In Spring we got the opportunity to experience one of the top underground festivals of Europe, namely Steelfest Open Air in Hyvinkää, Finland (read our report here). When we found out there was a smaller inside Autumn/Winter edition called SteelChaos, we knew we had to be there. On one specific day near the end of Summer they released the line-up of the 2-day festival, which confirmed to us that this was a not to be missed event. So on November 10th and 11th we geared up to dive into the dark cave of evil and the Devil that Nosturi in Helsinki became…
| Overall | Day 1 | Day 2 |
We’ve been quite a few times at the Nosturi venue in the meantime and we could already envision that this might be the perfect place for a smaller indoors edition of Steelfest. When we arrived at the place, once we got through the doors we were welcomed with a long table filled with cd’s and vinyl’s of underground and extreme bands that are otherwise quite hard to find. Same for the shirts that were decorating the wall behind the sellers. In another corner we could also find the merch of the bands playing that day and the limited SteelChaos shirt. We definitely got every opportunity to make our wallet and bank account quite a bit lighter…
Normally when you go to a gig at Nosturi and you want to go have a smoke, you need to go through the downstairs bar (Elmun Baari) and receive a stamp on your hand so you can get back to the show. Not this time, since SteelChaos was completely sold out, the whole building including Elmun Baari was completely reserved for the blackened crowd that showed up for 2 days in a row. Luckily that meant that we could also go get one of the better beers of breweries like Maku Brewing or Polar Monkeys downstairs and take it with us to the upstairs venue. One thing I kind of missed though was maybe a small food truck or something like that. For those of us who like to have a bit of a snack in the middle of the day (or night) there was absolutely nothing around to go to now.
Overall, the chill atmosphere and vibe of Steelfest Open Air was easy to be found back, with a few minor negatives on the side. Since Nosturi isn’t the biggest venue and it was sold out, by the time we got to halfway the day it got pretty damn crowded. So much so that it was hard to find a spot where you wouldn’t get bumped into every 10 seconds or to get out of the way of some of the wasted metalheads, which is something I very much appreciated at Steelfest. Besides that, by the second day the stench of blood, sweat and beer that greeted you when climbing the steps to the damp and dark venue was something else… I guess it added some extra “flavor” to the whole experience…
The line-up was yet again amazing, with many exclusive shows and some experiences to never forget. Sadly on the morning of the first day Bölzer had to cancel due to an injury of one of the guys. Luckily one of the pillars of Finnish black metal was available and ready to replace them: Archgoat. To read the report of how the first day blew us away, go to the next page…
For our photo coverage go here.
