When Malevolence kicked off their set, the room was surprisingly well filled already for it to be so early in the evening. This UK outfit has been a well-known name within the hardcore scene, and stands as a guarantee for a killer show that brims of energy. And this night was no other. Vocalist Alex paced around the stage with a huge grin on his face seeing all the people that showed up for them and tried to transfer some of his energy to the usually quite sluggish Finnish crowd, including at some point him jumping down into the security zone to hang over the fence into the first row of fans while continuing to sing.

And it seemed to do the trick, because when they tried to create the biggest circle pit they could in the venue, like they do every single night, the crowd actually opened up and went into a bit of a frenzy for a while. The typical jumps, kicks in the air and intense headbanging you’d expect of a hardcore show were all there, and their heavily metal infused brand of hardcore simply worked like a charm. Even when they embarked into their more balad like song ‘Higher Place’, the crowd engagement stayed up there with the phone lights and lighters quickly rising up from everywhere, bathing the whole venue in extra light. With mostly songs from their recently released ‘Malicious Intent’, I was all too happy with what I got to hear since that is one of my favorite releases of 2022, but half an hour is simply too short to not want more! What a show and what a band, I can’t wait to see these guys live again some time hopefully soon!

Death metal legends Obituary took the stage over next and absolutely destroyed the place. The stomping groove was a force that turned the majority of the crowd in headbanging creatures and the atmosphere and energy coming from the stage was rather uplifting despite the extreme music. Vocalist John Tardy seemed as excited to be on stage as a kid in a candy store and had an infectious kind of energy radiating from him. And more than once he was joking around with his brother Donald Tardy who was behind the drums. Hair was whipping around, fists were raised in the air and heads were bobbing synchronized to the groove of the music. And of course we got a bit of a taste of their just recently released ‘Dying of Everything’ with the songs ‘The Wrong Time‘ and the title track. Though with such an extensive catalog it’s no big surprise that we only got 2 tracks of that album. An absolutely killer show by some true legends!

Heaven Shall Burn is one of those bands I listened to endlessly back in the day when metalcore was one of the most popular genres in the heavy metal realm. ‘Deaf To Our Prayers‘ is still one of my favorite albums from back then. And yet somehow I’ve never really managed to see them live properly. Going on the amount of shirts and hoodies from them walking around at the venue, they are at least as popular as Trivium in Finland and it resulted in an explosion of energy as soon as they came on stage and fired off the first riffs. You don’t see it all too often that a Finnish crowd goes this wild straight from the beginning! Circle pits galore and fists were flying through the air, no lack of engagement there! And with the nice setlist that was basically a celebration of all ages of the band, who could expect anything else? Thank god that they were co-headliners and could bring a longer setlist to the stage!

Lastly, Trivium, one of the frontrunners of the “New Wave of American Heavy Metal” finally came back to a Finnish stage! Since their last visit to Helsinki they’ve released 2 bangers of albums with ‘What the Dead Men Say‘ (2020) and ‘In the Court of the Dragon‘ (2021), that confirmed to me yet again that they are back completely on top of their game. The new music is better than ever, with some of the most extreme and at the same time most catchy stuff they’ve released as of yet. Having been a fan of these guys since I discovered them with ‘Ascendancy‘ almost 2 decades ago, I’m all too happy about that and was excited to catch them live again finally.

I’m pretty sure I can say that I haven’t seen a bad show from Trivium to this day, and tonight they proved again why they are easily one of the best (live) acts of the contemporary metal scene. With a colorful backdrop, a dragon statue on each side of the stage and a Japanese styled drum riser, heralding Matt Heafy‘s ancestry, the stage was set for an amazing show. Matt as usual sought constant connection with the crowd, riling them up with his wild motions, sticking his tongue out while cranking out tasty riffs and solos, Corey was windmilling like a mad man while handling his axe, Paolo gave us his best bass groove and Alex is simply a beast behind the drum kit. The room was on fire and the crowd went wild. You’d think after all the action I had seen with the other acts, all energy would be used up, but on the contrary. There was something ecstatic in the air. It can’t be soon enough for Trivium to come back to our neighborhood!