The Hellsinki Industrial Festival traditionally starts with a pre-club that offers free entry for the people who bought the 2-day ticket to the festival. This year, the pre-club was moved to On the Rocks in Helsinki on November 2nd, 2023.
TEKNOHIRVI, led by the organizer of the Hellsinki Industrial Festival, Juha Virtanen, kicked off the night with a set of hilarious word-for-word Finnish translations of well-known industrial songs by bands like CENTHRON. The band is better known as THE HIRVI, who play thrash metal, but I had never had the pleasure of seeing them live before.
Next up was SUPER DRAGON PUNCH!!, a Belgian band that plays tunes inspired by ’80s video games. I was expecting retro game music similar to what I’ve seen in previous years, like DIVMOD who played music with a GameBoy, but SUPER DRAGON PUNCH!! was nothing like that. Instead, they played like any other industrial pop or synthpunk band, and the show felt more like a punk concert than an industrial one. The vocalist was full of energy, jumping around and luring people to the dance floor.
The third and final act of the evening was IVAN KING from Italy. I was surprised to see him play at the pre-club instead of the main event, and it seems I wasn’t the only one. Multiple people mentioned knowing him from his mask crafting. Unfortunately, the mask he wore during the first song really muffled his voice, so he took it off for the rest of the show. I’m glad I got a few good shots of him early on because he looked really cool.
Overall, it was a great night, even though there were unfortunately very few people in attendance. That’s just how Finnish people are on weeknights. Check our photo gallery here…
Teknohirvi
Super Dragon Punch!!
Ivan King
Photos by Richard Forsman
