Tuska. What a great name for a festival, innit? Now, after the 3-day metal extravaganza at Suvilahti, Helsinki, I can fully subscribe to these words uttered by Peter Tägtgren of PAIN on Friday evening, June 26th, which marked the first day of this annual metal music sacrament. In the past 5 years that I’ve been to the Tuska Festival, it always feels after the event that they couldn’t possibly top that experience – and cometh the next year’s festival, I don’t know how they manage to pull it off, but they always do: it was a blast, once again! It’s Monday morning, and I haven’t felt this beaten up and happy since the Devil knows when – after last year’s Tuska, most likely.
Once again, the headliners sparked heated online debates immediately after they were announced. You know how it goes: wasn’t BRING ME THE HORIZON headlining at Tuska only 2 years ago? Is BAD OMENS’ “Twin Peaks -core” even metal to begin with? There’s way too much poppy metalcore and synth pop, and so forth… Yeah, it still seems to be a rather widely held notion in the old-school metal fraternity that, for any self-respecting metal act, the metalcore lineage is not the most noble one to have. However, I’d say the prominence of quality metalcore in the Tuska Festival lineups in recent years has certainly made the event more appetizing to a wider metal demographic than the thrash-vested, GenX metal dads like myself. Besides, the festival sure pampered us old grits with the headliner of the Tuska Friday – MEGADETH – not to mention all the other goodies of legendary status in this year’s lineup: TAROT and QUEENSRŸCHE, to name a few. There was a little bit of everything for everyone, so I’m not complaining. In fact, at a glance, I noticed almost too much goodness, which meant I would have to make hard executive decisions about which bands to see and which to miss. Like usual. Personally, I was pretty stoked about the opportunity to finally see SKINDRED, RIVERS OF NIHIL, and QUEENSRŸCHE for the first time. I also did something that I rarely do before going to a metal festival – I checked out some of the bands in advance just to see what the fuss around them was all about. I mean, it sure spoils the element of surprise, but since Saturday’s headliner, BAD OMENS, had been the talk of the town lately in some of those dubious online music forums, I just had to check out some of their stuff on Spotify. I guess I’m becoming soft as I get older, because – Lo’ and behold! – I frigging loved it. Hence, I was all hyped up about seeing their upcoming show on day two even before the festival had started.
It has become a tradition for me to arrive at the premises well in advance, about an hour before the gates open, so that I can get in the mood and chat up other festival goers. My shitbox car is on its last leg, so this year I came to Helsinki by train, so I was at the premises even a bit earlier. Maybe I was lucky, or maybe the locals had exchanged their wristbands a day or two earlier, but there were literally no queues whatsoever when I got to the wristband exchange. That was pretty unexpected since Friday was already sold out. I just walked in. Cool. Then, at the gates, I met the Italian-turned-Finnish Summer Santa, Mikke – if you saw a guy dressed up in a red Santa costume with the text “Kesäpukki” written in black on the back of his bald, white-painted head, that was him. I mean, here was a metalhead of the highest caliber – he’d already been to Saarihelvetti and Steelfest and had plans to go to Hellsinki Metal Festival, too. On Saturday, he was dressed up as a Barbie Goth, but on Sunday, he went with that Santa outfit again. In Finland, we have this saying, “rakkaudesta lajiin,” which roughly translates to English as “for the love of the game,” or something to that effect, and it certainly applies to this guy. We’ll probably meet at metal gigs in Helsinki, or at next year’s Tuska Festival at the latest! That’s one of the best things about being a metalhead – you meet the coolest people ever, sometimes at the most random places. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been stopped by some random dudes downtown just because I wore a band T-shirt – and it’s fucking awesome!
