Tuska Open Air 2008 - REVIEWED
Line up:
Slayer (USA)- Dimmu Borgir (NOR)- Carcass (UK)- Killswitch Engage (USA)- Sonata Arctica- Amon Amarth (SWE)- Mokoma- Kreator (GER)- Entombed (SWE)- Job For A Cowboy (USA)- Stam1na- Behemoth (POL)- Nile (USA)- Kalmah- Dream Evil (SWE)- Tyr (FRI)- Primordial (IRL)- The Sorrow (AUT)- Noxa (IND)- Kiuas- Korpiklaani- Ghost Brigade- Discard- Dying Fetus (USA)
› Tuska Open Air 2008
As I arrived at Helsinki Vantaa airport to review Tuska Open Air 2008, I had no idea what to expect. It didn’t have the strongest bill in the world, but it definitely had one of the heaviest, so I was quietly optimistic that I was in for a good 3 days of metal. I wasn’t wrong.
I’m not a seasoned festival goer by any means, but I’ve been to my fair share so I know what to expect, but immediately I was surprised by Tuska.
› Friday
The first surprise was where the festival is situated, it is literally in the middle of Helsinki, the capital city of Finland, and about 5 minutes walk from both the bus and train station. After queuing for about 15 minutes, me and my mate stepped into the festival site. What is usually a park for 50 weeks of the year is transformed into a fairly small but not cramped 3 stage festival site. It has a huge main stage in the middle, with two smaller tents to the left and right.
As I walked in, Finnish band Mokoma were opening the festival in good fashion. They had a big following at the festival, as most of the fans there are, predictably, Finnish. But they played well on what must certainly be one of the biggest stages they’ve ever played on and warmed the crowd up nicely with their catchy take on the thrash/death genre. 7/10
After Mokoma, I decided to gamble on going and watching another Finnish band called Kypck, sadly, my gamble didn’t pay off. They were well supported by their Finnish following but personally I found there songs basic in the extreme and just downright boring so I left after about 2 songs to see if I would fare better with whoever was playing on the other stage.4/10
The band I found on the Sue Stage, which is basketball courts when the festival isn’t on was a band called Tracedawn, who were a breath of fresh air after the dreariness of Kypck. That said, it occurred to me that what they were playing was just pretty generic metal and judging from the crowd they were another home favourite, but not exactly up to standard in the international arena. 6/10
Next up were Amon Amarth from whom I wasn’t expecting a great deal after what I felt was a below par performance when I saw them in Manchester. I was, however, pleasantly surprised. From the first song the singer, Johan Hegg, had the audience in the palm of his hand, there were pits, chants and fist pumping in an all around enjoyable and tight performance from the Swedish Viking metallers. 8/10
After Amon Amarth I thought I’d better sample some of the festival food and, more importantly drink on offer. There are two conflicting points that I found, firstly the food and drink on sale is the best I’ve ever found at a festival, cold lager on tap or any number of cold other drinks and not a burger in sight at the food stalls just massive pans sizzling with various curries and pastas. Sadly this does come at a price. The food’s ok, six euros for a big portion of chicken curry is good value seeing as it’s damn close to restaurant quality. What’s a little more upsetting is 5 euros for ‘400ml’s’ of beer! (They don’t do pints in Finland). Sadly this is what is to be expected in a country where alcohol is taxed in the extreme to prevent binge drinking on an English scale.
