Tuska 2025: Stormy weekend
Tuska 2025 proved once again that this 3-day festival in Helsinki is one of the most successful in the Finnish and international Metal scene, hard to imagine the summer without it. The concert program on four stages, Expo and Tuska Forum Sideshow (including Bleeding Metal Podcast) attracted a total of 60,000 visitors to Suvilahti, with Friday holding the record with 22,000 metalheads (Saturday 20,000, Sunday 18,000).
Once again, the weather gods seemed to be benevolent, but kept teasing us photographers with extreme conditions – on occasion you needed sunglasses and rain coat at the same time. However, I rarely had to completely abandon my planning to protect my equipment. And in my opinion I prefer festival conditions far from the risks of a heat stroke.
Friday, June 27, 2025
Horizon Ignited opened the Karhu Main Stage with their version of the particular Finnish Melodic Death Metal sound – i.e. heavy riffs combined with a lot of melody and catchy tunes. The guys felt so honored by the reception they couldn’t stop thanking everyone. A somewhat sparse audience backdrop during the first songs changed quickly, when the massive queue had finally moved on from the Tuska entrance gates towards the main stage.
Endstand rocked an already packed Radio City Stage tent with their energetic, merciless HC onslaught. The songs were traditionally so short that photographers like me almost arrived too late for the “only the first 3 songs in the photo pit” rule.
Because I had visited Blood Command on the Nordic Energy Stage nearby first, where I felt captivated by both the heavy punk-heavy sound and the cheeky front lady, so that I returned just to catch her crowdsurfing action – unfortunately I was too far away for photos.
Knocked Loose had gathered a big crowd of local fans, as it seemed, because a huge mosh-pit was activated right with the first opening riffs. Not so much my cup of tea, music-wise, therefore I rather went to check out Falling From Grace on the Inferno KVLT stage inside Tiivistämö. Every single band presumably played for a packed house, as there was only room for maybe 2-300 people and long queues at the entrance could be spotted over the whole weekend. Unfortunately no photo pit inside, so I preferred spontaneous short visits…
Skynd
One highlight of this day were definitely Dragonforce – their metal comedy act is always a hoot and the stage decorations – dragons, games consoles, holograms in front of the drums etc – easily rivaled those of main stage acts. This time they unleashed a plush chicken onto the crowd for some interaction with their fans!
The gloomy cloudy backdrop went well with the Cradle of Filth show. Dani took it as an opportunity to make fun of Finnish summer. At this festival, however, there was no extra surprise like a marriage proposal (what he did at Download Festival) or even a wedding on stage. However, Dani could have made funeral arrangements directly at Tuska thanks to the expert’s info stand.
For me the Expo was a bit more appealing and this year inside Kattilahall you could experience a witch trial personally, minus the getting-burned-on-a-pyre part. Instead, a body-modification performance delivered some blood & gore visuals – that’s a “no, thanks” for me …
Bambie Thug
Marko Hietala focused his show naturally on his new album „Roses From The Deep“, but also included best-of his Finnish-language debut like eg. Isäni Ääni (My father’s voice). What fans really wanted to know was: Would Tarja join in for “Left on Mars”? And the answer was: YES! Photo HERE. Basically I wanted to take photos myself, however, a sudden gust of rain changed my plans. Tuska audiences come prepared, therefore the bands of this evening got to face a rainbow variety instead of a uniform-black Metal crowd.
Electric Callboy
Imminence
When Tarja started her show, a drizzle gave me just enough time to take photos. Eye of the Storm indeed. Since the rock-operatic songs like I Walk Alone were more to my taste, I waited until later to return, just in time when Marko Hietala joined in for Dead Promises, Phantom Of The Opera and Wish I Had an Angel.
The awesome headlining show by legendary Gothenburg metallers In Flames got the massive crowd going, despite the somewhat damper environment. Only for the weak my ass! Thus not so much flames but raindrops on the lens provided additional visual effects …
The awesome headbanging track Right from the start the band delivered some headbanger warm-up tracks, including the aforementioned classic, and kept their program in the heavier direction (which hasn’t always been the case). Afterwards many went off to the afterparty shows nearby or in the city center, but nope, sorry, I had no more energy for that.
Saturday June 28, 2025
A heavy thunderstorm in the morning spooked my cats, but just in time for the start of the festival it cleared up again, as the weather forecast had promised. The predictions weren’t any better than the day before, so I left my sunglasses at home, which turned out to be a mistake.
While Jarkko Martikainen entertained the audience with a cross between light entertainment music and comedy (according to him, manic depression is known as “vitutaan” in Finland), Arion put on a truly fiery show, which ended with the catchy hit song At The Break Of Dawn.