This year’s metal tournament kicked off with some beefy death metal provided by the Arizona-based squad, GATECREEPER, on the main stage. That was a bit of a heavy start, I would say, but it could only mean one thing, obviously: this year’s Tuska Festival was about to go one louder. As per the conventions of the genre, you could hardly decipher what the band logo said, nor did the music leave you cold. The band’s star seems to be on the rise, and their performance at Suvilahti made it pretty clear why. I was not familiar with their music, so I cannot say how their setlist was balanced between the older stuff and new material – and it really doesn’t matter: it was a kick-ass set all the way through. The band has been around since 2013, and you could tell by their pristine live execution that they weren’t spring chickens. Their latest album “Dark Superstition” has been hailed as a masterpiece, and after seeing their performance, I know what I’m going to have to do after the festival – check out that beast in depth, that’s for sure. What a great way to kick off the festival!
Then, for something completely different, as the Monty Python dudes would say. The Radio City Stage offered some pop-tinted post-hardcore next, brought to you by AWAKE AGAIN, but even though I’d been advised to check them out by some of my friends, I opted for the reggaecore act, AURORAWAVE, on the Nordic Energy Stage, instead. I mean, as a longtime fan of SKINDRED, there was no way I could let this chance slip by. Yeah, I know that some metalheads do not exactly appreciate this kind of crossover metal, but to me, it sounded too far out even as a concept not to check out. Well, I did take a sneak peek at AWAKE AGAIN on my way to the other stage, but judging by one song alone, the best I can say is that these rogues sounded pretty damn good. They are a Finnish band, so maybe I’ll catch up with them somewhere else later. In recent years, the overlapping slots in the Tuska Festival timetable have been designed so that the bands should appeal to a somewhat different metalhead demographic. So, I reckon that these overlapping slots have not been much of an issue for most. For the “Anything goes” type of music nerd, like me, it’s always an issue, of course, but I reckon we are a minority. This year, there were more than a few overlaps that almost made me cry, but I’ll get to that later on. Of course, it would have been nice to see both of these early bands, but if I need to choose between a Finnish band and an international outfit, I’ll go for the international one by default. It might be my only chance to see that band for a long time.
That said, AURORAWAVE pulled off such a performance that it would be a damn shame if they didn’t come back to Helsinki relatively soon. I mean, heavy riffs and reggae rhythms – what’s there not to like?! Compared to SKINDRED‘s wild mayhem, this bunch proved to be a tad more laid back in their approach; if SKINDRED is the metal version of Lee “Scratch” Perry on steroids, AURORAWAVE sounded more like Bob Marley injected with a good dose of heavy metal. One of the absolute highlights of their set was the reggae version of SLIPKNOT‘s old classic, “Duality.” The band really owned the song and made it sound like one of their own – and the song’s iconic riffage blended outstandingly well in the reggae framework. Another highlight was the set’s closer, entitled “Kindness,” from the band’s eponymous 2024 debut album. The band had already made some fans in Finland, too: a couple of young Finnish guys standing next to me sang along to the song the whole time. While the original reggae sound may not be just as riff-driven as metal, the laid-back grooves of reggae work wonders in the metal context if you ask me. Besides, the legendary 1975 live album by Bob Marley & The Wailers is one of the best live albums ever released. Period. Of course, if this type of metal delicacy was not exactly your cup of tea, you were in for a surprise – Friday’s Tuska lineup had another treat of this sort coming up just shortly, which prompted me to entertain the thought that maybe, just maybe, we could see AURORAWAVE‘s vocalist Nathan Aurora joining SKINDRED for a song or two? (Well, we did, actually…) What I liked best about AURORAWAVE‘s reggaecore sound was that the band was not fooling around – they meant serious, yet appropriately laid-back business. Y’know, when metal bands want to go into the tongue-in-cheek mode, they typically mess around with some reggae flourishes just for a laugh, but these dudes weren’t doing it for comedic relief. I wonder why this type of hybrid isn’t more popular. Coming to think about it: heavy metal has the best guitar riffs and reggae, the dubbier side of it especially, has the grooviest basslines – so it’s a match made in heaven! AURORAWAVE harnessed the raw power of metal and mixed it with the sweet-scented vibes of Jamaica just perfectly!