Anyway, the reason I knew I need sustenance was that the next band on the main stage were Carcass. I’ve never been a big fan of Carcass, only ever having heard three or four songs that I like, but after seeing them live I’m well and truly converted. This performance was the highlight of the festival for me, I still have the bruises almost a week later from the massive pit that was a constant throughout the brilliant set by the reformed scouse quartet. At the end of the set, I realised I’d hardly listened to the music at all, and I think that’s what makes a good band, you don’t have to listen out for the bits you know to enjoy hearing them live. It was a brutal performance and I’m counting down the hours till they play Wacken. 9/10
The last band I saw on the Friday was a predictably poor Dimmu Borgir. I’ve seen this band live a couple of times, and I just don’t see the point. One of my pet peeves when watching a band is if they don’t look like they’re enjoying it or trying to put on a show, and Dimmu seem to be the masters at this. Apparently from where they were standing on the main stage they couldn’t see the thousands of fans screaming for them, as they casually reeled off song after song as if they were in practice. If I was a fan, I’d save my money and listen to the CD’s, personally however, I don’t plan on watching them live again.5/10
› Saturday
Today as we walked into the festival we felt altogether more prepared for the day, as today we’d brought along a couple of plastic bottles full of cheap lager to save ourselves 15 euros. Sadly, our detour to the shops meant we missed our train into Helsinki and missed probably what we thought would be the band of the day Kiuas. This was particularly disheartening because looking at the running order, today was by a long way the poorest day. I was therefore doubly glad of the lager in my bag that may well have made a crap day bearable.
As it was my fears were unfounded, as I entered the festival I was treated to another surprise that Tuska Festival so frivolously gives you over three days, that was Behemoth. I’d had a look at these guys on the internet before I came out and I was pretty sure I knew what to expect, they had black and white faces and stainless steel shinpads, I was sure I’d be dealing out another Dimmu-esque bad review. As it was, despite appearances they actually played extremely enjoyable death metal that went down really well with the crowd who were pitting and fist pumping throughout the set despite the fact that they had 8 hours of metal still to come.8/10
Next up we had another gamble on which tent to go to. We decided to head on over the the inferno stage and have a look at Noxa, a grind band from Indonesia. Yes Indonesia. Never heard of them? I’m not surprised, Tuska was their first ever European show and I’ve got to say it was a performance that was only beaten, in my opinion, by Carcass the previous day. They were far and away the best band of the day, with tight grind riffs that didn’t descend into the noise that I usually expect from that genre. The highlight of the set was the singer breaking into ‘in the shadows’ by the Rasmus to take the mick out of the Finnish metalheads home grown ‘talent’. It really was a masterclass in grind from a band that I hope will be gracing our shores in the near future. 9/10
Up after them were the only UK band of the day, ‘Fields of the Nephilim’. Their set started of well with a great intro track and a nice slow chuggy song. Sadly the show went nowhere from there. There was no prodigious song writing skill, or really much skill at all as they chugged there way, painfully slowly, through their sixty minute set giving the worst possible representation of the UK metal scene you could hope for. They were dressed as sort of cowboy zombies, and they had all the stage presence of zombies to boot, it really was embarrassing to be English for that hour. 4/10
Next up I was hoping for my spirits to be lifted by a good performance by Dream Evil. Sadly whilst they played ok, every song seemed to sound the same as the last one, so after about half an hour I decided that it wasn’t worth listening to more just to hear ‘The Book of Heavy Metal’ which is the only song I know by them. It was a tight performance if nothing else, and the Finnish metal fans lapped it up. 6/10
One of my last hopes for improving the day were Kreator thrash legends in there own right I expected a true display of thrash wizardry. Sadly, as it seemed was a growing trend for the day, I was disappointed. Whilst the guitars were tight as a gnat’s arse for some reason the singer was singing so I high it was annoying. I was ensured by people around me that this was about two octaves higher than he sings on CD and confirmed my suspicion that today at least the singer wasn’t having a good day. 6/10
Next up I thought I’d check out Ireland’s Primordial to see if they could lift my mood after three solid disappointments in a row. I was surprised to find that in their first song there were Finnish fans singing along, so they must be fairly popular in Europe but despite that I really struggled to get into the set. Maybe it was that the three bands previously had broken my spirit for the day but after half an hour I had to bail as the songs just didn’t agree with me and I found myself questioning Finnish metal taste. 5/10
Sadly we had to miss Morbid Angel as we had to go on a beer run as the shops stop selling beer at 9 o’clock in Finland (another measure to stop drunkenness which failed on us) and after leaving the festival the stewards aren’t allowed to let you back in for health and safety reasons. Anyway, we thought we’d be better saving ourselves for what we had down as the best day.
