Saturday, July 3rd, 2010

As I finally got to the party zone, Finnish stoner outfit Blake were halfway through their set, so I decided to skip them altogether and go wait for another Finnish band, Sotajumala. In my review of the death metal band’s live DVD, I wondered if the recording did them justice and in my assumptions, I was correct that it didn’t. Sotajumala is one of the most devastating live acts in Finland at this very moment. Hands down. Mynni Luukkainen—who just happens to look like Kratos off God of War—bombarded the crowd into submission without apologies. And submit the audience did, as they happily accepted the role of going batshit insane. The show was an awesome wake-up call to a promising day.

“As my good friend Abbath would say… fuck the sun! <pause> But I won’t.” Peter Tägtgren was another Tuska busybody, this time around taking the main stage with Hypocrisy. I’m not sure if it was Sotajumala‘s fault or not, but the Swedes weren’t really able to grab my attention, despite offering a few clear hits/cuts, performing them to the fullest. Perhaps part of the blame goes to my role at the festival, as I seemed to be far too interested in trying to take a perfect shot of the band—I didn’t—than enjoy the music. But after the show, those that couldn’t take their eyes off the stage, seemed to be amazed and excited.

The sun was shooting rays like an addict shoots heroin in the depths of Baltimore; hard. The piercing heat made sure that at the end of the day, again, I’d smell like shit—which actually complemented my looks. Had I had the money to spare on ‘Oeufs de caille fourrés à la purée d’aubergines et aux noix de cajou’, I definitely would have made an impact at some prude Michelin-star aspiring restaurant after the show.

But alas, that’s not how I roll. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and out of need I went to grab myself a Nevermore t-shirt to have something clean to wear the next day. There’s one caveat with metal t-shirts: Most of the time, they suck. Usually, it’s the front cover of the latest album slapped on the front and something ‘cool’ branded to the back. The said Nevermore shirt was nothing out of ordinary. Just basic stuff, but generally it’s odd how most merchandise seems to be an afterthought rather than another element to enhance the band’s mythos.

– “Well, we need some merchandise…any ideas? No? Fine.”

Not that it was too different in the ‘80s or early ‘90s, when most shirts were mere reproductions of the album covers, but there’s a clear difference between a cut ’n’ paste in Photoshop and hand-drawn gore.

Often simplicity works, too. You put the logo on the front in white and that’s it. Works like a charm—depending on the logo, of course. Unfortunately, even that can be clusterfucked by adding some jazzy and witty slogan to the back. Morbid Angel’s “Extreme Music for Extreme People” is kind of iconic and nowadays ironic, as metal seems to be anything but extreme. Then again, nothing is. But Cradle of Filth shirts for example? Jesus-cuntpunching-Christ! And this is coming from someone who is a bonafide, Grade-A example of someone who has based his life on juvenile and just plain dumb humor.

Luckily, on a scale of one to 10, this issue’s relevance and importance is a good old zip, nada, zero, as I happily sport some stereotypical clothes. But ultimately, more bands should adopt say, Neurosis’ mentality when it comes down to the visuals related to the band: Make that merch worth owning!

Before Crowbar appeared on stage, since I had left my fisheye-lens at the Batcave, I was worried if my camera had a wide enough lens to capture them. <rimshot> Indeed, I’m fucking hilarious. I know.

Anyway, it had been around 14 years or so of the band’s previous visit to Finland and a lot has happened in that time. Line-up changes, world has changed. The wait was well worth it, though, and the guys, Kirk Windstein first and foremost, seemed genuinely surprised and vocally blown away of how warmly they were welcomed back. Apparently, the band had flown in from Germany during the morning, but that didn’t seem to slow them down one bit. Kirk also remembered his metal brethren by making a tribute to Peter Steele by covering Carnivore’s “Race War”. The man also made a nod towards Ronnie James Dio before “All I Had (I Gave)” exploded to close the crushing, if not a purely devastating, gig.

As the show ended, the crowd was far from satisfied and began to shout for more but due to time restrictions, there simply was no opportunity for an encore. Instead, it was quite baffling to have the guys come back on stage only to pack their belongings. Hopefully the show was enough to reassure them to return soon.