Next up on the main stage, LOST SOCIETY delivered a kick-ass selection of the finest Finnish thrash-meets-whatever metal. The more mileage the bands get, the more nuanced and versatile their music seems to grow. When the band started to make waves – was it some 10 years ago or something? – I must admit to having dubbed them as some sort of clowns at first. It probably stemmed from their somewhat cocky demeanor. In a way, their public image resonated with the air of TEHOSEKOITIN in the 1990s: young dudes shooting some stupid shit in the music press. LOST SOCIETY‘s frontman Samy Elbanna came off like the glam-rock version of young Matti Mikkola at first. Now, as it happens, Mikkola‘s handiwork with SAIMAA has made him a straight-up musical genius in my books. My impression of LOST SOCIETY and Elbanna, in particular, has also changed drastically of late. The band’s performance at Tuska 2026 was the third time I saw them on stage, and to quote the Olympic motto, this time they went faster, higher, and stronger. The new songs sounded simply superb. Plus, largely thanks to Elbanna‘s recent interviews, my respect for the dude has grown immensely. In retrospect, judging by the comments I overheard at the festival premises, let alone the size of the crowd that Elbanna‘s thrash-metalcore-whatever squad had lured to the main stage area, I’m pretty sure that D.A.D. and LOST SOCIETY should have swapped slots. No offense to those Danish legends, but squeezing a mid-tempo rock act between PAIN‘s industrial onslaught and MEGADETH was not perhaps such a well-thought-out decision. LOST SOCIETY would have worked so much better – and that’s not just my opinion: I chatted up some festival people, and most of them agreed on this unequivocally. It’s now official: CHILDREN OF BODOM will be one of the headliners of next year’s Tuska, with Elbanna replacing Alexi Laiho. I think there are only two Finnish metal musicians who could fill those boots with any credibility – Petri Lindroos of WARMEN/ENSIFERUM or Elbanna. I’m pretty sure that particular Tuska day will be sold out almost immediately when the tickets become available. The latest LOST SOCIETY album, “Hell Is A State of Mind,” came out earlier this year, and I must admit that I haven’t checked it out yet. Now, after hearing a couple of live treats from it, I think I’m going to have to.
Next, it was time to choose between the Japanese metal legends, LOUDNESS, and the Finnish metal legends, ENSIFERUM. What made this decision especially difficult was the fact that I’d never seen either one on stage before. My rule of thumb to opt for the international act would have been a safer bet, of course, but when the other option was ENSIFERUM, it complicated things quite substantially. If truth be said, I wasn’t even aware that LOUDNESS was still active; I listened to some of their early stuff as a kid in the mid-1980s, and I had not heard from them since. I think it was the “Thunder in the East” album – it had that instantly recognizable band logo on its cover, I think. All I could remember from that album was that the guitarist, Akira Takasaki, was quite an ax-slinger. The band’s set kicked off with one of their biggest bangers, “Crazy Nights,” from that particular album. I can’t say that I recalled the song exactly, but Takasaki‘s guitar pyrotechnics did ring a bell. Vocalist Minoru Niihara‘s heavy-metal belting was equally impressive, especially considering that he’s been the lead vocalist in the band since day one – that is, from 1981! It was also nigh impossible not to notice how the band members enjoyed performing together – bassist Masayoshi Yamashita and their new drummer since 2008, Masayuki Suzuki, smiled almost non-stop. The show was a part of the band’s 45th anniversary tour, and while I had to make the hard decision to leave in the middle of their set to catch a little bit of ENSIFERUM, too, I have to give LOUDNESS credit: they functioned like a well-oiled Toyota engine: even after 45 years, it shows no signs of wearing out!
