While we have been patiently waiting for the Saarihelvetti weekend to begin, Tampere city has ramped up its gear to heavy metal already the day before on August 5th, 2021, as APOCALYPTICA would be playing on Viikinsaari, with support acts CYAN KICKS and WHEEL. Obviously, we had to be part of such a great lineup and headed to the island of hell to get our neck muscles warmed up!
It was the first time seeing pop metal act CYAN KICKS since the release of their new EP, “Not Your Kind.” The band is known to have strong aesthetics and their stage clothing got an update, resulting in nice new outfits that fit their music perfectly. Additionally, the band included some new songs into their setlist, which sounded great live and showed the band’s remarkable stage energy. From the second the band opened up with “The Flood,” it was clear that they had been looking forward to this moment for a while. Singer Susanna Aleksandra not only has a great voice but also spend most of her performance headbanging, jumping around, and so on. The show ended with a highlight, as they had picked their biggest hit, “Gasoline,” to conclude their engaging performance.
Next up, were the progressive metal band WHEEL. We have been following the four-piece since the release of their EP, “The Divide,” and it’s always been a pleasure witnessing these musicians play such complicated tracks live. If you have been wondering what the band looks like during their live shows, they seemed to have drastically changed their stage appearance and have dropped their anonymity hoods. They played a nice combination of old songs and new, considering they just released their new album, “Resident Human.” This was also the first show including their new guitarist, Jussi Turunen. Altogether this made for a very strong set, but then again, it’s not a big surprise to us and we expected nothing less. If you still haven’t been able to catch this band live, whenever shows are allowed again, they are joining the “Epic Apocalypse” tour with EPICA and APOCALYPTICA.
APOCALYPTICA‘s headlining set started at 20:00 sharp and while the band had just released their new record, “Cell-0,” it seems like the focus was not too hard on the newer material; perhaps they are waiting for their tour to play those tracks. The audience was eagerly singing along to songs like “Path,” “I Don’t Care,” and “Not Strong Enough,” the latter two featuring Tipe Johnson (known from LENINGRAD COWBOYS and GRINGOS LOCOS). It was a bit of a surprise that the band didn’t invite WHEEL‘s vocalist/guitarist James Lascelles to sing with them, as they had done so during the only show of the “Cell-0” tour in Finland. All-in-all, the band had an energetic performance, which we are quite used to from them. It was great to see them on stage again after such a long time!
Check out our photo gallery of the evening below…
Cyan Kicks
Wheel
Apocalyptica
