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 4

By day 4 everyone was clearly getting exhausted. Finnish hardcore punk band Huora (***) didn’t want to hear none of it. As soon as they came on stage, they tried to shook awake every single person that made it to the festival already. Their hardcore punk with often a touch of ska swagger definitely has the potential to do just about that. It didn’t take long for vocalist Anni to actually jump of the stage top get closer to her fans at the fence. Huora is a popular band and rightly so! Though I prefer seeing them on an even smaller stage than this.

And if punk isn’t really your thing or you’re simply not awake enough, dragging yourself to the main stage was the smart thing to do. Finnish metal gods Stam1na (****) took over Rock Fest as convincingly as always. Hairs milling through the air, fists raised and moshpits came to life… if you weren’t awake by now, there was no hope for you anymore! It’s always a pleasure to see this beloved Finnish band back!

Back to the “Kivi” stage for Pää Kii (***). This band was completely unknown to me except for the vocalist/bassist, who I quickly recognized as the bassist from Anal Thunder. Their music isn’t as straight forward punk rock as that band, but brings a mix of easy-going punk rock and alternative rock. The guys clearly had tons of fun and passion for their music, simply rocking out. Definitely a band to look more into when in need for some chill rock with a touch of punk attitude.

From the small stage towards the “Perkele” tent stage for Brother Firetribe (**1/2). Visually they are great fun to watch, going for the typical rock show moves and sending out a lot of positivism. Musically to me they’re a bit boring to be honest, their very basic rock is a bit too sticky sugar sweet to my liking. I like rock to have some kind of an edge at least a bit, but hey, to each their own.

On the main stage we get the prime example of how epic a modern metal band can be like. Swedish Amaranthe (****) infused very poppy touches with heavy music and their performance always brings the party through the roof. With 3 vocalists running around the stage, they’re a quite unique sight to behold. Clean male vocals by Nils, more harsh male vocals and some ruggedness by Henrik and clean female vocals and almost choreographed dance moves from Elize Ryd makes for one hell of a show. Add to that a guitarist, bassist and drummer brimming with energy and a customized light show and you just know you get top shelf stuff on stage. Making jokes on stage, teasing each other and even a proposal to his girlfriend by the guitarist, these guys know how to entertain their fans!

American rock/alternative metal outfit CKY (***1/2) was another band that a lot of people were looking forward to, me among them. They rose to fame through Jackass and drummer Jesse Margera’s brother Bam’s skate videos. Being praised for a long time as trendsetters in experimenting and breaking the limitations within certain music styles, they’ve become a pretty well-known band. It was fun to finally see and hear those songs I loved live, like Flesh Into Gear, 96 Quite Bitter Things and Escape From Hellview. A cool band that I’d love to see again sometime at an indoor setting.

Another one of the most popular metal bands in Finland claimed the stage of the “Perkele” tent. Kotiteollisuus (***1/2) brings straightforward and furious heavy metal with a clear Finnish touch. They’re fun, brimming with hooks and groovy metal riffs and filled the tent with a damn big crowd of crazy Fins!

I’ve been a huge fan of the old progressive death metal work from Opeth (**1/2) and am actually in love with some of their most recent more rock oriented songs as well. Sadly, I hadn’t been able to catch them live at any time before and heard rumors of legendary shows. But alas, today was not the day to experience that. In the sun on a main stage that had way too much bass, drowning out all of the intricate parts of their epic masterpieces and almost no stage presence up to cocky taunting of the Finnish crowd by saying that the Swedes rule in ice hockey simply ruined the show for me. Personally I would’ve rather seen them on the tent stage where darkness and a fitting light show probably would have created a way better atmosphere. I haven’t given up on them yet though and am looking forward to give them another shot, maybe at a club this time.

We’ve seen the young lions of Blind Channel (****) grow in stage presence and performance and they’re always a thrill to see live. From start to finish they’re bouncing around as if they swallowed a bunch of rubber bands and bring an almost unseen energy with their “violent pop”. Their latest release Blood Brothers proved even more that these guys are rising stars and the show at the Rock Fest in full sun proved their greatness and absolute fun yet again. Surprisingly enough they didn’t play any of their famous cover songs, but in the mean time I guess they have enough strong own songs to fire at us.

One of the best shows of the weekend was most definitely the one that Avatar (*****) brought to the table. The crazy Swedes always manage to add a ton of theatrics to their very tight metal shows and even with a quite “bare” performance they manage to keep this up. Johannes Eckerström as frontman and court jester on his own is an energy bomb you’ve never experienced before, throwing his long limbs around, banging his head like there’s no tomorrow and being expressive with his painted face including his signature “tongue sticking out”. Besides a pleasure watching the show with sometimes almost choreographed looking moves, their music has a certain groove and feel to it that’ll get you banging your head or throw yourself into a moshpit. You just can’t stay still on this music live and that’s how you should experience Avatar: live. If you’re not the biggest fan of their music yet, just try to see them on a stage and you’ll be sold!

Last headliner of the festival weekend: the American band Avenged Sevenfold (***1/2). They’ve managed to grow into a massive band worldwide with loads of dedicated fans. They came on a quite bare stage with only a series of big screens hanging from the back and the drum set in the middle, which surprised me somewhat for being the headliner. Warming up the crowd with Back In Black by AC/DC as their intro song, as soon as M. Shadows, Synyster Gates and the rest strolled on stage the crowd went wild and the party started for everyone there.

Opening with The Stage of their latest release with the same name, it’s clear they’re still touring in support of that release. Quite soon we got one of their biggest hits thrown at us under the form of Hail to the King and it became obvious why the stage was so bare boned. Because suddenly there was fire shooting from all sides on the stage. Of course the standard memorial moment for The Rev with the emotional So Far Away passed by and besides other hits like Nightmare and Shepherd of Fire, I got surprised when they announced some “old school shit”. They played Eternal Rest from their sophomore release, which is actually the part of their career that I like more than the more recent stuff. They followed up with 2 tracks of their breakthrough album City of Evil: Bat Country and M.I.A., making me miss The Beast and The Harlot, one of my favorite tracks by them. They ended their gig with another oldie under the form of Unholy Confessions, which got the crowd to muster up one of the biggest circle pits of the whole weekend. Even though most of the first half of their show was a bit boring to me, they definitely finished with a bang!

A last choice to be made for the “after party” band to end the festival with was this time really easy for me: even though the Swedish alternative rock/post-hardcore band Normandie has some really catchy tunes, the Welsh “reggae” metal band Skindred (*****) has always been a favorite of mine. Ever since I discovered them with Babylon, I’ve been enjoying their mix of groovy heavy metal and rock with reggae, hip hop and pop music. Sadly they didn’t play that specific song, but many other big party hits passed the revue like That’s My Jam, Ninja and Kill the Power. Sadly not that many people managed to drag themselves still to the “Perkele” stage to witness one of the biggest parties of the weekend, but all who were there went nuts under the hands of frontman Benji, who riled up the crowd like no other. Add some samples of songs by The Prodigy and others between their own tracks and a horn sound and the crowd was jumping on their worn-out feet squeezing every last bit of leftover energy out of themselves!

For more pictures go here.

https://www.facebook.com/therockfestfi/videos/2168041953210310/