Black text: Ossi Turpeinen
Maroon text: Lady Enslain

While last year’s Tuska had been quite a weak one band-wise when compared to the year before, with uninteresting bookings and letdown performances from most of the somewhat exciting names, the line-up of 2010 was again looking considerably better.  If you ignore the heavy recycling of acts that already played at Finnish Metal Expo five months earlier, that is.  Without further speculating about the reasons for this absurdity, I’ll just stick to saying that it’s lame and dull, even if it was Rytmihäiriö you were booking over and over again.  With such a spectrum of great metal acts out there, even in Finland alone, booking this many of the same acts seems almost insulting.

Then again, I have to admit that the bands are only half the fun when it comes to Tuska, the festival closest to being in our own back yard.  Apart from having the rare privilege of drinking your own bottled drinks in the area, seeing all those friends that are too lazy, busy or poor to make it to any of the metal festivals further from the capital area always makes it a special occasion.  And especially after the rough camping weekend of Nummirock, it feels so comforting to be able to pass out in your own bed every night (or morning), and have luxuries such as a warm shower and proper breakfast easily available.

Although we had no idea before or during the festival, Tuska 2010 was actually the last one celebrated in the Kaisaniemi park, since at the end of the festival it was announced that the festival would move a few kilometres northeast to Suvilahti next year, due to the new location offering better possibilities for "developing the festival".  Although growing the attendee capacity sounds financially clever for the often sold-out festival, a step from its current, still somewhat comfortably-sized setting towards Wacken-like cramped hugeness sounds a bit scary.  Kaisaniemi's central location wasn't only an advantage, though, since it set limitations also for bands' playing times and attendees' ability to move in and out of the festival area.  It remains to be seen if the switch in surroundings will bring any changes for the better, but I doubt that Suvilahti's industrial area can offer as nice of an atmosphere as Kaisaniemi's grassy knolls.  At least let us keep our own drinks!

FRIDAY

Now I can’t imagine a much better way to kick off the festival than with a dose of fine Swedish grindcore, as was the case with my first, and most treasured Tuska experience in 2004.  While The Arson Project aren’t quite on the same level with Nasum (not yet, at least), they have surely been influenced by the Örebro grind heroes, and operate very much in the same musical territory.  Not having the support of a big label, a full-length album in their discography, or even the chance to put an alluring “featuring members of...” sticker on their covers, I was very positively surprised to see them on the bill, and chose them over Barren Earth, who have all of the above.  Unfortunately I had to listen to the first songs of the set waiting in line outside of the festival area, and upon arriving to the very uncrowded Inferno tent stage, it was clear that most of the people were either still waiting to get in, or more drawn to the all-star extravaganza going on at the Sue stage.  There were some respectable moshing attempts in the audience, but as usual, the pit wasn’t confined enough, and soon diffused into a big nothing.  At least the band gave the small crowd a really intense performance, despite the vocalist’s throat problems, and also introduced us to some new very promising-sounding material, along with the familiar tunes from Blood and Locusts.  The set was nothing close to the 45 minutes they theoretically could’ve played, so after they finished with “God of War”, there was still time to go check out a couple songs of Barren Earth.  Nice!

After seeing how absurdly long the line to the festival area can get, even to the VIP line, I won’t make the same mistake next year of showing up to the festival area five minutes before the first bands’ scheduled playing time, especially not when one of the bands is one I’m excited about, like Barren Earth.  The lines to this sold-out event were quite lengthy even for an early weekday afternoon, despite the fact that the day’s openers were not yet widely known and admired.  Having previously only seen this seemingly artificially-engineered supergroup on their debut gig, and prior to the release of their full length Curse of the Red River earlier this year, I was prepared to be knocked off my feet once again.  I mean, how can you go wrong with a band composed of significant ex-Amorphis lads, the ever-humorous (looking) guitarist of Rytmihäiriö, Waltari’s lead axeman, Moonsorrow’s drummer, and topped off with the cookies-and-cream vocals of StS’s Mikko?  Especially when the result is an Opeth-styled progressive twist on early-mid career Amorphis, the equation speaks for itself.  This time, it was great as long as I just closed my eyes and soaked in the rich, melodious melancholy.  But on this relatively large stage, in front of a crowd that had saturated nicely after the gate-queue had passed, their presence was more like individual, blinding stars than a consequential constellation, and their motionlessness was more like a snapshot of the heavens.  While Mikko’s protean vocal capabilities are impressive both on and off record, frankly, he never fails to bore me on stage by leaning on the mic stand and bowing down his head anticlimactically.  The rest of the guys had a bit more energy, but no one hit that proverbial “pesäpallo” out of the (Kaisaniemi) park.  Still, the songs spoke for themselves, and their gig provided a heartfelt and not over-the-top welcome to the day.

