Photo Reports

Day two started with a pleasant surprise, to help with the heat they more than doubled the amount of water taps, which drastically decreased the waiting time. Just as much if a pleasant surprise was Carnival Academy, who got their spot on the festival through the Tuhdimmat Tahdit band competition. Next up were Heavy Metal Perse and then Antony Parviainen Trio playing their versions of Iron Maiden songs. Turmion Kätilöt were a big party, of weirdness, as usual.  

Metalite from Sweden, like so many others on the smaller Tahtilava had some technical problems. But at least that didn’t seem to dampen their mood. Wolfheart gave us a bit of a contrast in the programme with their slightly melancholic and melodic music. And with their tormented reindeers from hell. It was great to finally see Sara Strömmer and Shereign again, they just have such a nice atmosphere. Before the Dawn have been in the business for a while and that shows, everything looks to work like a well-oiled clockwork.  

Yet again there were technical problems at the Tahtilava, but Brymir played it well, by first using the time to introduce the band members and when things still didn’t work after that Viktor gave us a little improvised rap. Finally, Steve the pike went flying into a ‘fishpit’. All in all, a great show. Mokoma started of the celebration for the 20th anniversary of their ‘Kurimus‘ album. Swallow the Sun are simply in their own world and try hard to bring us to this gloomy dark world too. Which isn’t that easy on a hot and still very bright summer day, but I think they still succeeded quite well.  

Last but certainly not least were Battle Beast, who also brought along enough pyro to burn down the festival area. Between all the fire, it’s only safe to let us in the photo pit for 1 song. But they’re also a lot of fun from a bit further back, and so it was a very lovely why for me to finish off this festival weekend.  

Although the continuous troubles on the Tahtilava were a bit annoying and the heat really taking a toll on me, l had a really good time, and I’m quite sure I’ll be back some other year. This many bands for this price is already a great bargain, but combined with the small kinda intimate feeling of the festival and the very friendly staff this is certainly a festival you should consider visiting. Especially if you’re like me, the type of person who doesn’t like things to be too crowded.  

The day already started very hot, with the sun unforgiving, burning down on us. Shadow and water were our two best friends, unfortunately there wasn’t quite enough of either, as no-one expected the weather to be quite this hot. Nonetheless, there was a great atmosphere and already at the early time of 15:00 on a Friday the festival area was acceptable well filled when Verikalpa started. Transworld Identity had a lot of technical problems at the beginning of their set.  Unfortunately, a recurring thing on the Tahtilava stage.

It was a pleasure to see Ensiferum again, it’s been a while since I got to see them last time. Prestige had a surprisingly big number of fans with them. Next up was Lordi. They were even better this time than when I saw them some weeks ago with Sabaton. As if it wasn’t hot enough already, they also started using pyro from this set on.

I’m filling up my water bottle after each band, which isn’t even that easy, as huge lines are constantly building up at the water station. By this point, getting water takes about 10–15 minutes of standing in the sun. So it’s no wonder that the first people already gave up and went home by this time. Luckily, I can still manage, and so I get to see Mors Subita showered in the light of the slowly setting sun. Dead by April burned us up even more with their pyro. But I feel quite a lot of people are at a little low by this point. The sun is still shining strongly on our heads. Thankfully though, it’s slowly beginning to cool down a little and the shadow areas are increasing. So by the time Diablo starts, the low point had already passed, and the guys get to enjoy their home show fully, getting celebrated by their countless fans.

The highlight of this first day was Beast in Black though. As usual, they had a great energy.  Their happiness is contagious. I’m very happy to have caught them here at Tuhdimmat Tahdit as they don’t have that many shows in Finland this summer. And then day 1 finally draws to an end. The performances were great, but after countless layers of sweat I sweated, I’m very tired. But although I’m exhausted, I’m also hugely looking forward to the second day.

A massive three band package hits German concert venues at the moment – Behemoth‘s ‘The Deathless Summer Tour 2023’ with Spiritworld, and Hypocrisy. It got hot as hell, literally!

The evening is opened up by Spiritworld. There is no need to warm up the crowd on that day as it is one of the hottest days so far this summer in Germany, and the Substage in Karlsruhe is an old industrial hall with no rooftop windows or other air-conditioning. But these guys should know to handle the heat – the Las Vegas originating band comes out of the US desert. Probably the world’s only band with a country music influenced death western metal style. Vocalist Stu Folsom and his crew hit the stage in best of class western glam rock outfits and have blown the audience away. Definitely a unique but highly recommendable experience.

Second on stage were Hypocrisy.  Unfortunately and very dearly missed was guitarist Tomas Elofsson, who suffered a heart attack just to days before the concert. All our best wishes go out to him, and we all do hope he’ll get well and back on stages soon. For this gig, his tracks came from tape, where his live performances have been recorded. Kudos to the Hypocrisy sound engineer who mixed it all in perfectly. Despite being a missing a band member that is part of their life performances, the gloomy and dark atmosphere created by the band on stage was perfectly set in the scene, well fitting their musical themes of the mysteries around alien life, UFOs and potential encounters on earth.