For some peculiar reason, I’d never seen ENSIFERUM on stage before, which is pretty strange, because their music is tailor-made for the live occasion. It’s quite like my prog-oriented friend said to me during the show: this type of music may not work best at home, unless you’re in a specific mood to listen to it (we’re both prog nerds, mind you) – but when it’s delivered live, it works every goddamn time. I made it to the venue just in time to catch the last four songs in the set – and, of course, they were all live bangers: “Fatherland,” “One More Magic Potion” – I had come by train, why the hell not? – “The Howl” and “Run From the Crushing Tide.” The band sure is a powerhouse when it comes to folk-inspired melodeath. There’s something utterly Finnish in the melodies without resorting to the most obvious Slavic melancholy tricks in the book, and the execution was top-notch as you would expect from a band with 30-something years under their belt. Plus, the epic choruses had that special appeal for the metal festival crowd – a chance to belt out some man-choir bombast under the influence of a few magic potions. I’m glad I finally got to see them live. ENSIFERUM has sometimes been dubbed a fruitier version of CHILDREN OF BODOM. Replace the word “fruitier” with “folkier,” and I might even agree. As I said above, the band’s frontman, Petri Lindroos, is one of the two Finnish guys who could ever stand in for Alexi Laiho, in terms of guitar skills and charisma. On this Friday, he was about to pull a double shift as his other band, WARMEN, would conquer the same stage only a few hours later. Mikael Stanne did the same with CEMETERY SKYLINE and THE HALO EFFECT last year. Is this becoming a tradition at the Tuska Festival? Not that we mind. Judging by the size of the crowd, people had been waiting for the chance to see ENSIFERUM on stage at Tuska – the area was not filled to its last inch, but there was quite a sizable crowd at the Nordic Energy Stage.
At this point, it might be in order to address the metal banquet on offer at the indoor venue, KVLT Stage. As per usual, securing a good spot inside the Tiivistämö venue would have meant leaving early from the outdoor stages, because the venue IS really small. Plus, the shows did overlap with the so-called main dishes quite badly. Still, while there were no such easter eggs like last year’s NOIDUIN or OCTOPLOID featuring Tomi Joutsen of AMORPHIS on vocals, the KVLT Stage lineup of this year was almost too good to be true. The German funk-punks, SLOPE, and the Italian melodeath proggers, LUNARSEA, were too good to be missed, but what could you do? The former overlapped with both BLOODRED HOURGLASS and SKINDRED, and the latter with BLOOD INCANTATION, so there was no way I was going to risk missing even a moment of these bigger treats. It seems an awful lot as if the Tuska Festival is sneaking bigger and bigger bands into the KVLT Stage lineups year after year. Soon, the menu might full-on compete with the lineups of the bigger stages, meaning that you’re going to have to make harder and harder decisions about what to see and what to miss. Last year, I chose NOIDUIN over LORNA SHORE‘s headliner set, which was televised, luckily, so I could watch it later, but I reckon I might not be that lucky every time. Besides, it’s another thing entirely to feel the music live without the filters of digital screens. Lucky for me, LORNA SHORE will be headlining again next year. The thing is, I have finally proved the hypothesis to be correct that if you listen long enough to a band/genre that does not exactly tickle your sweet spot right away, you might begin to love it over time. The first time I saw LORNA SHORE at Tuska in 2023, I thought, “Well, this is interesting, but I’m still not sure whether this is for me, really.” Watching that 2025 performance online prompted me to think, “Okay, there is something to this band’s music, after all.” It lured me to check out their last two albums – and then, it finally happened. It’s too bad I did not realize this before I made my Best Metal Albums of 2025, but “I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me” was one of the best metal albums of last year, hands down. The album closer, “Forevermore,” is an epic masterpiece, a straight-up deathcore banger, which I would not even have dreamed of saying aloud about a deathcore song a few years ago – and none of this would have happened had I not seen the band on stage at Suvilahti 3 years ago. So, I’m not sure whether I should thank or curse the Tuska Festival for making me spend even more money on metal albums – the thing is, I ran out of storage space for CDs a long time ago, but as a stubborn-ass member of the GenX metal generation, I’m not exactly on good terms with the digital formats, sorry.
