Having a band as popular as Avatar opening your festival is quite the interesting move. As we learned later that day, they were rather late in settling a deal with the organization and were all too eager to show the people being Tuska what they could do. And honestly, it ended up being a really good move, because it was noticeable how many more people showed up early because Avatar was playing on the mainstage as the first act of the day. Getting people to come early to your fest is always good for the revenue, and we’re curious to see if this is going to become somewhat of a continuing trend where they schedule a big name to open the festivities. And talking about Avatar, the people who showed up early for them, surely didn’t get disappointed. The guys played as if they were doing a headline show, but without much of their gimmicks and stage production, that is. The energy was high, the music was good and songs like ‘Chimp Mosh Pit’, ‘Let It Burn’ and ‘Hail the Apocalypse’ got us quickly moving and banging our heads to the grooves! Please bring them back to Finland soon!

Here we landed at our first tough choice of this edition. On the tent stage, Dance With The Dead took over the stage with their beats and wild synth wave music. And while we’re huge fans of their work, we decided to go have a look at the first ever appearance of the potential future of metal music with Vended. A bunch of people will mostly know this band as the band of some of the Slipknot offspring, but honestly, after seeing what they did on the Inferno stage, they have really found their own voice and identity. And while the voice of the band often calls up memories of Corey Taylor, everything about these guys is so damn solid, from songwriting to performance skills, that it doesn’t take much more than the first handful of seconds and riffs to completely forget about that and throw yourself into the energy the band throws at you. It’s no bullshit that these dudes might very well be part of keeping the future of metal bright and strong, and we’re all there for it! Fingers crossed that they get across the pond to the distant Finnish shores soon again!

It’s tough to squeeze in a proper amount of bands playing on the Tuska KVLT stage, with the shows being scattered across the schedule, being overlapped completely by other shows or at least partially, and the small venue where the stage is at, fills up rather quickly. But we managed to stroll into the room when Kouta was playing, a Finnish band that had caught our attention earlier this year with their music sounding like a blend of Finntroll and Moonsorrow, and we wanted to go and get a taste of their blackened folk metal to see if live the vibe and strong music held up. And we can wholeheartedly say yes! If you’re a big fan of the Finnish folk metal scene, we can only strongly advise you to check out Kouta if you haven’t heard of them yet!

If there is one band you could lovingly call the “Tuska House Band”, it probably would be Lost Society. They’ve been the festival’s favorites for quite a while now, and they return on the regular. This year was actually the 2nd time in a row they showed up on the mainstage to rip things up. While there are many more old school fans who don’t agree with the musical changes of recent years, there is one thing that is undeniable, and that is that Lost Society guarantees almost every time to bring a high energy, solid, pedal to the metal show! While last year, we found the performance a bit lackluster or at least not of the caliber we’ve come to expect from these guys, they more than made it up this time around. They brought some pyro and fireworks, and not just that bringing the heat to Tuska. Samy jumped around as expected, and had the crowd in the palm of his hands. With bangers like ‘(We Are the) Braindead’, ‘Riot’ and ‘No Absolution’, we absolutely loved this passage of Lost Society!

At this point of the day, we made the choice to continue our discovery of some up-and-coming and promising bands by catching the show of While She Sleeps on the tent stage. Clearly we weren’t the only ones, as the tent was filling up pretty nicely for these British lads. And what we got was a serving of highly catchy modern sounding metalcore with more than once a very strong nu metal vibe. Especially vocalist Loz is quite the entertainer sporting some big sunglasses and often coming right up to the edge of the stage seeking connection with their fans. But overall, the vibe of the whole band was pretty amazing and quirky, you could really feel these guys have been together for a long time and have become a well-oiled machine without losing the joy to play. A really fun show and band to discover!

Last year, Jinjer managed to come by Tuska after all, even though they had to cancel earlier due to the shitstorm that was going on in their home country. Which most likely took them away from their much deserved spot on the mainstage. After having filled up the tent to the brim and beyond last year, this time they took over the mainstage, and how! A huge crowd gathered in front of the stage to show their support for Jinjer, and as usual, the band absolutely crushed it. I think I can say I haven’t seen a single bad show from these talented individuals. A great show without any gimmicks or huge production, but absolutely captivating with great songs like ‘Words of Wisdom‘, ‘Vortex‘ and ‘I Speak Astronomy‘ all coming by!