At last, it was time for Behemoth to make the night even hotter than it already was. Demonic music intro…. Kabuki drop… Here we go! With their massive stage production, that had to be reduced for this smaller venue (no pyro!), they fulfilled the audience expectations to the fullest. Playing songs from old and their current album ‘Opus Contra Natvram’ the presented musical variety and creativity showed the band’s full potential. Death and black metal in a well orchestrated way came over the venue like a thunderstorm – which was happening at the same time outdoors. Everybody was just pulled in; simply everybody was all in for this show. Lights, sounds, and stage action were top-notch.

It was a perfect night without death – a truly deathless summer night!

De Casino in Sint-Niklaas organizes Great Gigs in the Park, three weeks with all kinds of music in an idyllic park setting. For all those who were missing out on the first day of Graspop Metal Meeting this Thursday was dedicated to the raw sound of guitars and alternative music.

If there is a need for more energy, the singer of Penus can help you out. Five seconds in, and he is already dancing on the fences of the kiosk. Penus makes great space rock/psych punk, sucking you in and making time fly by.

Something absolutely different is the poetry reading of Johan Sebastiaan Stuer. No music, just humor, insights, and beauty.

With the setting sun, the boys of The Hickey Underworld prove they are back after a break of eight years. They certainly haven’t lost their vibe of quirky alternative rock and are ready to become a great band once again.

Last year, a brand new metal festival popped up in Helsinki that was trying to do something new by offering an interesting mix of extreme and progressive, named Hellsinki Metal Horizons (reports here and here, photo galleries here and here). This year, the organization behind the festival scaled down somewhat and made a slight name change (probably to not be confused with another new Helsinki metal festival), but definitely didn’t scale back on the extreme part. Offering some of the weirdest, heaviest and most extreme bands of their genres, this was a metal club festival that we didn’t want to miss out on!

The first day had a very death metal heavy line-up with Eradication of the Unworthy Infants, Devenial Verdict, Corpsessed, Marianas Rest and headliners Baest!

Grave Pleasures is a band that takes up a rather unique space within the Finnish scene. With a very post-punk and Goth rock sound, they appeal to a wide range of music lovers while not really fitting the mold of any specific subgenre completely. About a week after the release of their new album ‘Plagueboys’, they played 2 release shows, and we made sure to be at the Helsinki one since there don’t seem to be any set plans to play more shows than this in 2023. Much to our surprise, we first got a destructive set by Tampere natives Dome Runner to get us loosened up somewhat…

Due to the pandemic, it’s been years since the Australian proggers of Ne Obliviscaris have been able to play gigs, let alone tour Europe. So after having just released a pretty epic new album with ‘Exul’, them finally coming to the European territories is reason enough to make sure we don’t miss out. So off we went to catch them at the very first show of the tour at Tavastia in Helsinki. And with them, they brought the Andorran prog death outfit Persefone and Italian instrumental proggers Asymmetric Universe, ensuring a night of world expanding and mind-bending music…

THE CULT is one of the real iconic rock groups that released a number of albums in the 1980s and 1990s that have to be part of every rock album collection. ‘Love’, ‘Electric’, ‘Sonic Temple’ just to name a few. They became famous even outside the rock scene as well when their song ‘Sanctuary’ was used as soundtrack for a commercial of a worldwide-known swimwear brand.

After an almost 7-year-long break, the release of their latest album ‘Under A Midnight Sun’ in 2022 it was now the opportunity to play some of the new songs live on stage. But beforehand, LILI REFRAIN entered the stage and opened up the evening with a musical performance session. The Italian one-woman performance plays and creates sound samples live on-stage, records them and the builds it all up to a song all at the same time. It was a very interesting experience and her unique voice added an ethnic, shamanic touch to it. Nothing you would expect as warm-up for a massive, solid rock’n roll gig but still awesome.

With a little delay, finally THE CULT opened their set with ‘Rise’ and led the audience through the full bandwidth of their more than 40 year long career. The voice of Ian Astbury is still unbelievable, has not lost any power. He still dances and grooves charismatically over the whole stage, and his power rises with any minute of the show. Billy Duffy was and still is one of the guitarists with an absolutely unique sound, you’ll only need a few seconds to identify THE CULT when you hear him play the guitar. This night he delivered a fantastic set. Crystal clear sound made the evening a real highlight. It is a pity that this the only gig THE CULT will play in Germany on this tour, but some other countries in Europe and the UK as well will have the opportunity to see them now.  GRIMM is very happy to present you a set of photos of the only German gig.

Rockfest, the biggest rock festival of Finland, that often brings some of the biggest names to the country was doing it again. With bands like Pantera, Def Leppard and Volbeat headlining, and a bunch of pretty cool bands on the rest of the line-up, after missing out on it last year, we just had to be at the 2023 edition!

On the third day of Rockfest 2023, we weren’t able to capture as many bands as on the earlier days due to other responsibilities and some artists not wanting any pictures to be taken, but we still caught the performances by Finnish legends Xysma and Rotten Sound on the Black Stage!

Rockfest, the biggest rock festival of Finland, that often brings some of the biggest names to the country was doing it again. With bands like Pantera, Def Leppard and Volbeat headlining, and a bunch of pretty cool bands on the rest of the line-up, after missing out on it last year, we just had to be at the 2023 edition!

On the third day of Rockfest 2023, we weren’t able to capture as many bands as on the earlier days due to other responsibilities and some artists not wanting any pictures to be taken, but we still caught killer performances on the Red Stage by Soundi by Igorrr, The Hellacopters and Beast In Black!