Photo Reports

Skid Row dropping by in the neighborhood with a brand new album under the arms AND a new vocalist? Yeah, that’s something we don’t want to miss out on…

After the support act of Belgian progressive metal band Max Pie, it’s time for the special guest hard rock formation from Italy: Edge of Forever, both warming us up properly for Skid Row‘s show!

It’s the first time we get to see Skid Row with their new (ex-H.E.A.T) vocalist Erik Grönwall. This man is a bomb on stage! A true abundance of energy from start to finish! Although they have a new album (‘The Gang’s All Here’), they mainly played songs from their 2 biggest albums ‘Slave to the grind’ and ‘Skid Row’. From the new album they only played the title track and in the encores ‘Time Bomb’.

Hellsinki Industrial Festival is back in town, and as usual, that means that on the Thursday night there is a club show with a couple artists of the industrial/EBM/goth music scene to warm up people for the festival the next days. This time, we didn’t get to go to the usual On The Rocks in center Helsinki, but rather the charming Kuudes Linja venue where we’ve seen Elektrik Products bring Nachtmahr earlier this year in April. With Carnal Machinery, Jessi Frey and ESA (Electronic Substance Abuse) on this year’s bill, it was promising to be a quite exciting first little taste of what this weekend was going to hold for us.

Grilling season was figuratively and quite literally opened when The European Siege tour starring Unto Others, Carcass, Behemoth and Arch Enemy hit the Ice Hall in Helsinki, Finland with their first sold out show of the tour. Packed show with moshpits running through the whole night, these metal juggernauts brought the heat to a gloomy and cold Wednesday evening. If you need warming up during these cold days, check out the photos down below when Helsinki Ice Hall was taken under siege!

The moment I walked into Trix I felt warm and fuzzy (pun intended). Garcia Peoples really layed down a warm blanket to warm up the crowd. With a full sound that filled the entire room wall to wall they really catered to the varied crowd that ultimately came for the godfathers of indie/garage rock.

It’d been 13 years since I’ve last seen Dinosaur Jr. and my ears were still buzzing. For starters J. Mascis – who might very well be one of the best guitarists in the world, but just couldn’t care less about titles – is known for linking his amps through, turning them up to eleven and using the dirtiest, grittiest fuzz around. Combined with Lou Barlow‘s deep rolling grabber bass that sounds just like Lou looks and Murph‘s technical drums in a rather small venue, this results in one hell of a wall of sound.

After nearly four decades of touring they still focus all their energy on their music. No colourful backdrops and fancy light show. No costumes or gimmicks. Just 3 men and an awesome collection of vintage guitars and fuzz pedals and the knowledge of how to play a crowd. Opening with “The Lung” sure did the trick and they had the crowd eating out of their hand from minute one. One thing that immediately stood out was how J Mascis‘ voice hasn’t changed a bit in those 38 years. In fact, he hasn’t aged at all in the last 20 years. He not only sounds, but also still looks exactly the same with his iconic long grey hair, large glasses and vintage Jazzmaster collection.

Bart Vandeportaele left Spoil Engine in 2018 and has since been working with vocalist Sven Herssens (of Fields of Troy) on some new music. Two years later, they were joined by bassist Bert Nauwynck (Diecast Unit), drummer Lothar Ryheul (Fields of Troy) and guitarist Dennis Wyffels (Lethal Injury / Bloodrocuted) to form their new band, called Mantah!

Another 2 years later they release their first album ‘Evoke’ and, after a well-received try-out the week before, give an official release party at Club de B in Torhout, Belgium.

Spoil Engine fans are sure to be spoiled tonight: Not only are they here to see Bart again, Iris (ex-Spoil Engine singer) is also back with her new band Three Times Royal! Since they don’t have a drummer yet, Siebe Hermans (Coffin Feeder, When Plagues Collide) has joined them for the live performance. And Iris even joined Mantah for a moment to guest vocal on their encore song!

Opening act was the Belgian metalcore band Secondhand Saints.

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.