Every year for the last 6 years, the Tampere island Viikinsaari has been taken over by the metal festival SaariHelvetti (or “The Island of Hell”). This year, it’ll be the 7th time the festival takes up shop on the island and the 3th time they spend a total of 2 days there with some of the best bands Finland (and beyond) has to offer. After getting to enjoy last year’s edition as one of the very few festivals that actually took place within Finland, or in the world for that matter, we didn’t want to miss out on another round of this. Much like last year, the line-up consists of only Finnish bands, despite them trying to get at least a couple of foreign bands to the island. It’s a pity it didn’t work out, but looking at the impressive list of bands, there won’t be anything to complain about, really. Here is what happened the first day…

With pictures of Shereign, Tyrantti, I Revolt, Finntroll, Spiritus Mortis, Swallow the Sun, One Morning Left, Insomnium and Nicole:

(click on the thumbnails to see more pics)

For a full report of the day, go here.