Photo Reports

This year saw my first shoot from a photo pit at Punk Rock Bowling, a huge learning curve for me, especially in regards to the lenses I was using. I have included shots of The Adolescents, The Interrupters, Fea, Sloppy Seconds, The Svetlanas, The Damned, L7, Madam Bombs, Roy Ellis & The Aggrolites, The Casualties, Surfbort and Suzi Moon to illustrate the varied acts who take part in the Festival.

The Darts I photographed in the smallest venue I have ever been in, The Hug & Pint in Glasgow, but what a night it was! All action from start to finish with a terrific soundtrack of fuzzy garage punk psychedelia! Another small venue is Bannermans in Edinburgh, where I saw The Soap Girls and Tokyo Honey Trap. Tokyo Honey Trap were unlike anything I have ever seen before, almost unbearably loud, in your face and their take on a 77 punk attitude, wonderful stuff! The Soap Girls are a real treat to see, they love talking to the audience, their music is hard edged, they are quite gymnastic, are very photogenic and their (male) drummer played absolutely stark naked!

I have included 2 bands from Rebellion, Rumkicks and Hi-Fi Spitfires. The Hi-Fi Spitfires seemed like a throw back to old style UK punk Rock and went down really well with the crowd. The Rumkicks went down an absolute storm at Rebellion. These 3 young women from South Korea won the hearts of everyone who saw them. Their obvious enthusiasm for all things punk rock and the thought of appearing on the boards of the main stage where many of their heroes had appeared was a very real thrill for them. They came, they saw and they definitely conquered!

Year 2023 is closing out and we at GRIMM have our sights set for next year and all the amazing shows and festivals coming up, but before that, let’s look into this past year in photos. It’s been a helluva year, I’ve shot some of my all-time favorite bands, new festivals and small club shows to massive arena shows. So here’s my selection of the best of the best live captures from this year. From incredible fun-to-shoot black metal shows from Steelfest, shooting household names at Rockfest, or legendary bands at Hellsinki Metal Festival, it was a hard one to choose only 25 since I’ve shot quite a few shows this year. Before we get into it, I have nominated my favorite photo of the year 2023, and quite possible my favorite photo of all time; Ville Valo at Rockfest. It’s a simple shot, but still cinematic and beautiful. Love that capture, would love to hear your favorite from my selection, sound off down below!

Here’s that “best of the year” time again… It’s always difficult to make a selection from your photos and then label them the ‘best of the year.’ What makes these photos better than others? Often it’s a matter of a certain feeling that an image gives you.

Sometimes it was because it was a beautiful moment, sometimes because of nice framing or the light that was just right (and you don’t get that very often).

Sometimes you see artists giving their best, and sometimes they just fully enjoy their own artistry themselves.

Regularly, they also grant the photographer a look straight into the lens.

I think these are the criteria I relied on to select the following images:

Ok. Tough task to pick out just 30 pictures reflecting a full year of concert photography. So here they are … 30 of my favourite pics. Most probably there are way more, but somehow I had to cut it down (editoral requirements). I have chosen the ones I love most out of the ones I love most. And there are some pics in that you haven’t seen on GRIMM.COM – since not all the stuff I do is linked to GRIMM.

Pictures are showing the following bands

• Butcher Babies
• Fateful Finality
• Fear Factory
• Thundermother
• Hypocrisy
• Spiritbox
• Behemoth
• Dog Eat Dog
• The Cult
• Skillet
• Agnostic Front
• Scorpions
• May The Silence Fail
• Cannibal Corpse
• Ataraxy
• Dark Funeral
• Goldmann
• Solstafir
• Ingested
• Antiheld
• Lansdowne
• Völkerball (Rammstein Tribute)
• Fettes Brot
• Danko Jones
• Royal Republic
• Team Tot
• Mindead

Hope you’ll enjoy my selection! Thank you for watching!

Close to Christmas 2023 all fans of good rock music in Germany got an early present: Gluecifer – the self-called ‘Kings Of Rock’ from Norway played 3 shows in Germany.
We had the opportunity to see their live performance at the LKA Longhorn in Stuttgart.

After the band broke up in 2005 there was no sign of life for 12 years. Announcing in 2017 that they will play together again, a number of shows and festivals have been played in 2018.
Ever since it got silent again and their last music release was in 2004. Despite all that, a pretty well filled venue had a fantastic pre-xmas rock-party, since these guys still know how to rock.

Support was given by The Demtones a Swedish power rock trio who delivered a solid warm up

The year stared off with Pain, who had a really fun and energetic show at Olympia-Kortelli in Tampere. Next up, still in January, was Sólstafir as Support for Katatonia, with a very moody gig. In March Kamelot came back into town and with them came Eleine and Myrath. While I’ve been waiting to see Myrath for a while now, Eleine isn’t exactly my cup of tea. Still, Madeleine Liljestam managed to capture me with her energy. In late April, Battle Beast rocked Kerhola in Nokia. In my opinion, you can never go wrong with this band, as they always give 100 percent and are always a lot of fun. In May, it was time for one of many Brymir gigs I had this year. And just a few days later, Sabatons ‘The Tour To End All Tours’ came to Finland. The stage production for this tour was absolutely grand. It also was very clear that Sabaton really appreciates the work we concert photographers do, which is unfortunately not always the case.

Summer season is festival season, and the line-up of Tuhdimmat Tahdit was just too good to pass on. Photography wise, Mors Subita were especially fun, as the sun hit the stage at just the right time and angle to paint everything in a golden light. But they weren’t the only band I enjoyed at this festival. Lordi, Metalite, Shereign, Diablo and Battle Beast were also a lot of fun to shoot. In July, I went on a little trip to Turku to see Amorphis and Lost Society at Logomos Terassikesä. And then ended the summer with Raskasta Iskelmää at Hönö, with a small and intimate gig.