It was time for Devin Townsend’s second gig of the festival. He continued from where he had left off the day before, playing material from his solo efforts. During the gig I was embraced by this oddly warm feeling, aside from the neck-burning sun, that life’s pretty damn good even if the world’s full of shit. Devin was able to inject positivity and project good will to the audience. The man must have noticed the magic sensation himself. He proclaimed how the show felt like a beach party rather than some serious metal gig.

“Life” became the perfect ending to a perfect show. The stage was swamped with festival and tour personnel sitting around, relaxing and reading the newspaper whilst Devin took off his pants, perhaps a metaphor for getting free from the unnatural shackles that bind us all… or perhaps the guy’s just an exhibitionist. He also broke out to give a free pass to those who had downloaded his material off the Internet: “Download it all, I don’t give a fuck!” Apparently, it might have been inspired by a possible banner claiming that, ‘We downloaded your album” or some shit. But yeah, Devin was two for two when it came down to, pardon my French, performing like a Fucking Great.

With the passing of some of heavy metal’s grandfathers, gods, like Ronnie James Dio, there’s been much speculation about who will be able to fill the void, if anyone. While Devin seems to be one of the love him or hate him cases, the dude seems to control a bit of authority, sincerity and if these two gigs were anything to go by, popularity that might transcend genre bounds. I’m not going to make comparisons to Dio, to Lemmy, or to anyone as I’m not going to claim that anyone will be able to replace any of those names. But, when grand names will be cast in stone, it’s somewhat reassuring to realize that there are still a lot of good folks still carrying the torch. The legacy lives on.

I was supposed to check out Survivors Zero on the Sue Stage, but instead I wound up venturing deeper into the park area. Away from the stages, a whole new world opened up: Tons of people just sitting around, loitering. An alcohol-infested picnic. During my visits to Tuska, I’ve always been so concerned about the bands and music, that I’ve never properly realized that there’s been a completely different side to the whole festival. With people stampeding the grounds, the dust created a surreal backdrop to the small, isolated events taking place in the newfound funhouse.

It’s quite amusing how alcohol brings out homosexual tendencies in people; especially males aged 18 to 22, at the peak of their testosterone levels, seem to free themselves from the clutches and oppression of the conservative aspects of our Western culture. Or perhaps the two naked guys, wrestling intoxicated out of their minds whilst a huge crowd was cheering on, were simply trying to stimulate… simulate the upcoming events of UFC 116.

Another great thing about alcohol and music festivals is the amount of drama going on; there’s always someone crying in a pool of vomit and piss, gothic make-up streaming down their faces as they whimper and contemplate about how “fucking drunk” they are and how, hopefully, mom and dad back home won’t find out. Ah, the joys of youth.

I abandoned the earthly Dante’s Inferno to check out Kamelot. Roy Khan owns possibly one of the coolest names in metal and his voice ain’t too bad either. Prancing around the stage like a furious magician, hoping to collect teeth for the general reserves, the man looked surprised by the attention the crowd was giving him. Kamelot’s a band I’ve always thought about revisiting, after not being too impressed by the pre-2001 albums. Truth to be told, they did seem to have a decent groove going on—one to warrant a revisit to their material—but I wouldn’t call the gig a revelation in any way. The band put out the festival’s biggest ‘show’ if pyrotechnics were anything to go by, and the appearance of female vocalist Elize Ryd (from Amaranthe whom I’ve never heard) was a welcomed sight… to the ears. There were some other masked, fine, chicks drumming along at the beginning of “March of Mephisto” but sadly, Dimmu Borgir’s Shagrath was nowhere to be seen.

Overkill. What else is there to say? Overkill. Talk about a band that abso-fucking-lutely brought 101 percent on stage: They totally thrashed the Sue Stage and Blitz, a 50+-year-old guy, is a musical spearhead of tank battalion proportions. The 45-minute set, pure mayhem from beginning to end, spanked the audience dry of any life force by mixing old and new. While the tent did provide a much appreciated intimate setting, this is a band that should have definitely graced the main stage. No doubt about it. It was also nice to see Peter Tägtgren schooling his kid, as they were both watching the show from the sidelines (which probably prevented the guy from making a guest appearance on the Bloodbath gig that was going on at the same time).

