Clearly one of the most anticipated acts of the whole weekend, despite the surprisingly early start time, the festival grounds were absolutely packed. Talking with festival attendees, almost everyone touted the same; Voivod was the highlight of the whole festival, and for a reason: fantastic show with high energy on stage and in the crowd throughout the whole set. This is one of those bands that is highly renowned in the scene, but rarely gets to Finland. Hopefully, after seeing the response from the crowd, these guys make the trip a bit more often!

At the same time of Voivod ripping it up on one of the open air stages, the ladies of Asagraum rose to the black box stage inside the Ice Hall building to baptize us in their unholy black metal. The last time they were in Finland, was when they played at Steelfest almost half a decade ago, and this time around they were even more impressive than we remembered. Vocalist Obscura sounded as vicious as ever, and their new live bassist Alexandra was an imposing figure on stage. An absolutely epic performance from 4 ladies who’d easily kick a lot of men’s asses. What a start of the weekend!

Suddenly it was party time like it’s 1999! One of those deep cut bands of the festival, legendary nu metal/rap metal act Clawfinger. It’s always cool to hear different type of genres of metal, especially a genre like nu metal, which you don’t hear that often nowadays. It truly was a party, making the festival grounds shake from making the whole audience bounce to their groovy beats like there’s no tomorrow! In a sense, it’s the perfect timing for an old school band like Clawfinger to do the rounds again, with a resurgence of the nu metal genre through many young musicians and bands. Show them how it’s done!

We’ve been a huge fan of Monuments for quite a moment now, and at Hellsinki Metal they proved yet again why that is. As soon as they started and the whole set through, the energy was simply through the roof. Their intricate, yet highly melodic and emotional music really spoke to everyone who gathered in front of the stage, and every single band member threw their all into the show. Though vocalist Andy stole the show again somewhat by being simply a great frontman, even several times getting off the stage to throw himself into the arms of their fans, seeking that connection with them. These guys are simply every time a riot to see live!

In the humble opinion of one of our photographers, this was easily one of the top three best acts of the festival. Due to strict timetables, Sodom pulled a tight show playing pretty much every legendary act from their back catalog including some newer ones also. Such a killer show, no bullshit, just pure thrash metal from beginning to the end. Fantastic show.

Blind Guardian is one of those legendary power/heavy metal bands that almost every single metalhead likes, whether they are usually into more extreme stuff or not. There is something about these Germans that is almost unparalleled. And so was their show at Hellsinki Metal. The atmosphere was absolutely stellar and when they played classics like ‘The Bard’s Song’ or ‘Valhalla’, that only got more impressive when the whole crowd sang along almost louder than the band itself. Goosebumps!

One of the more cult classic bands of the festival, long time black metal warriors from Finland Impaled Nazarene destroyed the inside stage. Clearly being one of the favorites since everyone involved couldn’t even fit to the inside stage areas, making half of the crowd listening from the outside proves that Nazarene is still going strong! And boy did they show it, still after all these years they sound absolutely fantastic, sending the crowd into one of the biggest mosh pit frenzies seen during the whole fest.

Would we have preferred to see Helloween who initially was going to headline the first day? Probably, yeah. But the last minute replacement by Apocalyptica really won us over. With all their pyro, it was easily one of the fiercest shows of the day, and everyone there really seemed to be into the show. As usual, they had a couple of local friends dropping by to assist with the songs that required some vocal lines to be delivered. For tracks like ‘I’m Not Jesus’, ‘Not Strong Enough’, ‘Shadowmaker’ and ‘I Don’t Care’ they had their good friend and Apocalyptica regular Tipe Johnson popping up, and for ‘Bring Them to Light’ and the Sepultura cover ‘Refuse/Resist’, they had enlisted Lost Society‘s Samy Elbanna who really brought the energy to the stage to a whole other level! For a last minute replacement, this was absolutely stellar, you never would’ve known!