To get back to the festival report, though, the next band on the main stage was PAIN, the Swedish industrial veteran that I referred to in the intro paragraph. Yeah, what a great name for a band to play at Suvilahti, innit? For some reason, I’d been relatively unfamiliar with the band’s music up to this point. Sure, industrial has never been my go-to genre when it comes to metal, but there are quite a few industrial-metal classics in my CD collection – and as far as I know, PAIN should be regarded every bit as legendary as, say, FEAR FACTORY, MINISTRY, or RAMMSTEIN. Besides, I was neck-deep in the underground techno and trance scene of Helsinki in the late 1990s and early 2000s, so this type of metal should be my cup of tea, especially. Well, better late than never. The set leaned quite prominently toward the latest studio album, “I Am,” from 2024. Compared to the old-school industrial classics that I was more familiar with, PAIN had a tad more atmospheric, somewhat post-punk-esque approach to industrial metal. Needless to say, I liked it a lot. The choruses were pretty catchy, yet the riffs packed quite a lot of punch. Now, I’m checking out that new album while writing this, and I recognized a couple of songs from Tuska Friday – “I Just Dropped By (To Say Goodbye),” “Don’t Wake the Dead,” and “Go With the Flow.” I’m not really sure where exactly I should pin the band on the modern industrial-metal map; PAIN‘s music is way more “danceable” than, say, FEAR FACTORY, and a good bit less theatrical than RAMMSTEIN, and WAY less manic than MINISTRY. That’s as far as my knowledge goes, to be honest. Ask me about techno classics, and we can talk for hours, but I guess I’m quite a newbie when it comes to industrial metal. Now, after this weekend extravaganza, I’d say PAIN is closer to the pop-tinged end of the industrial spectrum – that is, if Tuska Sunday’s surprise gem, THE BROWNING, represented the harder end with their weirdly fantastic electronicore. For a specific reason that I shall elaborate on later, I friggin’ fell in love with the latter, but I liked PAIN just as well. Flirting with techno is always a winning move if you ask me.
The next band on the Nordic Energy Stage was one of the bands that I’d been dying to see for years, so even though I’d never seen BLOODRED HOURGLASS live before, I really had no other choice but to head for SKINDRED. Yeah, I get that these two bands probably appeal to two entirely different segments of the metal community, but still – this was annoying as fuck to be forced to choose between two bands of this caliber. BRHG‘s new album from last year is a top-tier selection of modern Finnish metal, and the new EP, “After the Burial,” is a pretty tight package as well. One of the new songs features the Finnish queen of blues guitar, Erja Lyytinen, so I’m guessing their EP is more than likely to make its way to my Top 3 EP’s of 2026 list at the end of this year. It’s just that I’ve been a die-hard fan of SKINDRED‘s crossover mayhem for the past 20 years or so, and this year’s Tuska marked the first opportunity for me to see them in action. Yeah, sure, I thought that I could maybe sneak into the Radio City tent at some point, but SKINDRED is not one of those bands from whose show you leave halfway through. It just does not compute. So, ragga-metal it was…
I was cautiously hoping to hear two of my favorite songs from the band’s 2002 debut “Babylon” – the party-rock anthem on steroids, “Set it Off,” or the epic nu-metal riffage, “The Beginning of Sorrow,” from the revised version of the debut, released a couple of years later or something. Well, we did not get either one, but I couldn’t even be mad at the band, because what we did get instead totally made up for it. These mad rogues released a new album entitled “You Got This” in April this year, so we heard quite a few tracks from it, naturally. It was actually quite brilliant that they did – because that new album had completely slipped by my radar until now. Their previous album “Smile” left quite an impression a few years ago, and judging by these live renditions of the new songs, I’m sure going to like the new album, too. As for the band’s live antics, well… let’s just say that there probably aren’t many bands that can pull off a show that is equally “lively.” I was aware of the band’s reputation as an excellent performer, but holy shit! Their talismanic frontman Benji Webbe turned out to be a wild mixture of James Brown, Freddie Mercury, and the James Bond villain, Dr. Kananga, from the 1973 film Live and Let Die. His stage presence resonated with the air of a firecracker let loose inside an enclosed space. He made the audience jump, dance, and sing along to some of the silliest phrases since the glory days of QUEEN. Toward the end of the set, the band played one banger from the debut, too – the song “Nobody” – and it sure made the crowd go apeshit. AURORAWAVE vocalist Nathan Aurora joined the band for the closing song, “Warning,” which wrapped up this fantastic show with a bang. After the show, I overheard a young metalhead’s comment about the show – “Fuck! That was amazing!” Oh, yes. It was. Later, I read somewhere that not all metalheads at Suvilahti were happy with the band’s unique sonic fingerprint. They thought that they had come to a metal festival, not a reggae event. Well, isn’t that a bit dramatic? In my books, SKINDRED and AURORAWAVE both add a new interesting dimension to metal music – and it is not even necessary to take a puff from the giggly jazz cigarette to be able to appreciate this type of metal aesthetic (although I’m sure it helps). Metal can be fun, too. If these Newport rascals are coming to Helsinki anytime soon, I’ll do my best to be there, because they fucking rock!