For the most part, I had unusually less interest in most of the festival’s main stage acts than in the conflicting sets of the tent-bands, but Testament was surely an exception.  Let’s just fast-forward past the part where I start to whine about how a significant U.S. thrash band lands a gig in Finland opening the main stage instead of headlining it.  Instead, I’d just like to praise these guys for being such a forceful awakening, which is a true testament to why these guys have produced such an exorbitant number of live releases.  Chuck Billy is the man, and aside from listening to his powerful lungs belt out his distinctive discernibly throaty (though sometimes irritatingly repetitive) growls, it was also amusing to watch his enthusiastic air-guitarring on his mic stand in such a way that I believe he was following along with the actual riff gestures [was he, I wonder?].  My gripe with the show was in the song selection, as I was devastated when they didn’t end up playing “Trial by Fire”, and I think that a late-80’s metal lullaby like “The Legacy” would have added a much desired interlude to the constant pummeling and the crowd’s amateur circle-pitting.  But we were still treated to a catalog-spanning collection of hits and gems, so I’ll refrain from complaining too much.

When the time came to decide between watching Rytmihäiriö and Insomnium, a choice which I resented having to make, I went with the latter this time.  After watching them briefly from the drinking tent at Nummirock the previous week, I was reminded about why this band carries so much weight for me – they simply embody the spirit of Finland and nature and sorrow in a way that no one else seems to manage, and it makes this strange place almost feel like home.  A bit to my disappointment, however, was their restricted setlist that seemed to run almost like the opening sequence of last year’s release Across the Dark, and forsook the first two albums entirely.  Now, I know that when playing at Tuska, there is the pressure to adapt the material selection to a wider than normal audience, which the new album surely does anyway.  And for that reason, I’m surprised that Profane Omen’s Jules Näveri, whose clean vocal additions to Across the Dark are perhaps the most salient commercially viable aspect, was not in play for the event.  And I have no complaints about the large portion of songs from Above the Weeping World they included, like the obligatory and always appreciated “The Killjoy.” But ultimately, I ended up switching boats towards the end and joining the Rytmihäiriö frenzy across the way.

Whereas Insomnium are always guaranteed to deliver a strong set of Finnish melancholy, Rytmihäiriö’s drunken homicides were definitely my preference, as these ambassadors of surmacore have bewitched me into regarding them as one of my very favorite bands for already several years now.  The Inferno stage was crowded with Gambina-thirsty disciples of the Spurgugrammi, and as always, the band performed an excellent show of intoxicated satanic frenzy, with Une’s witty speeches binding the songs together in an apt way.  I was a little disappointed by the complete lack of pre-Une songs in the set, but I suppose that was somewhat acceptable, considering that the audience probably consisted of a lot of newer fans who can’t often see them live otherwise, and haven’t been able to get so familiar with the old classics, yet hunger to scream along to the newer songs.  Luckily Surmantuoja highlights such as “Varastettujen viinojen kirous” and “Kristus ryyppää”, and the little G that I managed to smuggle in, made me forget this small drawback altogether, and whereas the clean vocal parts of “Kähinää krouvissa” seemed somewhat unfulfilling and even irritating on record, they proved their sing-along potential in a live situation, making it one of the highlights of the set, especially when followed by the furious, and oh-so-headbangable thrash riffs.

Having seen Tarot just a week prior at Nummirock, and not feeling the need to sit through them or Hietala’s losing “Kuorosota” choir’s appearance, their set time provided a nice mid-day break to get composed before the aerobic workout I would next be experiencing.  Considering that the next slot was filled by either Pain on the Sue stage, or Swallow the Sun on Inferno, you can perhaps guess which one I’m referring to.  Why, oh why, must I choose between one of my first Finnish loves and the dance-metal offshoot of Hypocrisy’s mastermind: how is this fair?  My decision was made already long before, though, and I suppose I looked lost, or like a traitor, entering Pain’s hill-side tent sporting a StS girlie, but from the first note of “Supersonic Bitch” I was relieved of all sense of self-awareness and entered into the same trance their tunes used to give me while recklessly speeding across Jersey’s interstate highways.  Flashing right on back to Jersey’s March Metal Meltdown Festival, this gig was much unlike my first live experience with Pain, just about a decade earlier in their (tellingly) only ever appearance in the States – here I wasn’t the only one who seemed overcome by their commanding up-tempo beats and razor sharp distortion, and the confident and cocky sing-along choruses, as you could hear the amateur choir of voices all around, and occasional up-and-down pogo-ing seemed to be a permissible activity for just this once.  Peter and the boys opted for casual suit-and-ties this time instead of some of the more striking looks they’ve appeared in, but they had total control of the tent, which was momentarily transformed into the kind of high energy nightclub that a self-respecting metalhead might actually dare to enter.  The setlist played off like a list of chart-toppers, but then again, most of their albums sound somewhat like “greatest hits” records, having song after song of excellence and domination, so it would’ve been pretty goddamn hard to fuck up the setlist.  After spiking the adrenaline levels with their classic ringtone finale, “Shut Your Mouth”, there was nowhere to go but down.  Into the bottle, for a refill.