› Sunday
It was a disappointing start to Sunday as we entered to Sue stage to watch Job for a Cowboy we learnt that their singer was ill. Naturally I assumed that they couldn’t play, but oh no we were treated to a real rarity, a death metal instrumental set. And I tell you what, whilst it wasn’t the best set by any means, you wouldn’t expect it to be, it did hold my attention for the full time and with no singer that is no mean feat so I think for battling quality I’ll give Job For a Cowboy 8/10.
Next up were Killswitch Engage who I did not expect to enjoy. I’d seen them a number of years before and had it drilled into my head before I’d even seen them that they were shit. This time however I thought I’d go in there with an open mind and by god they were good. Adam D on guitar is probably clinically insane but jesus he can play guitar at the same time so I don’t care. The band plays a really tight set and gets the biggest circle pit of the festival. Seriously, it was like running a bloody marathon. Finishing off the set with My Last Serenade and Holy Diver leaves you feeling really good about their set and they are a surprising band of the day for me. 9/10
Off I went next for a look at Dying Fetus who, to be honest, I was a little disappointed with, it may have been the quality on show today or just that as a three piece they lack a certain force behind their songs I don’t know, but I thought they were a little bit boring. Still it was a tight performance with some virtuoso parts of songs, so who’s to complain. 7/10
Next up was everyone’s recommended daily allowance of cheese. Yes In between the crushing death metal of Dying Fetus and Nile we have the cheesemongery of Sonata Arctica. They played a surprisingly good set and it was actually nice to have a break from heavy music as I stood eating noodles and singing along to full moon. Sure I’ve never seen a guitarist so up himself but I think that’s part of their charm. 7/10
Over on the Sue stage I was about to experience a band who I’ve been waiting to see live since I bought ‘In Their Darkened Shrines’ four years ago. Yes technical death metal demigods Nile were headlining the Sue stage and played a great set of new and old favourites. The highlight for me was a crushing rendition of ‘lashed to the slave stick’ which had absolutely everyone headbanging like hell. The performance was good but as I had feared the songs were almost too technical to pull off live so despite a great performance there were times when it was tough to follow where in the song they were. But they were still extremely good. This is proved by their still being fans chanting for an encore as Slayer were due to take the stage! 8/10
The expectation was immense as the whole festival site waited for the mighty Slayer to take to the stage, as we looked at a lovely picture of a disfigured Jesus the intro track started and roar went up. Sadly from the start there were sound issues but they were fixed mostly after the first couple of songs. I have to say though, that having never seen Slayer live before I was majorly disappointed. I mean I thought that after what must be thousands of gigs, they’d be a really really good live band but as it was they played a tight but almost mechanical set. The most annoying thing for me though is that after every single song at least the two guitarists, but sometimes the whole band left the stage for about 2 minutes to change guitars and generally mess about. This meant that for the one and a half hour set, the crowd, many of whom probably bought tickets just to see Slayer, saw only an hours worth of songs.
I mean, I know that Slayer are thrash gods, but I think that a band is only as good as their last show and they just weren’t at there best at Tuska. 6/10
So that’s the bands reviewed, but what about the general feel of the festival, I’ve already touched on cost, but to be honest everything in Finland is expensive so you have to set yourself up for a bit of a punch in the wallet, but considering it was a festival, the prices weren’t too extortionate.
The atmosphere at the festival was very friendly, especially if people knew you were English, and I have to say, being able to go home and have a shower after a hard days metal is an underappreciated commodity.
Also, as I said in the preview to this festival, it is probably the heaviest mainstream festival in Europe, so if you like a good pit the Tuska is definitely your bet, because let me tell you, Finnish crowds will pit to anything.
I was really surprised by Tuska this year, it had a great feel and I will definitely be returning next year and would urge you to do the same. Updates about the line up for all 2009 festivals will be on Headbang so keep it here for your guide to Summer festivals.
James Hodgson