I must say that I would never have expected to see D.A.D. on the festival lineup, let alone on the main stage. Not at Tuska. Yeah, they are legends and all, but so is the Finnish veteran band, EPPU NORMAALI, and I wouldn’t squeeze them between PAIN‘s pop-tinged industrial and MEGADETH either. The music was so drastically different, mood-wise, that it broke the energy flow almost entirely. If there is a strict policy demanding that legends must be on the main stage, then it would have helped a little if LOST SOCIETY and D.A.D. had swapped slots at the very least. To make matters worse, these Danish dark-rock elders played mostly slow-to-mid-tempo songs. C’mon, dudes! You didn’t even play “Soft Dogs!” Lucky for you, we did hear “Sleeping My Day Away” as the set’s closer. Otherwise, I might have felt betrayed. So, as much as I do like some of the band’s older songs, the slot was not very well thought out. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with playing atmospheric and dream-like songs, but a late-night slot on the main stage at a metal festival probably is not the place to do so. I’ve heard that the band can also play a powerful and immersive show, so I’m thoroughly puzzled as to why they didn’t pull one at Suvilahti. If I’m totally honest, I was slightly disappointed by the band’s performance. Maybe they should have played “Soft Dogs,” after all. The song has a more driving feel than half of their set at Tuska combined. Sorry, not sorry.
The highlight of Friday, for me, was on offer next at the Radio City Stage – BLOOD INCANTATION from Denver, USA. They played at Tuska in 2023 and made a good first impression, albeit it must be said that the new studio album, “Absolute Elsewhere,” which they released the next year, introduced an entirely different band to us. Their “old” sound was like some old-school death metal sprinkled with a touch of fairy dust. On their new album, the band went full-on PINK FLOYD. Needless to say, this was one of the most anticipated shows on this year’s Tuska menu, and not merely for me: the venue was packed to the full. The festival staff should have brought the decibel meters from the main stage into the tent – I’m pretty sure the noise in between songs during this particular show would have gone off the scale. Everybody that I talked to about the performance said the same thing the next day: it was not a normal metal-music gig, it was an EXPERIENCE. It sure was. The band played the new album from start to finish and ended the show with an older song – “Vitrification of Blood, Part 1,” from their 2016 debut. After the gig, it was pretty wild to think how much the band’s sound had evolved since 2023. They flirted with psychedelic flourishes already then, but this was something else entirely. I’m guessing those mushrooms weren’t probably edible, really. Since metal music speaks to the very deep and primal levels of our consciousness by default, I guess performances such as this may actually serve as a redemptive vision and a catharsis. The feeling you get is not necessarily very much unlike those trending psychedelic ceremonies in controlled conditions that offer spiritual renewal. The matter of fact is that music (and musicians) can remove spiritual blockades just like any skilled Ayahuesquero can – and it’s completely legal, too! If ENSLAVED has incorporated PINK FLOYD into black metal, BLOOD INCANTATION has done the same to death metal – and it’s friggin’ beautiful!
