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Tuska Open Air 2015 - 6/26/2015 - Suvilahti - Helsinki

Another year, another Tuska. Despite rains and ugly weather leading up to the weekend, as expected not a single drop of water fell during Tuska. The festival was, as always, extremely well organized, and had some great additions, such as a fine dining possibility (didn’t test it) and a free tent sauna (enjoyed the fuck out of it). Seriously, if you wanted to relax during the festival you could just enjoy the big and wonderful tent with a Saunamaster even taking care of the temperature and steam, and be sure that your stuff was safe with the cloakroom provided for free. I pray this will become a tradition for years to come, because if there is one thing that helps against festival fatigue and sore muscles it’s a good sauna. Also, as previous times there was an Alepa container where you could buy food and (non-alcoholic) drinks and general festival gear for the same price as any normal store, at a festival! Can you imagine that? (maybe this is something only a Finn can appreciate...)

FRIDAY 26th



I kinda saw Ghost Brigade, but most of it I missed due to all the excitement. The growls and the guitars sounded as they should, but the rest was drowned out by all the socializing Tuska makes possible. I heard Architects in the background, with their core-ish breakbeat riffs while heading to check out Apina. Some rapped lines combined with clean and growled vocals and some interesting riffs made this one interesting, but it requires a bit more listening to make up my mind. One of the bands which caused a stir with metal purists beforehand, along with Saturday’s Atomirotta (who I missed so no comments there) with their clear rap influences.



Blues Pills play 70’s inspired bluesrock and were the most out-of-place band during the entire festival in my view, but I’m real glad they were there to break up the mood. With amazing vocals, frantic dancing and tambourine playing, Elin Larsson captivated the audience, with the rest of the band taking care that the songs flowed on. Definitely the best “neo 70’s” bands I’ve seen, and one of the best sets of the first day. At the same time, Tuska competition winner Aeons Confer played their electronic influenced riff-heavy metal.



The most highly awaited of Friday’s acts must’ve been Lamb of God hands down. Randy Blythe mentioned several times the unfortunate canceling of their previous Tuska appearance, the tragic story of which most metal heads have already heard. Randy was arrested and incarcerated for weeks upon their re-entry of Czech Republic in 2012 for causing the death of a fan during a chaotic live performance years before. He avoided a sentence, but his experiences have mostly given shape to the newest LoG album soon to be released. “512” and “Still Echoes” really whet the appetite to hear the full album. Sadly, most of the gig suffered from blurry mixing (as did almost all bands on the main stage) and barely audible vocals, but the groove and aggression still made this gig amazing.




What can really be said about a legend like Exodus? The playing was exact as should be with good mixing, but the main thought in my head was how Steve Souza is THE man and voice of Exodus. The insane sounds he can produce are just a perfect match to their vein of thrash. The main act of the night, Sabaton, sadly didn’t leave as strong an impact. They still use the overly long double intros including the whole goddamn Europe song. Then come first song, there’s no vocals to be heard, or guitars for that matter. It took half of “Ghost Division” to fix this, which is inexcusable for a band of their size. With the matter fixed they sadly didn’t focus on playing their trademark songs or entertaining the crowd, but instead spent waaaaaaay too long doing some retarded stand up skits with mine removal and Joakim “attempting” to play the guitar (come on, he’s the main composer, we all know he can play) and just constant talking instead of what people came to see. No amount of amazing flame pyros or having a tank on stage can save a set if the band would rather be on a D-grade Saturday Night Live than performing on a metal festival. Also, “Carolus Rex” in English in Finland? For SHAME!

Friday photogallery: Friday

SATURDAY 27th

Saturday was the first time I ever cursed a Pride parade, not because of the historic legalization of same-sex marriage in America during Friday (woo, go civil rights!!), but cause my worthless planning combined with the massive parade made me miss the first songs of Bloodbath. I had huge doubts about Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes doing growls due to the immense boots of Mikael Åkerfeldt and Peter Tägtgren he’d be filling, but was blown away by his stage presence. Yeah, he did read the lyrics put on his monitor and he did fumble a few parts, but he looked like a blooddrenched Halford (if Rob had hair) and sounded like a long-dead ghoul. The band absolutely killed, and the only weird part of the set was how early they were performing. Nick even noted that this would be the only opportunity ever to see them in sunlight.



I would never have checked out Shiraz Lane (them being glam), but having had a very stimulating interview the day before with the guys I was compelled to check them out live. It’s nothing short of insane that a band with a single EP out and an average age of 22 can sound so completely ready and professional. The sheer energy and joy of performing would’ve been amazing on their own, but the technical virtuosity in e.g. the guitar solos and the personal sound of the vocals was nothing short of mind-blowing. I’m convinced these guys are gonna go far.