Timo Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus can easily be labelled as the Tuska house band. Those low booming gloomy riffs with the loitsu lyrics brought out the sun for a short while. And a familiar face behind the drums: Aki “Aksu” Hanttu, known from eg. Entwine.
Charlotte Wessels gave her solo Tuska debut in front of a full tent, while Wind Rose provided excellent entertainment outside. If “The Hobbit” was an opera – or better, transformed by Gilbert&Sullivan: High quality power folk, topped by a beautiful voluminous voice and a good dose of humor. “What is better than a dwarf?” – wrong guess, not 2 but “a drunk dwarf”. Definitely a highlight and for me one of the Tuska discoveries.
Another Tuska institution: Mokoma had made their festival debut in 2003 and the “old geezers” prved that they still have what it takes to get the festival crowd going.
Jiluka
Cemetery Skyline, the Finnish-Swedish all-star band with members of Amorphis, Dark Tranquillity, Insomnium and Sentenced, made a brilliant impression with their Nordic Gothic style: Great songs, hypnotic show and Mikael Stanne clearly enjoyed singing clean. If you like dark rock a la Wolfsheim, HIM, 69 Eyes, you should check out this act.
Orbit Culture
Insomnium definitely enjoyed the best circumstances of this day – great weather (as in bright sunlight) and a crowd size that easily rivalled every Tuska headliner. As I had seen & photographed them so often, I chose an early front spot reservation for Eihwar at KVLT stage instead, even 30min before the show was almost too late.
Great act and recommended for anyone who likes Heilung or Myrkur. I would have stayed longer, but I can take getting squished and pushed in a claustrophobic setting only for so long.
In contrast to Thrown, the music of The Halo Effect was right up my alley. And seemingly for many others, too, considering the massive mosh pit. As M. Stanne described, it had taken 30 years to realize the ideas from back then in this melo-death side project. “Feel what I believe” and “Gateways” struck me as particularly hypnotic tracks.
Catching the Powerwolf pyros from afar unfortunately didn’t work out that well, but I was impressed by the bombastic performance from this perspective. The theatrical stage show was a perfect match for the epic, catchy songs, and it wasn’t just during the witty announcements that the tongue-in-cheek attitude of this band became apparent, see for example a song title like “Demons are a girl’s best friend”. A perfect headlining act and only the beginning rain showers kept me from watching it fully to the end.
Sunday June 29, 2025
And again, unstable weather situation on this day plus warnings of a severe storm later, which even threatened to cancel the event completely. But once again the weather gods looked kindly upon the metal community, only several stage structures had to be removed as a precautionary measure. The minimalist decoration on the Nordic Energy Stage was a bit distracting, Havukruunu with a cheerful bright blue sky in the background? Not quite appropriate for such dark sounds, therefore singer Stefan put on extra sinister facial expressions.
Sunday was also dedicated to the next generation of metalheads who could accompany their parents free of charge until 6pm – kids also joined the team of presenters.
An act like Cyan Kicks might be perfect for children’s Tuska – colorful, fun and catchy glam rock songs. Turmion Kätilöt surely have those colorful decorations, lots of make-up and funny announcements, too – however, I’m not sure whether some of the lyrics and show elements were indeed age-appropriate. But it’s up to the parents to decide and many little fans seemed to be very much entertained.
Korppiklaani were, as always, a huge folk / pagan music party, from which no wind nor rain could discourage the enthusiastic crowd.
Kim Dracula
Apocalyptica celebrated not only their 10th Album „Plays Metallica Vol. 2“ but also debuted their new live drummer Mikko Kaakkuriniemi. After a Morricone Intro they stuck to their Metallica classic program, during which text inserts on the LED wall assisted the sing-along part for the audience, eg for Enter Sandman. One of the highlights of this day!
Battle Beast had swapped slots with Nothing More at short notice, as the US band was struggling with travel difficulties and lost equipment. This was very convenient for me, so I made it to Octoploid and a few of their psychedelic rock songs.
Motionless in White
I’ve liked to see Nothing More live for a long time and this was their first ever gig in Finland. Charismatic performers, catchy rock songs – the setlist could have contained more rough stuff, though. And this time no drum smashing, instead all band members combined crowdsurfing with performing. By the way, the band’s European tour in November will start in Finland!
Noiduin
Hats off to the power and range of the exceptional vocalist Will Ramos, but the Sunday headliner Lorna Shore was musically soooo not my thing. In contrast, the Tuska fan community, including several of my friends, had been looking forward to this show for a long time and therefore celebrated the band enthusiastically until the very last of encores.
As every year, thanks to the Tuska team for the great organization and the smooth operation, despite last-minute complications. We’ll be back next year – Tuska 2026 will take place from 26-28.6.2026, more info HERE.
