We got up bright and early to get to the festival in time to catch one of the very first bands playing on the second day. We’ve been following and supporting Ankor‘s journey for quite some time now and were really excited to get to see them in action on stage. So we did everything in our power to get there to confirm the promise we’ve been seeing in this charming collective of people. And what a confirmation we got! The songs were as catchy and engaging as they were recorded, of not more so live, and the whole band seemed to be brimming with energy on stage despite having had probably one of the toughest weeks ever with them doing shows at several festivals in different countries, traveling 1000s of kms in just a handful of days. This is a band that will continue to rise all the way to the tippy top and there really is no holding them back! Hopefully they come back to Finland soon with a headline tour and much longer setlist that what we got at Tuska being the openers on one of the smaller stages.

On the main stage, probably one of the more popular acts took over. The Danes from VOLA dropped by and delivered a mindbending set of their proggy music. It’s always a bit mesmorising to see these guys put out their intricate, yet supercatchy music live and the whole show was really captivating. It probably would have been even better if they weren’t in the full sun and set more of a fitting mood with their stage lights as we’ve seen before. Nevertheless, it was yet again an absolutely solid show of an amazingly talented band!

Another rather legendary band that I probably wouldn’t have expected to see live any time soon came to Tuska this year with Finnish heavy metal icons Tarot. Seeing Marko Hietala on stage is always an absolute pleasure, especially in the recent years where you can clearly feel the pleasure he has playing the music he wants to play. And with Tarot, one of his first loves, it shined even brighter, almost outshining the sunlight they were playing in. It was so much fun hearing these Finnish metal classics and both Marko Hietala and his band mates clearly were in a very jolly mood.

If there is one band you’ll be pressed to avoid during the Finnish festival season, it’s Stam1na. This is a band you’ll see at almost every festival year after year and remains one of the most popular acts within Finland. Honestly, I fully understand, because ever since I first got to see them back in 2016, they’ve never really disappointed me one bit the over dozen times I’ve seen them rip up the stage. The energy always is through the roof, both of the band on stage and the crowd in front of them, the music is great and they’re probably one of the most consistent bands I’ve seen this past decade. You always know the festival summer properly started when you catch Stam1na on an outdoors stage…

There really is something in the water in Australia for the past decade or so, because the quality of metalcore bands that sprout from that country is insane. With Make Them Suffer we got another one mounting the Tuska stages and they turned their timeslot into one of the most popular and memorable ones of the weekend for many. They got on the 2nd outdoor stage in the full sunlight and served us with a relentless and absolutely explosive set from start to finish. As good as all the guys (and girl) on stage were running and jumping around as if they hadn’t been on tour throughout Europe for already a month and absolutely killed it. We’re pretty sure that these guys are going to continue to climb up the ladder of the metalcore scene and we’ll see them coming back to Finland hopefully soon!

Back to the mainstage for a band we see on the Tuska main stage every other year or so, but never ever disappoints live… Amorphis has become such a staple of the Finnish metal scene that it’s hard to think of Finland without having them pop up somewhere. There were no big surprises during their show, just the usual solid and mesmerizing live music performance we’ve come to expect from them. Nothing more, nothing less and that’s all we wanted from this.

This edition is really one filled with staples of the Finnish heavy music scene. Last year they were rocking out on the main stage, this time they got the second outdoor stage to take over, but we’re pretty sure that Turmion Kätilöt drew in almost as much people to that smaller stage as before. Every time they come and play their disko metal live, you know it’s going to be one big party. They’re probably one of our most covered Finnish bands on this site, having seen them several times every year ever since our first encounter with them back at the very first Tuska we covered in 2016, and TK is again one of those bands that never disappoints.

Bring Me The Horizon is undeniable one of the biggest modern acts in the heavy music world, and while they are still very devisive, they were an absolute master choice to book as the headliner of this year’s Tuska. When we caught them at Knotfest Finland a couple of years ago, they already really impressed and the videos that we’ve seen of their headline show at Download Festival in the UK looked absolutely epic and massive, and we were looking forward to experiencing even the smallest bit of that kind of epicness. And we did not get disappointed one bit. A pretty iconic cathedral looking stage decor with some of the guys pretty high up there and large steps for Oli Sykes to roam around on. It already looked really promising, and much to our surprise we got an almost completely different looking band coming on stage. Apparently the guys took note of the signature Tuska corpsepaint stand and decided to go all in for that, giving us a black metal corpsepaint looking Bring Me The Horizon that immediately turned this show into an iconic one. The set gave us hit after hit, and the whole show clearly vibed with the crowd that massively turned up for the band, including a great moment with a fan on stage providing killer guest vocals on ‘Antivist‘! You just can’t ignore these guys anymore as being one of the biggest acts around.