Having seen Imminence already twice in less than a year, each time in a different setting, we were very curious to see what they’d bring to a Tuska stage bathing in sunlight. So we decided to drop by the Inferno stage, and let Mokoma pass us by, it’s not like this legendary Finnish band never drops by in this writer’s neighborhood… At the Imminence show, we found a crowd that looked suspiciously much like the crowd we saw at the While She Sleeps show, and they were at least as excited to see one of their favorite bands, if not more. When these Swedes took over the stage, we heard plenty of screams of joy and as soon as they kicked off their show with ‘Ghost‘ and ‘Paralyzed‘ we saw and heard a lot of voices singing along to the melodic songs. Another young band with great energy that really is on top of their game right now. Exciting stuff!

Time for another legendary band to please the metalfans with some good metal tunes! Arch Enemy has been a quite frequent visitor in recent years, and whether you like them or not, you’re always sure of a good hour of melodeath classics and spirit raising anthems. Alissa is a phenomenal frontwoman who always knows how to get the crowd going, and every single band member is incredibly talented, cranking out groovy riffs, killer solos and thundering drum fills. It’s always an absolute pleasure seeing them taking over a stage, and this year was no different.

If there’s a prize going to an artist for “feel good moment of the weekend”, I’d say it might very well go to Glenn Hughes and his bandmates taking over the tent stage for a serving of his “Classic Deep Purple set”. With a smile on Glenn‘s face that went from ear to ear, and a level of energy that some youngsters could be jealous of, the legendary bassist brought us Deep Purple classics and the healing power of 70s rock music into our lives. For a moment, all our worries disappeared, and we allowed ourselves to be taken on a magical trip back to the heydays of classic hard rock with tracks like ‘Stormbringer‘, ‘Burn‘ and ‘Highway Star‘!

5 long years and several attempts over the pandemic to bring back these French metal giants to the Tuska mainstage finally worked out. Gojira was back in full glory, returning to a festival that was one of the first to book them as a headliner half a decade ago, seeing the promise in them, they’ve fulfilled more than we could have guessed even back then. They’ve grown out to be a staple of the metal scene, and have been headliners for plenty of festivals way bigger than Tuska even. Back in 2018 they were an absolute blast live, and last summer we got a taste already of their bigger stage production at their Jäähalli show in Helsinki, so we were all too eager to see how they were going to blow us away and wrap up an amazing first day with class. A combination of old favorites and new bangers was what we got on our plate, and the massive crowd went wild. It’s anyway near impossible to not at least start nodding your head to the infectious grooves of the stellar music of these Frenchies. ‘Stranded‘, ‘Flying Whales‘, ‘L’enfant sauvage‘, ‘Amazonia‘, ‘Oroborus‘,… what a set and what a show with mesmerizing visuals on huge screens, a captivating live show and bombshell level energy from start to finish. Tuska was not wrong in seeing a bright future for Gojira, and with this performance they came to show they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. What a band!

It’s a rather thankless job to play a show at the exact same time as a band like Gojira. But that’s what the Finnish dark electro duo Miseria Ultima had to do, and they did it with class! Maybe it was because they were different enough from the headliner that they attracted a certain part of the Tuska crowd, or maybe they have such a solid fan base, but when we strolled into the Tuska KVLT stage building, we were pleasantly surprised how full the room ended up being. We’ve known these guys through Hellsinki Industrial Festival and other related dark electro and industrial events, and they more than deserve the support! And besides a surprisingly good crowd, we encountered something we’ve come to expect from these 2 guys: a damn good party with a lot of dancing people moving their bodies to the violent beats. The room was already hot and sweaty the whole day through, but Miseria Ultima brought it to a boiling point one last time, leaving everyone there breathless and filled with excited energy. What a way to end our first day at Tuska 2023!