Satyricon were yet another FME rerun in the line-up, but a bit more interesting of an addition than the rest, as these two shows were the only ones the band was playing during their year off from touring.  Also, as Satyr had promised in February, the set list was a bit different, most notably in the case of the tunes from their late 90’s albums, while still including the mandatory hit songs of later years.  Although Tuska’s main stage is far from the ideal place for a black metal band, as proven by their fellow Norwegian sun-fuckers Immortal already last year, I imagined Satyricon’s simple rocking grimness would be a bit less out of place.  This was true to some extent, but the outcome clearly paled in comparison to their performance at Kaapelitehdas.

The day’s final act was a bit of a mindfuck, both in the preconception of how, exactly, one of Devin Townsend’s projects managed to get headliner status here despite the wealth of significant names now getting inebriated across the way in the backstage bar, and also, musically.  It helped, of course, that this appearance had worldwide exclusivity, and that the former skulleted legend has an exceptionally larger fanbase at this latitude, but it was also aided by long preparations for a unique “theatrical” performance which included a long-distance verbal and musical guitar-shredding dual against Ziltoid, his own video-screen pre-taped alter-alien-ego that was projected on the big-screen TV at stage right.  Ziltoid the Omniscient was, indeed, an interactive and entertaining side-show act, but only if you could handle Hevy Devy’s display of corny, obscure humor, insults, and one-liners, and pre-recorded cheese.  Thank hell most of us were not sober, or just had no idea what Ziltoid’s often culturally specific plays on words even meant.  But including storytime in the festival program brought me back to those wonderful kindergarten times.  Nap time was fortunately next.

SATURDAY

While Blake seemed quite dull of a replacement for the US heavy metallers Holy Grail, who cancelled their appearance due to studio obligations, I can’t deny that their heavy and groovy rocking is highly enjoyable both on record and on stage.  Therefore it was a shame that we got to the party late enough to only hear them ending their set on the main stage with “My Machine”, but gladly up next on both of the smaller stages was some brutal Finnish death metal to help us forget.  Sotajumala and Torture Killer playing at the same time was silly considering that the bands surely share a lot of fans, but also funny in the way that they’ve shared a split in the past.  Having seen both bands numerous times, and knowing them to be always reliable and entertaining live acts, my preference for Torttu’s groovy butchery made me choose the Turku boys.  While Chris Barnes had blown me away in Nummijärvi just a week before, Juri Sallinen did a great job as well brutalizing through the band’s Barnes era songs like “Forever Dead”, and newer throatcuts such as “I Bathe in Their Blood”, these in particular impressing with their viciously melodic guitar parts.  However, the deadliest of the bunch was “Motivated to Kill” from the first album, also ending with a cool tribute part highly reminiscent of Six Feet Under’s “Animal Instinct”...

I was forced to wonder if Pete Tägtgren chose to have both of his festival appearances as midday shindigs, so as to complement his boozing schedule, as I can think of no other reason why Hypocrisy would be so low on the day’s mainstage agenda (and it also sounds like some clever planning for a professional drunkie like him).  But, having met him at the hotel after the fest and being introduced to his son [how cool is that?!], I’m supposing that drunken obliteration was not on his night’s proposed itinerary.  Hypocrisy was one of the many Tuska bands this year that also made their mark on FME a few months earlier, and though I certainly didn’t mind this repetition, and would also be plenty happy to see them perform once a month, I still disapprove of a festival with such drawing power limiting themselves to a narrowed pool of repeated names instead of welcoming either some more obscure or more distinguished acts.  Well, Hypo were as good as ever, and didn’t let me and the old fans down by discarding their oldies, but rather went with the packaged version of “Pleasure of Molestation”, “Osculum Obscenum” and “Penetralia”, which got the crowd nicely sweaty and prematurely smelly.  The sun could have used some real adjusting, though, as Horgh’s other lung-mate would have preached to us.

