Photo Reports

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.

Canadian Billy Talent stopped in Munich to present their new tour, which brings new songs in the luggage taken from the latest album “Crisis of Faith“.
The band performed 21 songs live in an intense night that everyone hoped would last forever. Sympathy and communication always present in a performance full of energy and fun with much moshpit in a completely packed house and surrendered to the performance of punk rockers.

The Berliners Pabst, who practice an alternative indie-rock sound, opened the venues as well as the British Frank Turner who warmed up the crowd very well, being very nice to communicate all the concert in German with the crowd and the reaction was always hilarious and funny. This was a night that I add to my wish list of bands to photograph, and I am very happy and grateful to have had the opportunity to be there

Heilung has become an absolute phenomenon. Not only they make wonderful music, but live they are an absolute sight to behold. It’s a celebration of everything from our ancestors, the connectivity with nature and each other, and is simply a religious and otherworldly experience. Now, I’ve caught them twice before already, both at Tuska festival in Helsinki. And while those shows were absolutely amazing, I still felt there was something missing. Their performances work best when the whole crowd is there to connect with Heilung has to offer the world and at a metal festival, it just often doesn’t work as well as it could. So I was eager to see what the vibe and atmosphere would be like when catching them at a venue with a headlining show, where everyone there traveled to see and experience Heilung.

Folk that harks back to the olden days and somehow connects you with something that lives deep inside you, a connection with nature and your ancestors, is something that has been somewhat of an obsession of mine for probably about 15 years. The fact that through popular acts like Wardruna and Heilung, popular series like ‘Vikings’ and even games, this kind of “pagan folk” is starting to become somewhat more popular and more commonplace is something I can only celebrate. Because it means that there is a bigger chance that bands and artists that make this kind of music are coming to a stage near me. Case in point: the French collective Skáld was on tour through Europe and made it all the way to the Finnish shores. No way I would miss this, so off I went to Ääniwalli, looking forward to a great night of folk music and connecting with that something deep in my core.

The Eclectic Room in Angola, Indiana raised the roof during the Until We Break Tour with headliner From Ashes to New with special guests The Word Alive, Dropout Kings and Eva Under Fire tapping in for Dragged Under. 

Eva Under Fire started the night off with an amazing, high energy right off the bat. There were definitely some fans in the crowd that were big EUF fans that brought along signs to show their love to the band. Dropout Kings matched and raised that energy a little higher with their rap and metal mix, which got the crowd moving. The Word Alive fed off both the previous bands’ energies and by the end of their set, crowd surfers started to float across towards the stage. By this time the room was buzzing with such a vibe and everyone was definitely ready to see From Ashes to New hit the stage! I think the room is legitimately bouncing at this point. FATN hail from Pennsylvania and is composed of Danny Case [vocals], Matt Brandyberry [vocals], Lance Dowdle [guitar], Maty Mediro [drums]. They played hits such as Until We Break, Panic, Scars That I’m Hiding, Wait For Me and Crazy. The band also played a cover of Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit, which was pretty dang rad. The lineup for the tour was so awesome, and they all did such an amazing job performing as well as interacting with fans during and after the show. I look forward to more work from all the bands in the future!!

We went to Antwerp to watch Powerwolf on their ‘Wolfsnächte 2022’ tour where they presented us their latest album ‘Call of the Wild’, successor to the hugely successful album ‘The Sacrament of Sin’.

The (European) tour kicked off in Stuttgart on October 1st, and on December 4th it was our turn to sing along to the heavy metal anthems they brought us on what was  the biggest and most epic production Powerwolf has brought to stage thus far.

Special guests were Dragonforce, led by -co-founder- guitar virtuoso Herman Li who invariably steals the show with his unique guitar playing technique.

Warm up act was Warkings.