We started our Sunday well with one of Finland’s most beloved metal bands: Sonata Arctica! As a replacement for the cancellation of The Dark Element, they were a perfect fit for an early start, and plenty of people had gathered in the tent to enjoy the melodic tunes of this pretty much legendary band. It was the second time this weekend we saw Toni Kakko, and as usual for one of heavy metal’s best voices, his vocals were damn impressive again. And with a band of talented and seasoned musicians around him, who always have a very energetic stage presence, you simply can’t go wrong with this. And when tracks like ‘Kingdom for a Heart‘ and ‘Tallulah‘ hit the speakers, it just strikes a chord within many people in the crowd. Always an absolute pleasure to see these guys rule a stage.

What could be better as a Sunday afternoon delight than getting served by some amazing music by Hevy Devy? Devin Townsend dropped by Tuska to have a bit of fun with all of us on the main stage, and fun was had for sure. A simple stage setup, cracking jokes continuously, and a great selection of songs from all of Devin‘s projects, going from ‘Kingdom‘ of his most recent solo work, ‘Deadhead‘ from The Devin Townsend Band, and of course ‘Love?‘ from Strapping Young Lad couldn’t be left out, which was an amazing closer for a show that brought pure delight and wide smiles to an already sunny and great last festival day!

For the first time in about 7 years, there was a new full-length album coming from the legendary symphonic metal band Stratovarius, and it was exciting to see this Finnish monument of the genre hit the stages again at Tuska. We were clearly not the only ones, since a whole lot of people had gathered in front of the “Inferno” stage to see them in action. We left wondering a little bit if they wouldn’t have been a better fit on one of the bigger stages, especially for a band with this kind of history and stature, but on the other hand, the closeness and almost intimate show we got in return was pretty cool. We got a couple of tracks of the upcoming album with ‘Survive‘ and ‘World on Fire‘, for the rest fleshed out by many of Stratovarius‘ most popular tracks, met by an excited crowd.

Seems like we were going from the one legend to the other today, with on the main stage one of the “Big 4” of Teutonic thrash hitting the pedal to the metal! Kreator had just released their brand new album ‘Hate über alles‘ in the beginning of June and were touring around festivals to bring a bunch of those new tunes to stages all over Europe. With a shit ton of pyro, like it wasn’t hot enough yet, they hit us with tracks like ‘Hate über alles‘, and ‘Strongest of the Strong‘ from that album, but of course couldn’t leave out massive thrash metal classics like ‘Pleasure to Kill‘ or ‘Satan Is Real’. Every single member of the band brought a big kind of energy to the stage, and we don’t believe we’ve seen Kreator hitting it this hard live before. An absolute monster of a show!

On to another smashing show! At first, it seemed that the up-and-coming metallers of Jinjer wouldn’t make it to the Tuska stages at all due to what was going on in their country, but on rather short notice it was announced that they after all could make it. We were all too happy with that, because we’ve been a massive fan of theirs ever since we discovered them through ‘King of Everything’ back in 2016. They had to play on a different day than they were supposed to, which maybe caused them to end up on the tent stage again, but honestly, it’s about time to give them a spot on the main stage whenever they come back next. The tent was so ridiculously overly full that it almost didn’t feel safe anymore. The massive turnout in front of them clearly touched the whole band, and whenever Tatiana expressed her gratitude for the support and similar things, she was met with a massive roar to underline that support. With tracks like ‘Call Me a Symbol’, ‘I Speak Astronomy‘, ‘Disclosure!’, ‘Vortex‘, and of course their viral hit ‘Pisces‘ this was a great setlist and showed yet again that they are a massive force to be reckoned with, and simply a future big one in the ranks of metal. We were missing a couple of tracks like for instance ‘Words of Wisdom‘ or ‘Just Another‘ from that album we discovered them with, but they’ve been cranking out so much strong music that it wasn’t a disappointment at all really. And we got to hear some of the songs of their latest album ‘Wallflowers‘ live for the very first time, that’s a big plus of course. Looking forward to seeing this talented group of individuals on a stage again as soon as possible, but if it’s at Tuska, please let it be on the main stage…

After having had somewhat of a reliving of our youth on the first day of Tuska 2022, we were really looking forward to going through that feeling again with the headliner of the Sunday, and closer of the festival. Deftones is one of those bands that has gone through many music categories, but at the same time always stayed true to themselves. There is no other band that sounds like Deftones and whenever their music starts playing, and especially when frontman Chino Moreno opens his mouth, there is simply no denying that it’s Deftones you’re hearing. The whole band was in truly good form, especially Chino‘s voice was quite impressive to behold live. And with an extensive catalog of about 9 full albums, we got hit with massive track after massive track like ‘My Own Summer (Shove It)‘, ‘Around the Fur‘, ‘Diamond Eyes‘, and ‘Change (In the House of Flies)‘. I would have loved to hear ‘Back to School‘ live since that song was a big part of the soundtrack of my teenage years, but with the kind of impressive collection of music they have, it was not that huge of a miss after all. We were absolutely blown away by what we saw and heard, and looking at the delighted faces around me everywhere, we were not alone. What a closer for this comeback edition of Tuska!

We can’t stress enough how happy we were with Tuska being back in full force, and how! All the bugs and criticism of the last edition back in 2019 seemed to have been solved, turning this year’s edition into a great experience from start to finish. A better flow, fewer lines to get anywhere or anything, even getting merch was way better than the disaster of 2019, simply a way better layout and setup than ever before. There were a couple of things that could have been better, like the Tuska Expo that felt too cramped, hot and stuffy. But overall, this was really amazing, and left us wondering where they could take this next. Exciting things ahead, we’re sure!