Despite being criminally unfamiliar with their recordings, for me Crowbar was one of the most interesting and awaited acts of the weekend, as American sludge names are something you barely see around here.  Like what the fuck happened to that Eyehategod tour?!?  Anyway, Crowbar showed what a musical high this kind of slow heaviness can give the listener at its best when experienced loud and live.  (Might be just the loudness, too bad I can’t blast my stereo at these kind of volumes at home.)  And after you’ve been slowly nodding your head with your mind sunk in trance for some minutes, every once in a while they kick you in the gut with one of those faster bursts of aggression.  There you had it, my favorite gig of the weekend.

Since I wasn’t at all familiar with the Devin Townsend Project before hearing that they’d be main-staging at Tuska, I did my homework before coming by getting to know Addicted, and though I wouldn’t say I became an addict, I did find it to be some of Devy’s most agreeable and enjoyable work, which lacks a bit of his characteristic lunacy in place of fine melodies and solid songwriting.  Most of all, though, I loved the role Anneke van Giersbergen (ex-The Gathering) had in the vocals, and hoped desperately that she’d be performing with them.  Instead, she was as non-existent as Ziltoid, there only in the spirit captured on hard disk, and occasionally her parts were even sung instead by Townsend.  Between the missing musician, the limited material and the sound that was squashed before it spread past the front of the crowd, it didn’t feel like enough to warrant the full attention of the audience.

As strange as it seemed, next it was time for another sludgy US band, California’s Armed for Apocalypse.  While this might have worked as an appetizer for Crowbar, after their awesome performance, A4A (as they seem to shorten themselves) didn’t manage to impress me that much.  The music was too restless to let you fall into that comfortable coma, with a notable amount of influences drawn from other areas of extreme metal as well, and whereas I can give some credit to the intensity and aggression of their faster parts, the sludgy bits just didn’t do it for me.  Thumbs up for the try, though.

Before day’s end was the last hard choice of the festival, and that was between seeing Overkill, who had played a terrifically long gig a couple years ago at Jalometalli, and Bloodbath, who were doing only their seventh EVER gig in their career.  As a Jersey girl, I’ve had the fortune of catching my hometown heroes a handful of times, but despite getting another chance to stare in awe at Blitz’s old-man 6-pack, I went to photograph the Swedes bathed in blood instead.  Well, at least I was hoping they’d be blood-covered again, like they were at Pellavarock 2008, but that was disappointment numero uno.  Also, and to the dismay of many, considering the opportunity that faced them, Bloodbath did not invite their second album’s screamer Peter Tägtgren to the fray even though he was surely lurking around some corner of the joint.  Mr. Åkerfeldt lead the troop well, though, if not a bit verbosely, and the ferocity of their set made me almost forget about screaming “Hello from the Gutter”.

Mastodon had been perhaps the most anticipated act of the bill for me, as their previous Finland visits have pretty much been limited to warming up bigger acts at ice halls, or playing at otherwise crappy festivals amidst uninteresting acts.  Having been into the band since I heard "We Built This Come Death" years ago on Metalliliitto, I was thrilled by the idea of finally getting to witness them live, but soon enough the news about the gig being cancelled due to Bill Kelliher's pancreatitis pissed on my parade of joy.  Whereas Nevermore were certainly a worthy addition, not having been to Finland for at least several years, they didn't feel like much of a comforting replacement or a suitable headliner.  However, after getting over my disappointment, I was surprised to discover their new album The Obsidian Conspiracy to be quite an enjoyable listen, even though I had never liked their material before, and started actually looking forward to their set.  My expectations about them not being on the same popularity level with the weekend's other headliners seemed to have been somewhat accurate, as it wasn't that difficult to get even pretty close to the stage, nor did the reactions from the crowd around me seem that excited.  Although the setting didn't feel quite right, the band gave a powerful and enjoyable show, with fresh tracks such as "Emptiness Unobstructed" especially making an impact on me.

For me, on the other hand, the news of Mastodon’s replacement with Nevermore crowned the anticipation for the festival with painful, anxious thorns, that on this day I was finally able to remove from my blood-clotted scalp in an ecstatic wail, for my delight in finally seeing these Americans who used to drink like Finns, on the soil they belong on, was massive.  And, despite the disappointingly minimalistic audience reaction (if one discludes the pit-turned-ballroom during “The Heart Collector”) and the crowd’s size shaving off one by one, the boys put on a glorious and respectable show, bearing in mind the health scares that faced half of the founding members a couple years earlier.  It took some time to get used to Obsidian after it was released, and the first reflex was simply to reject it, just as Warrel’s insides were rejecting the years of booze and beers. [Okay, I’ll stop alluding to their past personal troubles now.]  But the new songs they selected for the set were at exactly the same caliber as I’ve come to expect from them, and they breathed such a Xylitol-freshness into the set that I couldn’t help but to accept them as new works of greatness.  Even besides the newness, the band had the presence of rejuvenated spirit, and I was forced to admire them even more, as it seems that nothing will keep these bastards down long.  For a diehard Neverhead, the gig was pure bliss, and it was great to see them handle a festival stage just as well as they conquer the mid-size clubs across their homeland.  While they still were not the kind of headliner one would expect for a sold-out metal festival in the heavy capital of Europe, at least it brought tears of triumph into this reviewer’s eye.  Let’s just hope their appearance set into motion a club tour plan in the near future.  Tomorrow works for me, so long as it never turns into yesterday.