At the Nordic Energy Stage, it was time for one of the day’s most anticipated sets: WARMEN. Despite being scheduled opposite one of the hottest bands in modern metal, they still managed to pull a massive crowd. Turns out Finns are quite good at making impossible decisions… or perhaps they simply cloned themselves for the evening. WARMEN have really found their stride with this lineup, carving out a place of their own in the Finnish melodeath scene while naturally filling part of the void left by Alexi Laiho‘s far too early passing. With “Band of Brothers” nearing its first anniversary, the setlist leaned heavily on that album, proving the band now has more than enough material to stand firmly on its own feet. It’s always a joy to watch Janne Wirman behind his trademark keyboard fortress. The man somehow manages to make playing keys look as cool as shredding a guitar, and when he occasionally breaks into a bit of air guitar himself, you know he’s having just as much fun as the audience. The mosh pits kept spinning for almost the entire set, while the fans at the barricade enthusiastically screamed along to practically every lyric. And yes, there were no CHILDREN OF BODOM songs this time around. Did anyone really miss them? Judging by the crowd’s reaction, probably not. WARMEN have reached the point where they don’t need nostalgia to carry a set anymore; they’ve got the songs to do it themselves. A stellar performance and a fitting way to kick off the final stretch of the evening.
I guess it was a clever move from the Tuska organisation to put a band like MEGADETH headline for the Friday, right after these death-metal ayahuesqueros, because a band with even a bit lesser stature could only have failed. Still, the change of mood was pretty dramatic, to put it mildly. For a moment, I actually thought that not even MEGADETH could work after an experience like that, but I’m glad I stayed till the end. How could I not have? I’d never seen MEGADETH live before – and this time, the band had one of our own on the lead guitar! Dave Mustaine seemed to be in good spirits, even though some mainstream media journo had given him a headache a little bit earlier. Well, Mustaine has a reputation for being a difficult person to interview, but then again, the tabloid media typically have no fucking clue whatsoever about matters of art – metal music, in particular. I’m not very familiar with the new album that came out in January (shame on me, really) – so, I guess the songs that I did not recognize were from the new, eponymous album.
When Mustaine introduced the band, he mentioned that his new wingman, our “national treasure” Teemu Mäntysaari of WINTERSUN fame, is the first Finnish musician to score a number-one album in the US. Well, I guess that’s something! This ongoing MEGADETH tour has been dubbed the band’s farewell tour, although Mustaine debunked those claims. Despite his 7-year battle with throat cancer, he seemed pretty determined to keep going. His signature snarls did not give away that he’s had any issues with his voice – he sounded just as “snarly” as on those classic albums. As for the setlist, it was littered with classic bangers, of course. The main stage area was packed to the full – the first day was sold out in advance, most likely because of MEGADETH, remember? – And it was pretty mesmerizing to stand amidst the ocean of metalheads and hear thousands of fans sing along to the chorus of “Symphony of Destruction.” The same vibe continued right to the end with old bangers “Peace Sells” and “Holy Wars… The Punishment Due.”
Because of the curfew, there was no encore – the band practically played to the very last minute. Mustaine‘s thrash squad was the first of the Big Four that I’ve seen live – don’t ask me why. Regardless of whether I ever get to see the remaining three on stage, this one proved to be a performance that I shall forever remember. Thanks, Dave, you magnificent bastard! Since I’d never seen MEGADETH on stage before, I cannot say how this show would rank on the band’s performance scale, and quite frankly, I don’t really give a shit. With his mileage, I reckon that even Mustaine‘s stock performance is good enough to blow your mind. I enjoyed the show very much. As did quite a few other Tuska goers by the looks of it. Since I’d come to Helsinki by train, I had the tedious task of hailing my ass home, and thanks to VR’s train schedules, I had to wait for the next train for over an hour at Pasila. On the positive side, I met up with other metalheads on their way home from Suvilahti, and I ended up talking with a guy from my hometown throughout the whole trip. It turned out that he plays in a band that plays MASTODON covers with the lyrics translated to Finnish! That sounds so far-out and freaky that I really hope they make something out of it. I’d go and see them play live for sure. I got home a little bit after 3 AM and went to bed maybe half an hour later, only to be woken up by my doggo after a 4-hour sleep. Tuska is a great name for a metal festival, innit?
Written by Jani Lehtinen & Laureline Tilkin
Photos by Laureline Tilkin
