Photo Reports

Steelchaos day two was clearly the main day for many people as it clearly drew the biggest crowd with a fantastic lineup from old school heavy metal to skull crushing death metal and to good ol’ Finnish black metal. Even though the more classic heavy metal acts all delivered, it was very clear that still this festivals target audience enjoys more of the extreme music when the biggest hordes gathered during the more extreme metal bands. The festival area concept still worked well with minimal lines to get beer or food but the toilet situation was a complete disaster when men’s inside bathrooms were out of commission, that’s really the only complaint about the arrangement of the festival, just sort your shit out, quite literally when it comes to proper toilets for drunk metalheads to do their needs in.

After the glorious and epic return of Steelfest last spring (check out the photo reports here, here, here and here), now it’s time for its little brother (or sister if you so will) Steelchaos! This would be the first edition that takes place with a proper live audience at the “new” location. And on top of that, there is a stellar line-up again, with compared to the last edition of Steelfest, way more variety and room for other genres like death metal and traditional heavy/speed metal. And with the cherry on top, the Finland exclusive show of Venom Inc. celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Venom classic ‘Black Metal’.

But that was for the next day. First we traveled down to Hyvinkää, to the all too familiar Steelfest grounds where the indoors venue would be the place for Steelchaos from now on. With on the Friday a lovely line-up with Finnish natives Satan’s Fall, Malicious, Flame and Barathrum, topped off with the Austrian black/death metal maniacs Belphegor and Swedish melodic death/black metal legends Sacramentum, we got a proper start of 2 days of underground metal madness!

Always a pleasure to be able to take pictures at an event as visually interesting as this:

If there is a style of metal that doesn’t excite me in terms of sound it’s black metal, but as a photographer, these are the most interesting and challenging bands to photograph.

Opening this diabolic night, one of the latest sensational bands in terms of extreme metal, my Portuguese compatriots Gaerea. With the release of their latest work this year entitled ‘Mirage’ they have consolidated their name further in the international market and this joint tour with other names is an emerging need to showcase their creations live around the world. The band’s live performance can simply be described as super intense and suffocating, a unique experience in feeling emotions of despair and chaotic beauty! The Halle Room at the Backstage Club was already packed when the band took to the stage, showing that in Munich there was interest not to miss this show, and that in the end it was worth getting there early. After such a strong opening act, the stakes are raised and the following bands have a difficult task.

Hailing from the UK, Winterfylleth show consistency and genuineness in the presentation of their live music. Visually they look different to many other black metal bands, without a lot of flashy stuff, which for me is a bit uninteresting, but musically they are as strong, united and cohesive as a hard rock.

Idolized in Munich, Gaahl takes the stage and the audience present shows what they came for. The Norwegians (Gaahls Wyrd) show that they are excellents in the execution of their songs and feel comfortable on stage, backed in a strong way by their god/demon in the voice. Visually the live staging is interesting and creates an appropriate atmosphere for their music, proving to be an interesting proposition in their genre.

We can confirm that the devil was present in Munich on this night!

The concert of Arch Enemy – Behemoth at Vorst Nationaal, Belgium, originally planned on October 23, 2022 was officially canceled due to scheduling conflicts, so we had to go see them in the Netherlands at the Mainstage in ‘s Hertogenbosch.

After a ride of 170 km, arriving just in time, there appeared to be a problem with my photo pass which made me miss the warm up act Unto Others (Sorry guys!). After checking and proving that I had a confirmation e-mail, the friendly man behind the counter finally let me in after all so I was able to photograph, starting from the second band-special guest: Carcass!

The closing headliner for today is Arch Enemy who, undeniably, gave their best. Of course everyone loves Alissa and many people came especially for her performance, but we heared voices left and right saying that the Polish blackened death metallers Behemoth did even better! With large amounts of smoke and pyro (which were also abundant at Arch Enemy, by the way) they gave one hell of a show!

Check out the pictures below!

Reckless Love got the quite fully packed Yo-Talo in Tampere hotter than hell, where they played a great show with both older and newer songs including one of my personal favorites ‘Edge of our Dreams‘. But also their support band Dirt was a pleasure to watch, as they were full of energy. As usual Nem Agency didn’t disappoint at all with the event they organised.

The Americans of Machine Head and the Swedes of Amon Amarth, along with the Swedish supergroup The Halo Effect as openers, joined forces on The Viking & Lionhearts Tour 2022. It’s not the first time we cover this tour on our website, having attended the epic stops in Helsinki (report & photo report) and Munich (photo report).

This time, we saw them in Vorst Nationaal, Brussels, one of the bigger venues in Belgium that was again well packed, just like the last time Machine Head performed here, in the same venue.

We caught Brymir yet again on one of their shows, this time at their first ever show in Hämeenlinna, at Suisto Club. This show, in a small and quirky venue was quite the contrast compared to their previous show in Tavastia, but not any less enjoyable. I Am Your God already set a pretty good mood and Brymir aced it, playing two extra songs and people still screaming for more.

Sum 41 came to set Vorst Nationaal (Belgium) on fire. They brought Cassyette and Simple Plan to support them in giving everyone a great evening. Due to traffic I missed the first part of her show, but it seemed those who came early were well entertained by all the musical power of Cassyette. Simple Plan passed even more energy on to the crowd by singalongs, jumping, crowdsurfing and creating a big party. Everyone is welcome to the family of Sum 41. They celebrated their musical career so far with all their old and new hits in one hell of a great concert.

Finally Bloodbound came to Finland for their two very first shows here. As a support they brought their countryman Captain Black Beard and Finnish heavy metallers Altaria. We caught them on their show at Tampere’s legendary YO-Talo and we had a great time.

We had the chance to visit the next to last gig of the ‘Symphonic Metal Nights Tour 2022’ which featured co-headliners Visions of Atlantis and Xandria with support from the Swedish pirate folk misfits Ye Banished Privateers. This was not only a highlight for all pirate-themed music fans but quite a large part of the audience in a sold out and packed Cafe Central Weinheim was clearly onsite to see this and dressed accordingly.

The evening was opened up by the Swedish collective Ye Banished Privateers . Presenting their pirate folk music was almost too much for this little stage which was more than crowded with the eight touring members ‘on board’ and set some serious limits to their urge to move around on stage. Maybe good that only 8 of the nearly 30 official members were here… At this point the venue was clearly heating up despite the autumn weather and temperatures outdoors.

Xandria were next to set the heat level even higher and get the crowd to sweat with their new lead singer and new album. They truly rocked rocked and fascinated the audience with their symphonic metal. Everyone got dripping wet of sweat by the end of their great performance.

The last act of the night set the heat notch to the top: Visions of Atlantis. And they brought back the pirate feeling, perfectly combining the themes of the first band with the sound of the band just before them. Everybody was aboard during their set, the harmonizing voices of Clementine Delauney and Michele Guaitoli took the audience by storm.

And even though it was close to the end of the tour, the performances of all bands were stunning. The choreographs were perfect and it has been a very enjoyable event. It was a fantastic night for all fans of symphonic metal. And I have to remember taking a backup shirt next time because you’ll go home completely drenched after such heated up gigs.