SUNDAY

On Sunday, the overall feeling of our squad started being pretty worn out, but we figured that maybe forcing some cool drinks down our throats to Finntroll’s energetic tunes would get us going again.  As being late for the first band seemed to have become more of a habit than an exception for us, the humppa trolls were already well into their set when we arrived to the crowded Inferno stage.  After managing to stuff ourselves somewhere in the back, and listening through “Slaget Vid Blodsälv”, we got enough of the cramped atmosphere that reminded more of a sauna, and headed out.  And apparently they didn’t even play “Bastuvisan”, how inappropriate!

Not having witnessed them live before, Cannibal Corpse were one of the bands I was looking forward to seeing the most at the festival.  However, although the majority of the songs were familiar, and I really tried getting into it, the band just failed to get me excited.  Somehow their performance seemed so routine, with one monotonously pummeling song following another, and lacking that insane rage present on their records that has continued to impress year after year.  Yeah, I’d like a club gig from this band, please.  After engaging in other activities for some time, I returned to give them another shot at it, and got treated to “Stripped, Raped and Strangled” with its catchy mid-tempo parts, leaving at least somewhat of a good taste of blood in my mouth.

Sunday’s last band on the Sue stage, playing at exactly the same spot as two years ago, was another brutal US act, Nile.  I’d imagine these guys being totally worth seeing in a club environment [from experience, I’d say think again ~ed], but in the overcrowded tent with a messy sound, this didn’t seem like it had anything to offer me.  While there was still some time to kill before Megadave would conquer the stage, I made the mistake I didn’t at FME, and gave Russian [Amatory] a listen.  Now why they have those brackets around their name, or why this band had to be brought to FME in the first place is beyond me, but the reason for them playing at Tuska as well has to be one of those cosmic scale mysteries that even Horgh wouldn’t be able to figure out.  Jumpy-jump “metal”core and whiny emo vocals are the main ingredients in this poop soup, and can you believe it, sometimes they even throw in some crazily brutal blastbeats?!  Fuck off already, and next time you have to bring this band to Finland, don’t make it part of a metal festival.

In the case of the final act of the day, there was no doubt whether they were legendary or metal enough to fill the spot, and after the anti-climax that Volbeat was last year, especially remembering that 2008 was headlined by Slayer, getting another one of the Big Four to wrap up the festival this time got my approval.  Then again, I have to point out that I've never been a fan of even Megadeth's classic works, as despite the quality song material, I've always been thrown off by Dave Mustaine's peculiar vocals – not his controversial personality or religious beliefs.  Delightfully, however, my first Megadeth show didn't turn out to be only an uninteresting curiosity, but actually an entertaining and enjoyable experience for the most part.  Even when I wasn't impressed by the set all the way through, there was just something about Dave's amusingly arrogant charisma that managed to keep me in its grip amazingly firmly until the end.

And finally came the weekend’s only legitimate Mega-headliner, headed by the man with such a Mega-ego that he had to create an interactive “ask Dave” video-website to deal with his overwhelming slew of fans.  Well, Megadave, your ego is indeed partly deserved, as you are a top class musician with solos that are so controllably over-the-top that they are rarely topped, and some of the greatest crinkle-browed and lopped-lipped attitude-faces and snarls that metal has ever seen.  But Megadeth have also written quite a few albums in more recent years whose best songs don’t even register on the same scale, and they wasted our time sitting through them in the hot evening sun without any remorse.  My biggest complaint was that the volume was frustratingly low, to the point that I could hear myself and others karaoke-ing, poorly, to every word of the “Peace Sells…” encore, and the muikku-packed crowd made it impossible to inch any closer to the Daves (welcome back, Ellefson!).  It was still a worthwhile gig, when considering we would have been there even without the addition of Megadeth, but two full weekends of drinking and being treated to some of metal’s finest was reaching its inevitable crashpoint, and I was just glad it was coming to a temporary end.  So far, so good… So long!