reason being called Impaled Nazarene, finally! It’s been 3 years since last time I saw the guys playing live, not that they’ve been performing often recently. And that’s also why there is already quite some people watching. Some good black’n’roll early in the morning (or better, afternoon), that’s a good way to wake up!
The guys get the audience involved especially with their material from “Suomi Finland Perkele”, more than of course the newest pieces. And the gig puts everyone in a good mood, which clashes a little with the next band I’m going to see.
As Kvelertak is playing on the EMP stage, I’m instead at the small club stage to follow Totalselfhatred, for the second time within about a week. Here the atmosphere is definitely different from the funny music of Impaled Nazarene, being more about loneliness and dark feelings. But I enjoy the show, and I find it suits really well with what’s coming next on the same stage (Shining). The band doesn’t really do anything fancy during their gig, playing many songs from their new record, and a few from the debut. Still a nice performance, although the audience was really quiet. But you sure don’t get many people moshing to this kind of music!
Next on the main stage is instead Meshuggah. The best thing for me when it comes to the swedish band, is to see the weird faces that Fredrik Thordental does during the show. That’s the most amusing part!
The band seems to have forgotten, at least for most part, that they had a career going also in the nineties, focusing mostly on their most recent works, which I don’t really find a brilliant idea. But you get what they give you, so I guess I shouldn’t be complaining about this too much. The show in itself is quite good, or at least the guys know how to satisfy their fans. Some older songs come at the end of the set with “Straws Pulled At Random” and the conclusive “Future Breed Machine”, but there’s not much left in me from this concert. Maybe it’s just the awesomeness of the day before that makes it seem worse.
I then quickly check out Shining, since the schedule is once again pretty tight to handle, thus I can follow only a small part of the show, where surprisingly Niklas Kvarforth doesn’t seem to be as irreverent and wild as usual. His traditional hoodie on, and just some cigs and the inseparable bottle of Jim Beam are all he needs to have on stage. But for what I can see there’s only some alcohol spitting, no blood or any particularly weird action pulled on stage. If we don’t count slapping the bass player. Shining has been playing here on Finnish soil quite often recently, and now with the new album out, it’s one more chance to get it embedded into their follower’s heads. The show is not maybe so “shocking” as usual, but seems still ok.
It’s time though to move again, this time to the Inferno tent for Jex Thoth. The american act has also played here already last weekend, and it’s a big pleasure to see them again as well. I was somehow hoping that it was just by chance that the keyboard player Clay Ruby was missing last time, but instead I get the confirmation that he is no more part of the band. Which is a shame cause I really think that some songs are missing something live without this element.
However Jex is always Jex, and her character is more than enough to make a pretty damn good show, supported of course by the (maybe heavier?) riffs of Matt Jacobs, and a restless Danny at the bass.
But the main attraction is her, moving in fits and starts on stage, sometimes seemingly looking down on the crowd (but not in a negative way), and enticing the fans with her mysterious charm. As well as of course her irresistible voice. That’s what makes her shows always worth (beside the fact that I really like the music).
“When The Raven Calls”, “Raven Nor The Spirit”, “Warrior Woman”, are only a few of the highlights of this gig, which is truly enjoyable from the beginning to the end. This time Jex has also her “usual” knife and candle on stage, which she lights wavering it in the air, and that was missing in the previous concert. Always a good addiction to an intense and already captivating performance. I miss the last song, unfortunately, to go to follow Amorphis on the bigger stage.
The band makes wide use of fireworks and flames in the first three songs of the set, which begins with “My Enemy”. I’m not a big fan of the band, but some visual effect always helps. Tomi Joutsen is anyway a quite talented singer, and with his usual weird-microphone-thing in hand, waves his long dreadlocks back and forth moving from side to side of the stage.
