Il portale della musica Heavy Metal

Tuska 2024 - Day 3 - 6/30/2024 - Suvilahti - Helsinki

And so - as always - all things must end, and we arrived at the final day of Tuska 2024. Still surprisingly no rain and a little bit of breeze that helped fighting the heat lingering over Finland for the previous several weeks, with a quick stop to the store and a relaxed lunch in the nearby park, we headed inside the festival area for one last time this year.

Remember the parallels we did also in the previous days with having at least one band representing a certain genre in these last editions? (if you haven’t checked day 1 and day 2 reports, do it now!) Well, here was the time for some synthwave, and for NightStop, to be more precise. The trio was surprisingly fun to watch - surprisingly because we had literally zero expectations, not knowing much of the band beforehand - yet they managed to put everyone in a good mood, while having fun themselves playing with their over the top glasses and fur coats, transforming the tent into an impromptu dance floor for the duration of their gig.
In the meanwhile German symphonic metallers Beyond The Black were getting ready for the first show of the day on the main stage. With an additional catwalk added to it - the band lead by the young Jennifer Haben started with her right at the edge close to the audience, happily playing drums and singing. Not sure why everyone seemed so happy on stage but it was somewhat contagious as the band, heavily inspired by the Dutch symphonic metal wave that includes Within Temptation, Delain, Epica, went through their catalogue with a mix of old(er) and new(er) material. To be honest I thought there was not much yet this genre had to offer, but maybe I was too quick to dismiss it (then again personally Within Temptation stands at the pinnacle of it all and it’s not going to be ousted any time soon). Still nice to see there are younger bands with passion and means to pump some new lifeblood in this kind of music.



Much like Tarot but for different reasons, it was a long time since we last saw Warmen live, probably still at this very same festival. In fact it was a bit surprising to see Petri Lindroos at the vocals, as well as Church of the Dead’s Seppo Tarvainen behind the drums. Not to mention Janne Warman’s lack of hair. So yeah, it had been a while. With a new album out last year (“Hero for none”) after almost a decade’s worth of wait, the obvious focus was on that record as well as on a few Children of Bodom’s covers (“In Your Face”, “Hate Me!” for instance). Again striking on a nostalgic chord for the people present at the show.
But the day was getting at its busiest for us today, so we ran quickly to the indoor stage for Tampere-based industrial, Godflesh-influenced act Dome Runner. It’s always a pleasure to see these guys live - ever since the first time we got to witness them at a small event in the nearby Oranssi building - and glad to see they righteously earned themselves a spot at this year’s Tuska, showing once again that good effort pays off. They still entertained and got entertained with the same intensity and enthusiasm on stage, especially from the vocalist/guitarist Simo Perkiömäki, and the crowd could clearly feel that. The smaller, indoor gigs at Tuska are usually some of the best ones exactly because you can feel much closer to the band, and feed off their energy!



Immediately after, it was time for the “house band” of Tuska. If you have been here in the last few years, chances are you have seen Lost Society at least a bunch of times. The funny thing is that every time they seem a bit different, ever evolving in some direction that changes constantly to the point is almost hard to keep up.
What doesn’t change is how the Tuska fans love the band and how hot the atmosphere gets with all those flames on stage. It’s fun to remember that these guys now edging towards their 30s used to be the same very young teens devoted to thrash metal who brazenly conquered the fans a decade or so ago, before the band grew up into its current form. They still clearly enjoy what they do, and their frontman Samy Elbanna is a true driving force that makes this band so appealing to the younger generations.
For something totally different we went again to the tent stage. This was one of the most, if not the most interesting show of the day, courtesy of Faroese folk singer Eivør Palsdóttir a.k.a. Eivør. One would think that for a metal festival, Tuska has a lot of non-metal acts this days, but when the choice falls on such bands we don’t really mind, in a good way of course. While the artist has just released a couple of weeks ago her new record “Enn”, it’s on her hits that the audience is clearly focused on. And while getting lost in these melodies and the sound of her drum along with her beautiful vocals, we forgot everything else for a moment, just living in the present and enjoying the music. Bonus points for the beautiful work with the lights that nicely framed the artist and the other musicians on stage, contributing to set up this magical atmosphere.



