Last year we got to visit Tuska Open Air for the first time. The event is the biggest metal festival in THE country of metal: Finland. Taking place at a former energy plant turned event area called Suvilahti  in Helsinki, at the end of June/beginning of July the amps get plugged in and turned to 11 for one of the coolest metal and rock gatherings there are. This year things were even more special since it was Tuska’s 20th anniversary. So we geared up for what promised to be one of the biggest celebrations of the year!

On Friday and Saturday there was as every year an afterparty to attend at Virgin Oil Co. in the center of Helsinki. We didn’t manage to catch the show of Barren Earth and co Friday night, but on Saturday we gathered up whatever energy we still had to make it to the venue so we wouldn’t have to miss out on the first headlining show of the up-and-coming talents of Blind Channel. When we got there opener Delta Enigma had already finished their set, but luckily we managed to see the Finnish hardcore punk band Tryer (***). After earlier in the year seeing their show at HVNk PNkRCk in Hyvinkää, I was personally looking forward again to see their wild performance.

The music was still as volatile as I remembered, but somehow there was something missing… Maybe it was the fact that they were high up on a stage and not on the same level as the crowd like when I saw them before, which caused the interaction with the crowd being next to nothing. Maybe it was because most of the people already there were fans of Blind Channel and weren’t really into the very different music Tryer was bringing. I still enjoyed it a lot, but I’ve seen them better before for sure.

And then it was time for the main event of the night. The young guys of Blind Channel (*****) have been working their asses off to get where they are now and looking at their quickly rising popularity, what they’re doing is definitely working. We saw them bring their “violent pop” already a few times before, but this clearly was the best one yet. They set up some big extra lights in the back to add more flair to what looked like a promising show.

Right from the start the energy was right and they were absolutely ready to blow everyone who was there away. With early bombshells like Enemy for Me and My Revolution the room got lit up immediately! The guys jumped and danced around like there was no tomorrow and the place felt electric. The addition of the light pillars behind them raised the bar most definitely for their future shows. The production value felt like we were at a show of big bands like Bring Me The Horizon, Bullet For My Valentine or even their inspiration Linkin Park.

It gave us a glimpse of the (quite literally) bright future these guys have. I got pleasantly surprised when vocalist Nico belted out some harsher grunts than I’ve ever heard before, definitely an evolution I applaud! The roof went really off when they played their extremely danceable Deja FU, followed by two of their successful cover songs. Before their latest single Can’t Hold Us (cover of Macklemore & Lewis), a bunch of dance girls showed up on stage to do a little dance routine to then hang around during the song.

Following was their most played track on Spotify and probably a song a lot of people discovered them by: the cover of Don’t by Ed Sheeran. They ended their regular set with quite the bang, playing fan favourite Bullet (With Your Name On It) during which the girls came back to unleash a shitload of glitter confetti with some confetti canons. They still came back with the encore songs Alone Against All and Darker Than Black, leaving those who were present this night amazed of what they saw.