Tuska Open Air 2012
Suvilahti, Helsinki, Finland
June 27-29, 2012
The Tuska Open Air Festival is definitely a real metal festival institution amongst all other metal festivals in Europe. This current area, Sivulahti, almost located in the heart of Helsinki, only a few kilometers away from the downtown, is a new home for Tuska for the second time. Suvilahti is more like an industrial environment with the burning and hot asphalt underfoot. When raining, at least the area won’t turn to one hell of a big mud fest.
Another thing forcing Tuska to make a change was the date. Originally the festival was supposed to be at the beginning of July, but another big more international based festival took over the date and Tuska was postponed until three weeks later. Well at least some people got pissed off at the changed date. Obviously a few band negotiations needed to start all over. Hopefully Tuska will return back to the original date.
The line-up looked once again – amazing. Megadeth and Ministry and of course the Swedish war trad metallers were headliners, but Lamb Of God had to pull out of Tuska because of the arrest of the frontman in Republic Czechia and was replaced by Finntroll and Animals As Leaders had to cancel as the band managed to miss the flight. Of course a few cult metal bands like Saint Vitus, A.R.G. could be witnessed. The festival was an utter success although the event wasn’t sold out. All in all 26,000 people visited Tuska during three days.
Metal-Rules.com was present to check out a lot of bands and enjoy the sun and rain.
Review and pics by Arto Lehtinen and Petri Da Costa
FRIDAY
Exodus was the first main act of the festival, scheduled to play rather early, but surprisingly there was a good number of people inside already the festival to see them. Since guitarist Gary Holt is busy with Slayer, former guitarist Rick Hunolt has been playing with the band and did a fantastic job, and his performance was the highlight during Exodus’ set. On top of that, during “The Toxic Waltz” and “Strike of the Beast”, there were the biggest circle pits in Tuska history. A truly memorable gig.
The Last Act of Defiance
Iconoclasm
Piranha
And Then There Were None
A Lesson in Violence
Metal Command
Blacklist
Bonded by Blood
War Is My Shepherd
The Toxic Waltz
Strike of the Beast
One of the most successful power metal bands, Edguy, was once again back in Finland after playing in the beginning of the year. Still promoting their latest “Age of the Joker”, Edguy was on their usual form, with frontman Tobias Sammet entertaining the fans and leading the band. The set was mainly based on the latest album, including here and there some older material. Nothing remarkable but never the less, it was enjoyable.
Nobody’s Hero
The Arcane Guild
Tears of a Mandrake
Rock of Cashel
Lavatory Love Machine
Robin Hood
Save Me
Superheroes
King of Fools
After a long hiatus, Lock Up is back and a year has already passed by since the release of their latest record “Necropolis Transparent”. I believe this was their first gig in Finland, so it was surprising to notice that not many people were there to see the band, especially considering the talent and high profile of the band members. Those who were there witnessed a fast and furious set that included even two cover songs: “Storm of Stress” and “Fear of Napalm”, both from Terrorizer, which were tributes to former guitarist Jesse Pintado.
The legendary doomesters Saint Vitus has resurrected to the new dawn in their long career. As mentioned in the Sweden Rock article, after the new album following a long break, St. Vitus has been booked to play at several festivals. But playing under the bright burning red hot sun ain’t the most idealistic place for this kind of doom legends. The band would need some sort of smokey and gloomy club environment. However, the doom hymns got spread around the festival area of Tuska.
It is kind of weird how much Trivium is detested amongst metal fans, but however the band gathers a lot of fans from these metal heads. Maybe they still dig the band secretly as the whole area was completely packed by thousands of people. Maybe Trivium would have fitted to be a headliner. Whatever as the four piece was definitely in the vicious damn strike on the stage. The audience welcomed the saviours of metal by arranging several pits and massive headbanging. The outfit hammered the audience down with a number of killer tunes. The band will be returning to the Finnish soil for the a club gig, then everyone digging Trivium will be there.
Capsizing The Sea (intro)
In Waves
Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr
Rain
Into the Mouth of Hell We March
Down From the Sky
Black
Watch the World Burn
Forsake Not the Dream
The Deceived
Dusk Dismantled
Drowned and Torn Asunder
A Gunshot to the Head of Trepidation
Throes of Perdition
Leaving This World Behind (outro)
Demigod’s history consists of several line-up and break-up and hiatus periods. The legendary death metal squad made a return to the stage with the original singer with the guys from Torture Killer and Hatework as a back-up band a few years back. Now the same concept unleashed the slumber of sullen eyes feeling at Tuska in front of the enthusiastic audience. Demigod delivered pure old school death metal. The old classic songs sounded as brutal and vital as twenty years ago. Even though the frontman is a man of few words, but instead his voice was still deadly brutal to reach the deep growling style.
Connecticut’s Hatebreed was definitely one of the better bands during Tuska and they did a really strong and energetic gig. Since the band doesn’t have yet a new record out and this year marks the celebration of the 10th anniversary of their “Perseverance” record, their set included some songs from this record: “Smash your Enemies”, “Proven” and “I Will Be Heard”. Since most of the guys from Exodus were watching Hatebreed’s gig from the stage, during “Live for This” Rob Dukes decided to join Hatebreed and did some back up vocals.
The Norwegian progressive atmospheric or whatever metallers made a debut visit to Finland earlier this year and of course the sold was totally sold out. Therefore seeing Arcturus at Tuska wasn’t any unexpected surprise. The unique style and catchy melodic parts literally sounded spellbinding. All these weird sounding parts were reminiscent to some kind of theatrical and odd. The frontman ICS Vortex’s weird way of jumping and odd waggling on the stage was quite amusing, but belonging to the music and style of Arcturus. The set consisted of the most known Arcturus tunes for sure.
The reactivated thrashers A.R.G. unleashed the pure old school thrash metal lesson at the indoor stage. The four piece cannoned the 30 minute set of the pure vicious thrash from the heyday of the 80’s. The band appeared to be well-trained and in a danger strike thru the whole gig. The frontman hardly communicated with the audience, frankly there was no need as songs were hammered down with the intensive grip without slowing down. The Finnish thrash metal pioneer thrashed all the kicking thrashing A.R.G. hymns.
Without a doubt Megadeth was one of the anticipated acts of this year’s Tuska and this gig was their last one of the European tour. After a 15min. delay, the band finally hit the stage playing “Never Dead”, maybe not the best choice for an opening song but the crowd went crazy anyways. If you have seen Megadeth live before, you know what to expect, only this time around Dave Mustaine seemed to talk more than the usual, and sometimes there were certain pauses between songs that made their set in the end to be about 70min. It was a good way to end the first day of Tuska, but it felt that something was missing, maybe a better set list or even more songs could have helped.
Never Dead
Head Crusher
Hangar 18
Trust
She-Wolf
Poison Was the Cure
Sweating Bullets
A Tout Le Monde
Guns, Drugs & Money
Whose Life (Is It Anyways?)
Public Enemy No. 1
Symphony of Destruction
Peace Sells
Holy Wars… The Punishment Due
