04.02.2008 : Tuska Winter War - Ensiferum, Volbeat, Megadeth
The show, as it has yearly been, took place at Ice-Hall Arena in Helsinki. Lots of metal heads from the youngest to the oldest came to cheer the favorite bands. I came up by the end of Ensiferum show and managed to see them on the stage playing the last songs.
ENSIFERUM This local band is quite popular in Finland and even though I am not a fan of folkmetal, these Finnish guys can make the audience warmed up. Anyways respect to the band and to all of Finnish metal, since the performance level is always good no matter what kind of music style the band is playing.
VOLBEAT The country-rock/metal Danish band plays the music influenced by the styles from Elvis to Napalm Death times. This combination, as it would seem incompatible at first, turns out to work and on the overall the band sounds pretty cheerful. The original clean vocals together with heavy riffs in a rock’n’blues manner create the sound which may be thought of as heavy rock-n-roll, though it is not so straight forward from the first listening. Actually the band is doing very well and (surprisingly!) their second’s album went to the very top of Danish album chart! And that is for the first time for a metal band in Denmark! In conclusion this music so to say is mainly oriented for the people who may be interested in a new wave of old good rock-n-roll.
MEGADETH After a long break the lights finally went off and Dave Mustaine appeared on stage with the first guitar riffs from Sleepwalker – the title track of a new album “United Abominations”. This is the first show of Megadeth European Tour of Duty 2008, and Finland has been chosen as a starting point. The new recruited lead guitarist Chris Broderick (Nevermore and Jag Panzer) was playing amazingly technically the guitar solos. By the way, Broderick is also talented for performing the classical music on the acoustic guitar (check out his website videos). Dave was headbanging in his own manner while doing his truly unique metal vocals and ‘competing’ with Chris in solos. The guys played quite various setlist: several songs from the new album alternating with the old hits from previous releases, mostly from 80’s and early 90’s, which is undoubtedly the best period of the band. And in addition the old tracks always sound much more familiar, so the whole metal audience got really noisy during famous “Symphony of Destruction” and “Peace Sells”. So far it was the first gig on the tour which was also noticeable in a sense that band is getting warmed up during the performance for the forthcoming gigs.
Track-list
Sleepwalker (’07) Take No Prisoners (’90) Wake Up Dead (’86) Skin 'O My Teeth (’92) Washington Is Next (’07) Kick The Chair (’04) Darkest Hour (’88) Hangar 18 (’90) Gears Of War (’07) À Tout Le Monde (Set Me Free) (’07) Tornado Of Souls (’90) Ashes In Your Mouth (’92) Never Walk Alone... A Call To Arms (’07) Symphony Of Destruction (’92) Trust (’97) Peace Sells (’86) -------- Burnt Ice (’07) Holy Wars (’90)
Ramona Forsström and Welldone are fully thanked for provided presspass