When Mastodon canceled their appearance, I didn’t care. When I heard Nevermore was the replacement, I cared. Crack the Skye wasn’t a bad album. Not at all. But live? Not too interested. Saw them open to Iron Maiden once and, well, didn’t work out too good for ‘em.

As for Nevermore, I witnessed them during the This Godless Endeavor tour when they played Finland for the very first time. It was and still is one of the best shows I have witnessed—one, that my neck remembered for a good month or so. That was five or four years ago. As Saturday’s personal highlight drew near, I contemplated between journalistic integrity and fanboyism. Helped by the fact that I’d made a rookie mistake by not bringing enough memory juice for my camera, I chose the latter option; right choice, as far as I’m concerned.

Expecting to fight for a spot, I was surprised at how easy it was to score a good ‘seat’ within the audience. On the other hand, maybe I should have been as the band is still relatively unknown over here and the audience had witnessed quite a few exhausting shows throughout the day already. The audience wasn’t the biggest, that’s for sure, with a proportion of it looking puzzled about what to expect, but once Nevermore took the stage, the audience began to show dedicated passion. What it didn’t have in quantity, it had in quality.

“Dude looks like he’s been hitting the bottle” noted a friend of mine, who was unfamiliar with the band. And he was right. Warrel Dane looked like he’d been hit by a truck a couple of hundred times; a small surprise as I thought he’d cleaned up his act. Compared to the first time I had seen them, the singer looked slightly reserved and a little bit nervous.

But, when push came to shove, Warrel passed with flying colors as he delivered a strong, clean vocal performance. A solid effort, and that’s all that really matters. The rest of the guys did a good job as well: Jeff Loomis is a motherfucker on the guitar. Be it CD or live. I also have to mention that the new live guitarist, Attila Voros, seemed to be enjoying the experience quite a bit as he smiled his way through the whole gig. He fulfilled his role perfectly and looked like a good fit with the gifted band.

The gig got better and better as it progressed, but compared to the previous show I had seen, the Tuska gig seemed a bit routine. Yet, I wouldn’t call it an uninspiring show at all, as the band absolutely killed and pushed me to fuck up my neck and strain my back muscles again: The sign of an excellent gig.

Setlist’s bias seemed to shift between Dead Heart in a Dead World, This Godless Endeavor and of course, the latest album The Obsidian Conspiracy. The crowd ate it all: “Born”, “Inside Four Walls”, “The River Dragon Has Come”, (dedicated to the ladies in the audience) “This Godless Endeavor”, and even the rise-shouts of “Your Poison Throne” threw us into a violent furor. Don’t know what it is, or why it’s like that, but Nevermore’s riffs work like a shot of adrenaline, turning a switch inside my head and forcing me to go to eleven. The music seemed to have a similar effect on the band’s other fans, too.

If I didn’t have my Nevermore glasses on, I don’t know how the gig would have looked. Certainly, the band could have made a bigger effort by rocking the stage (especially after the Overkill show), but as the music was pure murder by itself, it’s hard to complain.

But, it’s a shame they didn’t play “And the Maiden Spoke”. That would have been an interesting track to witness from the new album. I also hoped to witness the band’s version of “Sound of Silence” in a live situation, but that might have been too farfetched anyway.  At the end of the day, it didn’t matter as Nevermore—mildly disorganized or not—ruled: pure and simple. “Enemies of Reality” brought a perfect ending to Saturday’s festivities.

As I went to greet a few friends of mine, I felt intoxicated and weak, only able to form two-word sentences: I’d forgotten to tank-up amidst all the moshing and rocking. And the weather being what it was, no wonder I found myself in the trolley on the verge of passing out. I didn’t as I was able to throw my body on the bar’s bench and with the help from my friends—alcohol-filled care packages—I soon began the rejuvenation process…