Last year we got to visit Tuska Open Air for the first time. The event is the biggest metal festival in THE country of metal: Finland. Taking place at a former energy plant turned event area called Suvilahti  in Helsinki, at the end of June/beginning of July the amps get plugged in and turned to 11 for one of the coolest metal and rock gatherings there are. This year things were even more special since it was Tuska’s 20th anniversary. So we geared up for what promised to be one of the biggest celebrations of the year!

Day 1

To start my first official festival day, I took part in the “Heavy Walk”, a tour guide walk through Helsinki passing the most important locations for the rock and metal music scene. Seeing where Ville Vaalo of HIM used to live, hotels where a lot of music artists spend the night when playing a show in the city and the KVLT shop made it the most interesting thing. We ended our tour at Jussi 69’s rock bar The Riff with a group picture and a few good drinks. I definitely could recommend you this if you happen to be around when they organise such a walk again.

Because of the earlier activity we missed the Finnish death metal band Rotten Sound and hardcore punk outfit Huora. You should definitely check them out if you don’t know them yet, because they have some pretty cool stuff! We arrived on the festival terrain with AOR band Brother Firetribe‘s music as our soundtrack. While we were exploring the environment a little bit, we enjoyed the “roadtrip music” from a distance and could understand the rise in popularity with their more “happy” and positive latest release.

The first band that we actually managed to see properly from the start was Anneke Van Giersbergen‘s VUUR (***). The vocalist/musician is a name that is going around quite much in the alternative music scene. She’s been collaborating with tons of well-known artists like for instance Devin Townsend (who we’ll see later in the day). But now she finally took it upon herself to create a brand new band around her. She gathered up some of her musician friends and now they were here, on stage, bringing us their wonderful progressive & melodic metal. As always Anneke moved on stage like a natural with a huge grin on her face most of the time, showcasing her incredible vocal talents. Besides new songs of VUUR, they put a few classics from The Gathering in the setlist, much to the delight of the old school fans. A really cool and chill start of the official festival!

If you think of epicness, there’s a good chance you might be thinking of Wintersun (***). The epic folk/progressive/symphonic metal creation of Jari Mäenpää has been much loved by many metalheads but at the same time laughed at due to tons of delays in releasing a new album and such. Out of nowhere, this year they announced a new album called The Forest Seasons, which was linked with a (highly successful) crowdfunding campaign to support the band in its future endeavors. A new album also means that we finally get the chance to see these guys live again. Jari jumped and ran around on stage like a reborn man and didn’t seem to get enough of the energy feeding into him through the crowd.

Newly added live guitarist Asim Searah was clearly a perfect fit with the rest of the band and the whole set was one filled with an epic fluster of symphonic, folk and death metal sounds. The setlist itself was very satisfying for the old school fan with only one new track in the beginning and finishing strong with the incredibly epic trio Starchild, Sons of Winter and Stars and Time!

Up next was the first tough choice of the festival: on the smaller Inferno stage black metal outfit Baptism was playing while some time during their set the guerilla druglords of Brujeria were about to lit the tent stage on fire. Even though Baptism (***) yet again put down a strong ritual, since I got to see them at Steelfest a good month before I decided to move to the other stage after a few songs.

I arrived just in time to see the almost mythical death metal band Brujeria (****1/2) mount the stage. The outfit has a backstory of being drug lords and guerrilla warriors from Mexico and their identities are supposedly unknown. Throughout the years we know many top musicians to have passed through with the main consistent factor being vocalist Juan Brujo. They showed up all scarved-up carrying machetes and just simply crushed it. The groovy yet extremely harsh music with the almost barked Spanish lyrics brought quite the energy to the place.

Known for their anti-American attitude, it wasn’t too surprising to see Pinche Peach show up with “Fuck Trump” written on her forearms on which mr. Brujo instigated the whole crowd to shout those exact same words. The whole show was one hell of a groovy face-smashing time which got much to my delight concluded with their parody of the Macarena: Marijuana! That really made my day!

On the mainstage we got served with a highly energetic hour of music from Suicidal Tendencies (***1/2). The band has been around for ages bringing us some of the best hardcore punk/crossover thrash metal there is. The many fans there went wild and so did founding member and vocalist Mike “Cyco Miko” Muir! With a setlist build from more recent songs and classics everything was there for a whirlwind of a show. Ending with the stage filled to the brim with fans during Pledge Your Allegiance, Suicidal Tendencies proved yet again that they’re still that top-notch influential band they were from the beginning.

And then I got to the point of yet another near impossible choice… On the tent stage Insomnium (*****) brought their Winter’s Gate epos entirely again, which was something that I didn’t want to miss for the world even though I’d seen it before. While at the same time the legendary misfits of Barathrum (***1/2) were storming the stage with their destructive black metal. I decided to stick around to watch the whole Winter’s Gate song and be taken away to the short story of vocalist/bassist Niilo Sevänen about the Vikings in trouble because of a fast approaching Winter.

Once they concluded their masterpiece, I quickly moved to the smaller stage to get a rude awakening from my dreams by a few of the last songs of Barathrum‘s setlist! As expected I got hit by a wave of typically brutal and doom-infused Finnish black metal. I’m already looking forward to catch a full set from these fuckers…

Another highlight of the first day for me was the crazy Canadian Devin Townsend (*****). As expected we got to enjoy some of the best modern progressive metal there is. The ever glorious baldness cracked one joke after the other in between songs and was his usual charming self, having the crowd in his hands whatever he did.

Luckily enough Anneke van Giersbergen played at the festival with her new band VUUR on the exact same day. So we actually had a few visits by her on stage, to provide some of the vocals she did for Devin‘s projects live. The whole gig was an absolute delight and I wanted it to last longer than it actually did. Hevy Devy: we love you!

Headliner of the tent stage of Friday was the mythical and legendary Norwegian black metal band Mayhem (***1/2). On this tour they’re bringing their debut release De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in full. The album (and band) is still highly influential to this day and this moment was definitely one of the things I was looking forward to the most. The band took over the stage and bathed it in darkness, smoke and mystery, bringing a black metal ritual that shows they’re still a band that brings a certain quality. There was as good as no interaction with their fans and they just played one after the other track creating a world of evil and Satan-worshiping in reality.

Closing down the first official festival day was the popular Swedish power/heavy metal band Sabaton (***). Yet again they brought their battles and wars to a stage in Finland and it was clear that they were up for quite the party. The band is much appreciated by a huge crowd of metalheads, throw on top of that the high energy of the band with some fire and explosions and soon that party will appear…

I personally never got their popularity, the much too happy Swedes with their continuous ear-to-ear grin are not my cup of tea. True, the show was pretty decent and sounded flawless but haven’t found that “click” before that would make me like them and I haven’t found it at the Tuska grounds either. Onward to the next day I’d say…