Il portale della musica Heavy Metal

Tuska 2024 - Day 1 - 6/28/2024 - Suvilahti - Helsinki

For the 15th or so consecutive time (who is keeping count anyway?) we went to our friendly neighbourhood metal festival: Tuska! In a surprising twist of events it has been a really hot weekend, following a really hot month, with pretty much no rain whatsoever throughout the entire three days.
Tuska has changed a lot over the years, it has become bigger, it has evolved in something much more than just a music festival thanks to all the side events and talks or other quirky activities inside of the encirclement set up in Suvilahti. There was even a wedding ceremony this year (seemingly following a contest in which from all the applicants a winner would then be drafted to end up getting married in Tuska, with big Karhu beer logos).
The bands that make up this year’s lineup have been shifting also to a different direction already for a couple of years now. Following the festival’s success of the previous edition, at least on Saturday the event was again sold out, with 20k visitors in the area. So the organisers chose to continue on the path of booking bands that appeal more towards a younger audience. One just need to look at the three headliners: Pendulum, Bring Me the Horizon, and Parkway Drive.
Speaking of younger audience, the “bring your kids along”-Sunday afternoon initiative was once again a big success. Not to mention there were some pretty young guys performing too, in the shape of the recent wave of local death metal bands that has enriched the Finnish scene. But enough with the introduction, and let’s get to the main thing.

Last year it was Avatar that opened up the celebrations at Tuska with a very lively show. This time the same task befell onto the German Eurovision-famous (not really for having won, though) Lord of The Lost. The guys from Hamburg took it with a good dose of enthusiasm and a smile on their face and, cheered by a sizeable amount of glittery fans, they definitely have been up to the expectations. Of course they couldn’t miss performing both “Blood & Glitter” and their “Cha Cha Cha” cover (Käärijä), especially in front of their Finnish fans who might have been amused by the German accent on those Finnish lyrics.
Right after their show we took a bit of an explorative break to check out the area, finding out that some body suspension performance was happening in Kattilahalli, along with all the various stands with gadgets and trinkets of all sorts being on sale. We took a glance at the varied food offer, spanning now from the basics to burritos, burgers, Indonesian food, and all sorts of exotic stuff, and positioned in multiple parts of the festival area. We tried to divert our looks from the naked people going in the tub after sauna when walking by that lane. We had some time to chill in the shadow, and drink lots and lots of water because this day was scorching hot for Finnish standards. All in all it felt quite nice, and not yet too crowded.
Eventually the time came to head back towards the main stage - this year by the way sponsored by Karhu - for those Scottish crazy pirates, you know, Alestorm.
The stage looked very packed when looking at those three gigantic inflatable ducks taking so much space behind the band, but once again Chris and his fellow band(crew-)mates got the party going, since there were plenty of excited fans of various ages and sizes cheering them up.
In a set focused heavily on their more recent material, it was refreshing to hear at least some old classic like “Back Through Time”. However it felt like the band is a bit past their glory days of boozing and raiding and looked a little tired, so to speak. Maybe that’s partly why they decided to revamp the live lineup with the addition of the German young and fiery hurdy-gurdist Patricia “Patty Gurdy” Büchler, breathing some more energy into the show.



With in mind the interminable queues and the difficulty to find a spot by the stage at the indoor Inferno stage of Tiivistämö, we headed in good time there waiting for Sick Urge to start. But we quickly realised that at least for now there was no hurry, so we still had time to go check out the first few minutes of Infected Rain at the tent stage, if anything as we had not seen them since the addition of Italian bass player Alice Lane to their ranks.
The Moldovan metalcore band has been playing around quite a bit as of late, and having just released a new record, “TIME”, during the winter, they were really eager to present these new songs live to their fans here at the festival, even after having had a club gig not too long ago. Not being a huge fan of this type of music, one thing I have to say is that at the very least Lena Scissorhands is a very charismatic - and talented - vocalist, so I can easily see why they have been getting so popular. But a few minutes into the show we had to get back were we originally planned to be, so: forwards and onwards to Sick Urge!
There has to be at least one hardcore punk band at Tuska (or something on that line), so the guys came to fill that slot and did it quite nicely. The fastest show of the entire weekend (20-minute set) was also pretty intense, and got people to ignite a small circle pit despite the horrid temperatures inside the venue and the amount of sweating. Of course the Finnish audience would probably be ran over in comparison to many other countries where you get your typical hardcore fans smashing up stuff - and everyone or everything in their way - but the intensity and energy was enough to put you in a good mood before going to the main stage once again to see Slay… I mean, Kerry King.



