Since last year Finland is yet another big rock and metal event richer. The Rock Fest immediately caught the attention of people all over the country and far beyond those borders with big names like Rammstein and Evanescence gracing the line-up. Despite quite a few obvious flaws and bugs in the organisation, it was an overwhelming succes and they quickly announced an even bigger event of this time 4 days on a brand new location. Of course we had to be there to see if they improved on certain things and if this would be a legendary festival in the making…

Day 1

Opener of the 4 day event was Finnish cult band Timo Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus (***). For me personally there is still not much that captivates me in their music or performance, but they clearly managed to gather quite the crowd already early on. Their shows are always played to perfection and brings a simple and traditional heavy metal show to the stage. A nice opener for the Finnish crowd, but I noticed that I was already looking forward to the bands that were coming still later this day.

One show I was really looking forward to, was the one of Stone Sour (****). Having been a fan from the first hour, I sadly never saw them live before. So when their intro track dropped to hype up the crowd, I easily followed suit. Corey Taylor shouted, sang and growled his lungs out and seemed genuinely happy to finally be back in Finland. Besides that, with the comeback of founding member Josh Rand after his recovery from some health issues, the band seemed re-energized and ready to take on the world even more than before. Sadly, I didn’t get to hear some of my favorite old school tracks, but that’s not too surprising with a band that has already 6 albums by now. It was hard, heavy and melodic… just how I expected a Stone Sour gig to be like. Already looking forward to the next time I can see them!

Closing the first short day on the Perkele tent stage, was another youth sentiment band for me. Bullet For My Valentine (***1/2) has been going on for over 2 decades and it shows in how much they evolved into the performance machine they are now. Later this month they’re back with a brand new release called “Gravity” and they clearly wanted to make sure you won’t forget, by kicking off with the 2 first singles Don’t Need You and Over It. Another really decent show by these Welsh giants with of course classics like 4 Words (To Choke Upon) and Tears Don’t Fall of course not forgotten. The energy rubbed off on the crowd with a moshpit that created its own little sandstorm within the tent, leaving a bunch of people coming out as if they got dragged through the dirt!

The main event of today was the last ever Finland show of one of the gods of heavy metal. The Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne (****), came to grace the stage one last time and brought some talented musicians along with him to bring a grab of his best tracks with here and there a Black Sabbath track thrown in for good measure. The fact that one of those musicians is his former lead guitarist Zakk Wylde, is something fans all over the world clearly very much appreciate. It’s only right that Zakk is there for the last world tour of Ozzy!

After an epic and bombastic opening with O Fortuna, Ozzy mounted the stage immediately playing 2 of his biggest hits Bark At The Moon and Mr. Crowley, showing that he’s there to bring us a trip through memory lane. Ozzy was actually in quite good form and clearly enjoyed being on stage once again. We got classic after classic with Black Sabbath‘s War Pigs and of course Paranoid as the finishing touch! One thing that took a bit away from the show for me personally, was the overly long instrumental medley/soloing with mister Wylde front and center. It took away some of the pace and groove of the show and definitely could be half as long for me. But overall it was a great end to the first day of the festival and a proper farewell to one of heavy metal’s legends.

For more pictures go here.

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