But there were also still a lot of really great shows during the autumn, one of them Before the Dawn, Wolfheart and Brymir at Pakkahuone, Tampere. Another one was Sonata Arctica, who also stopped by Pakkahuone on their ‘Arctic Storm’ tour. My absolute highlight of the year was although Deathstars at Olympia-Kortelli. Guitarist Cat Casino engaged a lot with the audience as well as my camera, which made up for a lot of cool shots. In November I went to my first show at G Livelab Tampere, for Brother Firetribes ‘Man on a Mission’ Tour, which had fantastic light. Still in November I also saw Psychework at Hönö and one of Apocalypticas church shows for their ‘Matka Mieleen – Kaamoksen Sellot’ tour and finished it off with Melancoly Mass Festival in Tampere. Where I had a good time capturing Voidfallens performance. Of course, December also still held some highlights. First Poets of the Fall stopped at Pakkahuone for their 20th anniversary tour. Then it was time for another show of Amorphis, also at Pakkahuone. And then lastly, I had a lot of fun with Everwave and Shereign at YO-Talo.

Finland is a great country to be at for metal concerts and events, though if we’re being completely honest, sometimes it feels a bit too “safe”, sticking to the same old bands and concepts over and over again. Luckily there are some booking agencies that try to bring a fresh wind in the Finnish event industry. That’s how we got the 2-day club festival Hellsinki Techfest, bringing together some of the most mindboggling bands for some extreme, and often experimental music! We went to the second night with Sirkuit Preiker, Khroma, Balance Breach and the UK masters of “grime metal” Hacktivist as the headliners!

It’s not a secret the Lord of the Lost are big fans of Finland. For that reason it’s very fitting, that not only their first gig of the year was in Finland, but also their last. They finished their gig year with a sold out show at Tampere’s Olympia-kortteli.

Of course, they didn’t come alone. The evening started with the locals of Rain Diary. After that, the direct support Gothminister, took over the stage with Zombies and Werewolf. And in the end they had a little reunion with Mr. King Satan when he joined them on stage for one song.

Without question, the biggest deathcore band in the world, Lorna Shore made their stop at Jäähalli, Helsinki bringing their biggest stage production yet to a sold out crowd during their The Pain Remains EU Tour. Flanked by the Dutch deathcore outfit Distant, English death metal act Ingested and American techincal death metal group Rivers Of Nihil, it was bound to be an epic night of breakdowns and blastbeats keeping the massive crowd in a constant moshpit. Check it all out from our pictures down below!

Nonpoint, (hed)pe, Sumo Cyco and special guests VRSTY made a stop in Angola, Indiana at The Eclectic Room on “The Million Watts Tour 2023”. What an absolute barn burner! This was the 4th time I have had the opportunity to capture Nonpoint and the 5th time seeing them live in less than 2 years! 

VRSTY got the party started for the night! The four piece rock/R&B/post-hardcore blend, hails from New York City. Frontman Joey Varela started this project to just get his writing out into the world, and it has turned into so much more! Joining him on stage were Javy Dorrejo [bass], Chris Cody [drums], and Paul Gregory [guitar]. They kicked the night off with the track ‘F**ck You Forever’ off of their new album ‘Levitate’ that was released in October. My favorite memory of their set was when Paul was playing his guitar right in front of me and basically bent his body completely backwards! I was lucky enough to capture it.

Continuing the party after VRSTY was the Canadian based rock band Sumo Cyco! The band is led by singer Skye Sweetnam, in addition to Matt Drake[guitar], Oscar Anesetti[bass] and Joey Muha[drums]. They had a really fun vibe and energy. Some cool moments during their set were when vocalist Skye sang from the pit a couple of different times. At another point, she had the crowd crouch down low and then jump up at the same time. She was really great with fans and making the audience a part of the show! The band also did a really great cover of System of Down’s ‘BYOB’. They really did the song justice.

Next in the lineup was southern Cali boys hed(pe)! They were originally formed nearly 30 years ago as a sort of punk rock/rap/reggae fusion band. Current band members include frontman Jared Gomes, Jeremiah Stratton[drums], Kurt Blankenship[bass] and Nathan Javier[guitar]. This is another band that really interacts with their fans, and I basically felt like I literally could have been on a beach in California dancing and jamming to their music! Such a fun vibe.

And of course who everyone came to see, the amazing Nonpoint! Once you have seen them live once, you are just hooked, in my opinion. The band was formed in the sunshine state, Florida back in 1997. The lineup consists of Elias Soriano[vocals], Robb Rivera[drums], Jaysin Zeilstra[guitar], Rasheed Thomas[guitar] and Adam Woloszn[bass]. They have an amazing resume with so many hit tracks. With touring so frequently, they are really good about mixing up the setlist, and it’s kind of fun finding out which songs they are going to play next. And when they hit the stage and play, they PLAY. It is HIGH energy from start to finish! You are head banging, jumping, dancing, or moving your body in some form or fashion for the entire show! It’s an experience that is difficult to describe. This tour, they threw in new tracks ‘A Million Watts’ and ‘Golden Gloves’ in addition to some older songs like ‘Spanish 102’ and ‘Breaking Skin’. They also added in Beastie Boys cover ‘Fight For Your Right’. They ended the night with Elias and Sheed singing the song ‘Tribute’. For me, seeing Nonpoint is a form of therapy. It’s one of those situations of “if you know, you know”. If you’ve seen them, you know what I am talking about. If you don’t, hopefully you will soon!