Photo Reports

Every year we have a bunch of photographers roaming events all over the world to try and capture that one amazing shot. There are so many pictures taken every year, that it’s sometimes hard to take note of the really epic capture. So we give our photographers the daunting task to go through their pictures and make a small selection of only 25 of the best pictures of the year. Enjoy:

For a long-time melodic death metal fan like me, a bill headed by In Flames and as supporting guests At The Gates, Imminence and Orbit Culture, celebrating both the originators of the genre and the new generation, is simply something I can’t miss out on. And with In Flames’ recent singles of the upcoming new album sounding more like In Flames of a decade ago, it was getting me even more excited. Not that an In Flames show is ever even remotely bad, but still… So off I went to Helsinki to Jäähalli, ploughing through some decent amount of snow to get there.

A line-up like this that shows different takes on the same melodeath genre is simply one to die for as a metalhead. Openers Nailed To Obscurity brought a very Opeth-esque atmosphere to Jäähalli in Helsinki, while Dark Tranquillity gave a schooling in both old school and new school melodeath. First co-headliner Eluveitie really impressed with a very pleasant set, including their new hurdy-gurdy player Annie, and Finnish metal favorites Amorphis really got the people out of their homes, filling up the venue properly once they hit the stage!

I remember seeing Saor for the first time live at Steelfest 2018, and while I was charmed by the band, somehow I wasn’t completely convinced. I felt something was missing, and I was suspecting that it might have been the fact that they were playing in broad daylight on a bright and sunny afternoon. So, with the announcement of Saor coming back to Finland for a mini tour of 2 club shows, the fact they had just released the brand-new album ‘Origin’ AND that Season of Mist label mates …And Oceans would be special guests, I had to mark this event in my calendar for sure.

On December 18th, 2022 Nightwish performed their last German gig of the ‘Human :II: Nature’ tour 2022 at Schleyerhalle, Stuttgart. Together with Turmion Kätilöt and Beast in Black, an all Finland based metal night was going to take place.

In the fully packed and sold out venue, about 12.5K metal-fans were awaiting the first band of the evening: Turmion Kälitöt. This band is somehow special of its own – firstly their stage outfit, 2 active singers whirling around on stage constantly and the unique style of their music which includes a combination of electronic music and metal, often dubbed as “disko metal”. This mix was well received and got the crowd going.

Second on stage was Beast in Black with their more classic heavy metal sound and stage-show. The charismatic singer Yannis Papadopoulos dominated the stage by his charismatic voice and high-pitched notes – sometimes when you close your eyes you were not able to decide if this is a male or female voice.  Remarkable is their double guitar play and their synchronized moves like Status Quo did in early 70s.

The heated up crowd was tensed now and eagerly looking forward to the headliner of the evening. And Nightwish took the venue over instantly as they appear on stage. Floor Jansen took control immediately and the band presented a perfect mix of old and new symphonic metal songs. The combination of Floor‘s charismatic voice, the fantastic light show, the great stage animations in the back and some pyro was overwhelming. Even though Troy Donockley mentioned that the ‘evil is lurking in Stuttgart, and it’s called Glühwein’ (Glühwein is mulled wine or in Finland better known as Glögi) – seemed like they made some experience on the night before the gig on the local Christmas market.

At the end, a fully happy and satisfied crowd spent a great Finnish metal night. Hope you’ll enjoy our photo report!

Finland’s biggest pre-Christmas party of the year, Raskasta Joulua, almost wouldn’t have happened this year due RH-Entertaiment’s bankruptcy. RH was supposed to co-host the shows, but luckily Master Events was able to take over completely and manage to save at least a couple shows from needing to be cancelled.

One of these shows was the show at the Nokia Arena in Tampere, the final show of this year’s tour, to which we made it. Even thought the organisation of the show, understandably, seemed a bit more thrown together than usual, it was still a very nice evening.

The soloists of this show were: Marko Hietala, Elize Ryd, JP Leppäluoto, Antti Railio, Ville Tuomi, Tony Kakko, Ilja Jalkanen, Tuple Salmela, Noora Louhimo and Pekka Heino.

If a live metal show doesn’t get you in the holiday spirit, I am not sure what will! An enthusiastic crowd showed up on a Wednesday evening at Piere’s in Fort Wayne, Indiana to show their love to headlining band Ra, whose lead vocalist resides in the city. In addition to Ra, A Killer’s Confession (vocalist Waylon Reavis is a former vocalist of Mushroomhead) was providing support on the From One 20th Anniversary Tour. There was also a lot of support for special guests The Illegals and Blood of Heroes, both locally based bands. All four bands showed up and showed out for this mid-week gig. Sahaj Ticotin of Ra is an extremely talented vocalist and musician, with his tantalizing voice and Ra’s mesmerizing unique sound, the band is worth checking out live if you can.

Skindred are currently on a massive European arena tour as special guests of Volbeat. That was the perfect opportunity for us to go and see this pretty unusual combo play live and warm up a 12.000 people crowd in the Schleyerhalle, Stuttgart, Germany. Bringing their really individual set on stage in the middle position between Bad Wolves and Volbeat they just delivered a perfect job to heat up the masses in expectation. The wild-style mix of a wide range of musical genres which includes rock, metal, punk, hip hop, electronica and reggae influences creates a unique style and sound – the band calls itself just a ‘reggae-metal-band’. In addition to all that, there are different bits and pieces of famous bands included (the intro of Van Halen‘s ‘Jump’ on mini-keyboard was a pure highlight). To round up the show, singer and frontman Benji Webbe plays with the crowd and gets it to interact with the band permanently – it was a big success and the crowd made quite some noise, cheered and thanked them for the performance with big applause in return.

Hope you’ll enjoy our photos!

The Danes Volbeat are an absolute success in Germany and the proof is in their presence in the huge hall Olympiahalle for two consecutive nights with full capacity. Presenting a gigantic show, with a gigantic stage that looks like a labyrinth it was not easy to capture images of the band. The band came to Munich full of energy to present its new album “Servant Of The Mind” and once again present us with a fascinating mix of rock’n’roll, blues, punk and hard rock.

Opening the night were the newcomers Bad Wolves and the veterans Skindred that mixes very different styles like reaggae, metal or even hip-hop.

When you happen to be in Tampere on a visit and a major tour like this one makes a stop, how could you say no to this? Having been a huge Volbeat fan in the past, I couldn’t miss out on seeing a big arena show from these guys. And since they brought the ragga metallers Skindred and US rockers Bad Wolves with them, a good night of fun music was a sure thing.