More “quiet” in this sense are the other guys, who focus more on playing their respective instruments, smiling at the crowd from time to time as “Song Of The Troubled One”, “Towards And Against”, and the good “My Kantele” pass by one by one. I think the band delivered quite well to the audience what they wanted, since the people there seemed pretty excited. My head is though already at that long-awaited 15 minutes break before Turisas show.
The Varangian guards are announced by a little fan of theirs, with red/black face painting of course. Kids grow with some nice music here in Finland! I think Turisas is one of those bands which you have to see live to really enjoy it at its fullest. Bringing their fans “To Holmgard And Beyond” before having “One More” and then “Take The Day!”. They are always powerful on stage and their energy is passed to the audience. Something not all bands can do.
During the songs the duos Mathias/Jussi and Olli/Netta forms and divides themselves while playing, with Hannu showing his tongue to the fans. Everyone seems to have fun, which is how it should be! “Hunting Pirates” gives more of an Alestorm-feeling to the show, which couldn’t end in a different way than with “Battle Metal”. Or I would have been disappointed!
Again another very lively and entertaining show of these guys from the region of Häme, at least on par with what showed at this year’s Sauna Open Air, and I’d say somehow better than in Hellfest, but maybe it’s just that feeling that the home-crowd gives you, which adds to the gig.
The final moments of the festival are among the best ones. What better ending would there be to this Tuska if not with Amon Amarth? The Swedish vikings lead by their leader Johan Hegg have conquered the houses of many fans in the last decade, as one can see from all the people still gathered there for the last gig of this year’s edition.
A huge orange-looking backdrop shows Surtur wielding his sword right above the five guys, who enter the stage in fire and flames with the new “War Of The Gods”. From here on is a whole bunch of tracks which I absolutely love, and being the only band left I can finally take the chance to let myself go to the music. Madness. “Free Will Sacrifice” and “The Last With Pagan Blood” follow, and AA is as awesome as I could remember since the previous time.
Johan doesn’t miss the chance to compliment the Finnish audience, cheering and headbanging like crazy, while the two guitarists do their good job after a bit of adjustments with the sounds at the beginning. The band gives a damn good vibe to the show, which is however not the best I’ve ever seen of them. Still I was missing my Amon Amarth dose from even too much time, and this makes finally up for it.
We are at half of the show when “Asator” and “Guardians of Asgaard” comes to ignite the spirit of the people attending this gig under the Finnish evening sun (it’s still just after 20:00!). More fireworks follows even though I confess that the show would have been way more effective if it would have been darker already, since you can barely see the lights and so on.
When “Cry Of The Blackbirds” arrives, I know that we are closing towards the end, and climax into one of my personal favourite: “Death In Fire”. Of course with flames and everything, not that the atmosphere wasn’t already hot enough. But it’s not the end. Not yet. “Runes To My Memory” gives that touch of nostalgic feeling to the whole thing, while “Twilight Of The Thunder God” gives enough charge for the final stand. What was missing you might ask? As we are in Scandinavia could “Pursuit Of Vikings” be left out? Obviously not! And as mighty as ever it sweeps away the last bits of this Tuska 2011. Amon Amarth did what they do best. Being Amon Amarth, which is equal to awesome.

With no more acts playing (if we don’t consider the aftershows), what’s left for most of the people, audience, artists, crew etc., is drinking drinking and drinking. Oh, and party! Today’s best acts are undoubtedly for me Amon Amarth, Turisas and Jex Thoth, and I still can’t get off my head those goddamn songs while I head to the center to one of the many “jatkoklubi” events.
To conclude with a final note, I’m still not sure about the new location of Tuska, but it turned out to suit quite nicely to the festival, and there hasn’t been any major problem in the whole three days. Except the comprehensibly long queues for the fans at the signing sessions, but that doesn’t really count. It’s a shame though that it wasn’t possible to bring your own alcohol with you anymore, which accounted maybe for more sober people in the area?
This was the first year in the new venue, so we’ll see how it turns out the next one, and I’ll be looking forward to some more “tuska” of this kind once again!


Photos:
Amon Amarth


Black Crucifixion


Turisas


GAF


Amorphis


Jex Thoth


Shining


Meshuggah


Totalselfhatred


Kvelertak


Impaled Nazarene


Report a cura di Marco Manzi