The greatest surprise and new acquaintance of the festival was Ne Obliviscaris. An Australian progressive death metal band who employ a violin to create their unique moods, they would’ve forever remained unknown to me and most others had they not managed to crowdfund their world tour. Their songs flow with amazing grace thru brutal parts with blastbeats and growls to atmospheric parts with haunting clean vocals and lead violin. This is truly a band to experience yourself, and something can be said about a band which I simply can’t stop listening to even after Tuska ended. A true culture deed by the festival organizers.




I mostly heard a bit of Loudness when walking in and out of the festival area, and the thing that stood out were the vocals. I was quite surprised when I noted them being Japanese, since they sounded so American. I quickly checked out Sotajumala, but they sounded exactly like in Steelfest, so I just stopped to wonder why they were playing the tiny indoors stage, being probably the biggest death metal act in Finland. On the main stage Amorphis were playing their 20th anniversary gig for Tales From the Thousand Lakes. Joutsen’s vocals really fit songs like “Black Winter Day”, and the guitar leads were a joy to listen to.




The band I most looked forward to was definitely Abbath. With the second break up of Immortal, Abbath decided to form a new band, and what better place to have their world debut than Tuska! With songs from I’s “Between Two Worlds”, a new Abbath song and dual-guitar versions of Immortal classics, the set was nothing short of amazing. With Abbath celebrating his birthday, he was clearly in an excellent mood, doing his crabwalks and fire-breathing like there was no tomorrow. The fact that you could barely hear his guitar was secondary to the amazing show put forth. Probably the best act of the entire Tuska.




In Flames opened their set with “Only for the Weak” and really got the crowd going. Overall I felt like the set was more geared towards a metal audience, with songs like “Bullet Ride” and “Drifter”. Still, after my personal favorite “Cloud Connected” was over I was done with the festival for Saturday. Call it getting old or festival fatigue, but it’s getting harder and harder to watch the main act’s set until the end...

Saturday photogallery: Saturday

SUNDAY 28th




The final day was opened by Mors Subita. I really enjoyed their debut album, but with the change of vocalist they are fast falling below the radar for me. I love the melodies and riffs, but I can’t listen to a guy just going BLAABLAABLAA for half an hour. I instead decided to check out Kylmä Sota, since the name sounded like they could be hc punk. Well, they were and really good at that! With a female bassist doing background shouts, they were a perfect wake-up for a tired Sunday morning, kicking ass and taking names. Perfectly suited for the inside stage, it was a slightly surreal feeling walking from a proper punk gig into the blazing sunlight with Warmen playing their Journey cover “Separate Ways” (which I just happened to have listened the entire morning on repeat before venturing to Suvilahti). They really managed to play a proper gig in only 50 minutes, with Pasi Rantanen, Jonna Geagea and Alexi Laiho doing their own vocals divided into segments. Jonna was straight from maternity leave on stage, and it was a bit weird seeing half of the former Finnish pop group Nylon Beat sharing the stage with three fifths of Children of Bodom. A really entertaining show all-in-all, culminating in their radio hit “Somebody’s Watching Me”.



I hadn’t really listened to Mokoma in years, but their new album “Elävien kirjoihin”, the titular track opening their set, was simply mind-blowing and a must buy. A concept album about vocalist Marko Annala’s latest fight with crippling depression, the personal take on the subject matter really hammers the point home. “Mutta minulta puuttuisi rakkaus” drove the more hardcore metal fans away, but the sing-along of the entire crowd was quite something to behold. It’s also kinda incredible how brutal Marko’s growls are considering he’s over forty and has mostly done clean vocals.




I walked past Opeth onstage, while Mikael Åkerfeldt was dissing Finns for having an inferior hockey team than Sweden. I think I heard all I needed of their set. Instead of watching Stratovarius I tested out the amazing tent sauna, but what I heard from actual fans of the band, their anniversary “Visions” show wasn’t really up to the expectations with the guys just standing around and the energy of old being a faded memory at best.




The final act of Tuska this year was the living legend Alice Cooper. The guys from Sabaton (and pretty much all the others too) should study how he does his Show with a capital S. No idle time wasted on useless chit-chat, instead even the wardrobe changes were done so that a maximum amount of hit songs could be fitted into the time allotted. With three guitarists, one of which has been voted the best female guitarist in the world, the riffs had the heaviness they desperately needed on albums. With Michael Monroe from Hanoi Rocks fame joining him on stage for a song, this was a great way to end yet another amazing Tuska.

As always, the weekend is way too short and the wait for the next Tuska way too long.


Sunday photogallery: Sunday
Crowd photo collection: People
All photos from Tuska 2015: Tuska Open Air 2015

Report a cura di Markus Karppinen, all photos by Marco Manzi