Another familiar presence at Tuska is certainly Mikael Åkerfeldt with his Opeth. The band played quite a lot of old songs from their early records, which was actually not such a bad choice. Not the kind of band one would go to see for their show in itself but definitely for the music, it was not the worst background soundtrack in the evening quest for dinner (which this time landed on loaded fries, and it was actually the most adequate choice of the weekend). Chilling on a hammock with food and a nice cold drink helped to muster the last bits of energy for the evening. Also I hope the young lady that was stuck on top of the wall like a cat - and then managed somewhat to jump down and run into the crowd - enjoyed her festival after that!
So it was time for the final shows. First the last one indoors, featuring the aptly named Swansong: the melodic death band from Kuopio features a former Verjnuarmu member at the guitar as well as Sadistik Forest and Se, Josta Ei Puhuta drummer, but most eyes are of course towards the singer Jemiina who skilfully lead a performance befitting of the ending credits on this year’s edition. Having just released their first full-length record last year, that’s the obvious focus of the show, with the fans enjoying and sweating inside for one last time before heading either away from the festival or to Parkway Drive, who once again are tasked with closing the festival like in their previous Tuska appearance.



There were flames, sparks, fireworks flying, and spikes everywhere on stage for the Australian’s show (and at some point I heard also a violin). So there was a lot going on, with the singer Winston McCall being very active and jumping around with limitless energy. Like at the end of every Tuska though - as per our tradition - we were not much focused on the show as much as towards the audience, as we walked through the entire festival area one last time (you can check the dedicated gallery on the link at the end of this report).
After being satisfied with our work and some quick goodbyes to friends and colleagues, we opted to once again visit On The Rocks for the last afterparty: here Mørket and Brymir awaited. There were not as many people as on Friday for Bob Malmström of course, but still a nice amount of audience for the very, very last part of the Tuska experience 2024 edition. Mørket was very lively with their black/crust, even though it was rather strange to see them with their new vocalist who has a much different live approach compared to their original singer. Brymir was welcomed by a lot of cheers - they do seem to have a lot of dedicated fans - but the length of their speeches in between the songs and the tiredness from the entire weekend catching up to us was enough to cloud a bit their performance and make us decide to head back to bed before the menacing dark clouds that had been gathering in the sky would start pouring down any drop of water.



So once again here we are with the final notes on this year’s Tuska:
The festival’s ambitions have sure grown over the years, and the concept itself has evolved quite a bit into something more than just a “metal festival”, especially in these post-covid years where things have become more challenging and expensive for everybody and event organisers everywhere had to get much more creative to make ends meet.
The formula seems to work since again the Saturday was sold out, and I believe it set a new attendance record in that sense. On the other hand the winds of change have brought about some choices that have seen many old-school Tuska goers be dissatisfied with the line up in recent years. It’s obviously clear that the target the festival aims towards is that of a younger audience that can be still loyal to the event for years to come, while the more seasoned metalheads are now eyeing out other local events such as the new Hellsinki Metal Festival, that gathers exactly to the needs of that audience segment. It’s nothing but a good thing to have the possibility to choose, despite the prices of concerts and festivals are outrageous these days (sadly for understandable reasons that we are not going to discuss here now).
There was also a lot of effort in offering various kinds of exotic food, but that felt a tad underwhelming and a huge amount of people opted instead for the Alepa supermarket truck, rather than having expensive, sub-par quality food from one of the restaurants participating, which is understandable when you have to pay 15-16€ for a small portion of something that is hastly cooked or not evenly warmed up. Maybe a narrower focus on less variety but nicer quality could improve that, but then again there was some more “fancy dining” option somewhere in the area, which we didn’t get to explore.
What has clearly been a big success lately is the fair inside of Kattilahalli, where the indoor stage used to be. The queues for corpsepaint (used by Bring Me The Horizon as well apparently), the amount of crowd browsing through souvenirs and gadgets of all sorts, or just enjoying art performances and installations - when not getting a tattoo - seems to be appreciated by many, and a very welcome relief in the shade during hot sunny days such as these.
Having been to the past 15 editions (including this one) of the festival, we have seen it all and know and trust that the event is in good hands also for the coming years, as we have also been aging ourselves though, it’s harder to keep up with the musical direction, so in case you want to check out these bands, our personal highlights of the weekend - in sparse order - were:
Friday: Zeal & Ardor, Sick Urge, Bob Malmström (afterparty)
Saturday: Devourment, Health, Malformed, The Abbey, Tarot
Sunday: Eivør, Dome Runner, NightStop

Until next year, you can enjoy our galleries and the other two parts of our report:

See all galleries from Sunday
People and festival area: the full gallery
Tuska 2024 - Day 1 report
Tuska 2024 - Day 2 report

Report a cura di Marco Manzi