Photo Reports

End of March it was time for a fantastic rock opera in Stuttgart’s Schleyerhalle, Tobias Sammet and his multi musician project AVANTASIA held court. A fantasy stage layout built the base for a 3-hour rock spectacle that was packed with a long line of guest vocalists: Adrienne Cowan, Kenny Leckremo (H.E.A.T.), Ronnie Atkins (PRETTY MAIDS), Eric Lee Martin (MR. BIG) and more. A light show trimmed perfectly to the individual songs, fog, pyro-effects and colourful backdrop animations added the visual background for an outstanding musical performance. The sound was just perfect at every spot in the venue. Tobias Sammet led and directed the show, connecting with the audience in German language regularly. This is his home turf, and he knows how to get the party going. A wonderful concert event for all ages, which was clearly shown by the large number of young fans in the crowd.

Last year, we got to experience Silent Planet live a first time as support for the Polaris tour in Europe and we were pretty impressed. So when it was announced that they were coming back, this time as headliners and bringing metalcore and alternative metal tastemakers Like Moths To Flames, VEXED and Avoid with them, we knew we had to make some time free in our schedule. The venue was pretty much packed and the night’s atmosphere was through the roof!

Ankor… Critics have sometimes accused them of not having their own style, but maybe that is precisely their style (Jessie Williams).

Ankor knows how to sell their product. They bring it in such a way that you get carried away, whether you like it or not. Happy dance moves in between grunts and flirting with each other create entertaining vibes, and as if that wasn’t enough, the entire band rolled around on their flight cases among the crowd, right into the middle of the mosh pit!

We previously reported on this tour from Helsinki, Finland (here), but we also wanted to share this last show of the tour with you as well.

Support acts were Conquer Divide (USA) and also from Spain: A Dark Reborn.

Our favorite monster squad Lordi brought their hard rock theater to a sold out Tavastia club celebrating their newest album ‘Limited Deadition’. New costumes, new setlist and whole new stageprops. Check the photos down below!

Finland is a very fertile breeding ground for the extreme and underground metal. So when someone gathers some of the top acts of that scene for a night of extreme, speed and simply metal fun, you just can’t miss out on that. This was the case with Karelian Bloodshed bringing together Grave Violator, Unhoped, Rapid and Galvanizer for a nice mix of speed metal, blackened speed, thrash metal and death metal at Tiivistämö in Helsinki! And if that wasn’t enough, they topped the night off in style (and pure high energy chaos) by bringing the blackened speed metallers of Bütcher all the way from Belgium to Finland for the very first time! A night where both of GRIMM’s home countries meet, is always a good thing…

Jonne Aaron became known through his time in the band Negative, that is also how he became known to me, back when I was still a teenager. Since the band split up, he has established a successful solo career, although it has been rather quiet in this department in recent years.

Generally speaking, the crowd at Tavara-Asema this evening wasn’t overwhelmingly big, but still very energised. Both the fans and Jonne on stage seemed to have a lot of fun. Actually, I haven’t seen a musician this excited to perform in a long time. Jonne seemed to radiate joy and happiness throughout his entire performance. That is until he started talking, after which the mood very suddenly shifts to what he somewhat fittingly described as “funeral atmosphere”. He comes to the conclusion that maybe he shouldn’t talk too much anymore for the rest of the night, and while I usually like to hear artists talk about their life, I think I agree with him in this case, because as soon as he stopped talking and went back to singing the mood went back up.
After this slightly awkward moment, the show finishes off without any further troubles. And we got to enjoy songs like ‘Olettamuksia‘, ‘Tiikerin raidat‘ and ‘Yksin‘.

The German alternative metal band ENEMY INSIDE is on the road to promote their latest studio album, ‘Venom‘. Accompanying them are LETTERS SENT HOME, completing the line-up for the ‘Venom Europe Tour 2025’ as the support act. One of the 18 gigs took place in Stuttgart, in the cosy club atmosphere of ‘Im Wizemann Studio’.

LETTERS SENT HOME successfully opened the evening with their mix of alternative dark pop and post-hardcore. Despite lead singer Emily Paschke being under the weather, the quartet delivered a solid and well-rounded performance. A highlight was guitarist Robin Werner‘s visit to the mosh pit.

In contrast to the last tour, ENEMY INSIDE‘s lead singer Natassja Giulia performed in a black latex outfit this time. The joy of being close to the audience was evident in her and the rest of the band. Pure joy of playing and energy that directly transferred to the crowd. The 17-song set spanned across all their albums, bringing plenty of musical variety to the stage. A noteworthy performance with a lot of closeness to the band.

In the summer of 2024, Ankor has been really catching the attention of people all over Europe since they were at a majority of the summer festivals there. We were lucky enough to see them at both Tuska 2024 in Finland, Wacken 2024 and Alcatraz 2024 in Belgium. Clearly, the organization of Tuska was also quite taken by this group, because they brought them back to Helsinki as part of their “Shoganai EU/UK tour 2025”. It resulted in a very packed, completely sold out On The Rocks and with the addition of special guests Conquer Divide and openers A Dark Reborn, it was an absolutely great night that brought a glimpse on part of the future of heavy music. It was an absolute riot!

Indian Heavy/Folk metal powerhouse Bloodywood is currently touring Europe, presenting new material from their upcoming album ‘Nu Delhi’ that will be released soon! (March 21st). We caught up with the tour at Trix in Antwerp, Belgium for a great night of amazing vibes and music! Support acts were Calva Louise and -also from India- Demonic Resurrection.

“Nordic Power Metal Titans” is definitely a well fitting name for this tour, as with Sonata Arctica and Stratovarius it combines two of Finland’s most well known Power Metal bands. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of co-headlining tours thought as I feel it just leaves too little stage time for both headliners. All in all though, this evening proved to be quite a lot of fun.

Already during Arion‘s show, Tavara-Asema started filling up nicely. Unfortunately, the sound throughout all bands had a bit too much bass in the mix which resulted in parts of the music being lost underneath it. During Sonata Arctica and Stratovarius the place was absolutely packed with fans of all ages obviously having a great time.