Essentially a supergroup made of Mark Osegueda, Paul Bostaph, Kyle Sanders, Phil Demmel and obviously Kerry King, the expectations were somehow high here, given that the last Slayer show right at this festival was probably one of the highest (and most emotional) points in the recent history of Tuska. As it often happens when the bar is set quite high, it turns out that these expectations were only partially met. So for example the songs from the band’s “From Hell I Rise” debut felt lacking in their live interpretation compared to the more positive reception on record, and ok, it was nice to see “almost Slayer” play some Slayer covers (“Chemical Warfare”, “Raining Blood”, “Black Magic”), but clearly there was a reason if Tom Araya & Co. quit when they did, and there is not much of a reason for things to drag on further it seems. But of course time will tell.
As we headed towards the evening, and with the sun still strong over the horizon, it was time for the one Italian band on this year’s lineup: Elvenking.
Clearly they didn’t like the sun either, since all of them had a hard time with in on stage: the now revamped and bigger “Open Air II” stage faced straight towards it. Not without a small delay due to some technical hiccups, the band came on stage lead by their horned vocalist. Starting from the opener of their last full-length “Reader of the Runes - Rapture”, they held to their name and gave their audience a nostalgic trip to the times when power metal was actually a big thing (let’s not forget that later in the weekend there were also Sonata Arctica and Stratovarius performing here at Tuska), for the rest, it was more of a reminder as to why that’s not the case any longer.



Yet another time we walked towards the main stage, where the Norwegians of Dimmu Borgir came to visit this festival once again, with a big black and white background picturing something in between some old folkloristic tale and a Disney castle. Wearing their usual stage costumes and props, Shagrath with that look reminiscent of the evil crow Diablo assisting Maleficient, it does make you think a bit of a dark Disney theatrical play when you think about it.
Their setlist was quite well balanced and offered an hand-picked selection of the band’s classics, which was a big plus for their fans, and of course the show was enriched by the gimmicks of Galder and the imposing presence of Silenoz and the bassist Victor - when he would come forward from the back of the stage.
In the end the band did what they came here to do, in exactly the way it was expected of them. In that sense there was not much to complain about, but while still listening to the music, it was also a good time to go pay a visit to one of the many food stalls close by.
As expected the quality of the food and of the service is not on par with the restaurant itself when it comes to a festival food stall, but inflated prices aside, it was rather disappointing that the food would be half warm and half cold while eating it. Good thing that soon after at the tent stage there was going to be Zeal & Ardor to cheer us up. The Swiss band with their American spiritual, bluesy, soul gospel mixed with black metal was exactly the right amount of weirdness needed at that moment. It gave a danceable rhythm to their hymns to devil, and of course it’s not every day you see three vocalists on stage, very understandably in this case. Definitely the most refreshing and original act in our personal Friday Tuska experience, they allowed us to go back to the main stage for Pendulum with a smile on our face.



The Aussies made everybody start dancing around to the sound of their mix of electronic and rock music, which was indeed quite engaging. But as duty called us to the indoor stage, after a few songs we sneaked in to see at least part of Suotana’s show.
Having just embarked recently in their first European tour with Finntroll and Metsatöll - we just saw them in April in Nijmegen - the guys from Lapland had now the responsibility to close the first day on the Inferno stage. Instead of their regular member Rauli Alaruikka, at bass duties we found to our initial surprise Antti Poutanen (Devenial Verdict, Church of the Dead). The band did well with a solid performance from what we could see in the latter half of the show, and definitely capitalised on this opportunity to play yet again in front of a pretty nicely-sized crowd, despite the capacity limitations of Tiivistämö.
At this point it was time to start heading downtown to On The Rocks for the afterparty with Bob Malmström and Final Assault. After waiting quite a bit for the latter to start, in what apparently was going to be their “last Helsinki show”, the Finnish thrash/hardcore band put up a really lively gig despite not being of such young age anymore. Their strong Suicidal Tendencies vibes and influences helped quite a lot to get into the music, and they did and excellent job in warming up the crowd for Bob Malmström and their funny shenanigans.
It’s always entertaining to watch these guys going on about the lavish lifestyle of Swedish-speaking Finns as much as it is fun to watch their dedicated fanbase going nuts at each and every song. Also mindful of the more international audience - like last time at Tuska - the guys have been nice enough to explain some useful Swedish to the foreign part of the the crowd. Of course like always when having a good time, things seem to have ended even too fast, and it was time to head home and recover some energies before the second day.

See all galleries from Friday
Tuska 2024 - Day 2 report
Tuska 2024 - Day 3 report





Report a cura di Marco Manzi