Metal titans Soulfly returned to Finland, 16th of July to play a show at On The Rocks, Helsinki. I hadn’t seen Soulfly since I was a teenager. Seeing that the last time I saw the band was at a festival consisting out of an audience of 30000 others, I was surprised by the choice of the venue. On The Rocks is a very intimate venue and not what I am used to, but a great choice.
After a sweaty journey and walk to On The Rocks, I arrived in a fully packed On The Rocks, squeezing myself through the crowd to the front of the stage, I noticed they had built a tiny pho pit for the occasion. I couldn’t be happier, as it offered some protection from the heatwave as well as potential moshing.
Without a band to open up the evening, Soulfly hit the stage pretty much on time. Camouflage nets were covering the stage and it looked slightly bigger than I remembered. Taking a peek at the set list, I knew we were going to be in for a treat.
The band opened their set with “Frontlines” and kicked off what was about to be a fantastic show. They played through their back-catalogue, with great energy and dedication, including tracks like“Fire” and “Bleed”. The audience was able to experience a very intimate gig, and sang along to most of the songs. Even though the club is quite small, the audience didn’t stop themselves from moshing throughout the whole night. Vocalist Max Cavalera, is what we could call an icon. He was his charismatic self, banging his dread-locked hair throughout the evening. The rest of the band, especially bassist Mike Leon, keeps up with his pace and move around while jumping and being excited. I didn’t realize Zyon Cavalera, is nowadays is also part of the band nowadays. Something that I only realized when Max Cavelera introduced his son by introducing all-time Sepultura favorite “Refuse/Resist”. From the rhythmic sections, I could definitely tell Cavalera blood is running through Zyon’s veins, as he is a really talented young drummer who plays all the songs with such ease. We were treated with a new riff-tastic song called “The Summoning” which the audience welcomed very much. The new album is gonna be a killer. “Jumpdafuckup” started with the whole venue sitting down, when the vocals kicked in, the audience jumped as high as they possibly could and they kept on going until the bitter end, the song smoothly transitioned in “Eye For An Eye”, the last song of the evening.
High energy, intense and intimate, those three words best describe the show I witnessed. With a lot of circle pits and sweating, the audience went happy to their homes. After the show I felt as if I had been trapped in some alternate universe, feeding on the energy the band transmitted. Proof of a pretty damn good show.
