In 2023, my first gig of the year took place in Finland (I actually did two in one day!), and once again in 2024 I saw myself returning to the country for my first gig of 2024, where I was lucky enough to see two of my favourite bands on the same lineup! I would have quite happily travelled all the way to Kuopio just to see Project Silence or King Satan, so to kill two birds with the same stone and see both together felt absolutely fantastic.
First up was Project Silence. Despite having been a Project Silence fan since 2013, I’ve only been lucky enough to see them once, at Kuopiorock 2018. They were superb there and really blew me away with their set there, so I had very high hopes that they would put on a similarly awesome show six years later. Needless to say, my patience paid off and it was absolutely worth the wait to see them again. This show truly felt next-level and made me unbelievably happy to bear witness to.
The set was a good mix of old and new, with the set spanning all eras of the band, featuring a couple of tracks from their 2012 release 424 right through to their latest single Tainted and even including some brand new material – all of which sounded fantastic. There was a wonderful tightness to Project Silence’s sound, with the band moving as a unit, and I never wanted it to end.
An early highlight was Blood Moon. It is already a very strong song, but in a live environment it definitely seemed to have a little extra bite and made it even more punchy as a result. I also really enjoyed Everything; as one of my personal favourite tracks from Project Silence (the intro alone is pure fire, before you even get into the main body of the song) it’s always a pleasure to be able to see my favourite songs in a slightly different form. And of course it was nice to hear their latest release Tainted, which I’ve been listening to a tonne since it was released a couple of months ago.
As a whole, it really was a truly mighty set from Project Silence – and of course it made me very happy to get a little English dedication for the song For Beyond as well! When the set finished I was immediately hungry for more and eager to start planning another trip to see them – I truly hope it won’t be another six years before my next Project Silence gig!
Headlining the night was King Satan, a band I have been lucky enough to see live several times since first discovering them performing at Nummirock in 2017. Their music is best appreciated in a live environment; there’s just something about the music this band makes that hits so hard when performed live, so I try and catch them gigging whenever I can.
Coming onstage to technical difficulties (totally got flashbacks to their set at Rebellion in Manchester where the backing track just failed halfway through the set!) eventually everything was all sorted and the performance was able to properly get underway. The Faces Of The Devil served as a very powerful opener and then it was time for my personal highlight of the set, Psygnosis.
I was very disappointed it wasn’t included in the UK sets as it’s the perfect song for crowd participation – the fast pace and being able to yell “fuck the rest, Satan is best” is second to none. Plus the song itself is just insanely catchy, one of my two favourites from the debut, and is perfect to move about to so hearing it live is a truly excellent experience – it always gets me super hyped and brings me back to the first time I witnessed their live spectacle. I never really understood the decision behind The Pagan Satan now being designated as the song for the crowd to get involved with (mainly due to the slightly awkward tempo in the chorus, along with it probably being my least favourite song from the new album) so it made me very pleased to lose my shit to Psygnosis this time around. Maybe I’m just a dinosaur stuck in the past though; I know it makes more sense for the band to keep evolving and moving forwards with their live shows of course.
I’d like to think I’m not entirely stuck in the past though, because King Satan also treated us to a brand new song entitled New Aeon Gospel and it hit really hard. It sounded absolutely incredible – the pure energy behind the performance paired with how massive it sounded really made me really excited to hear the band’s upcoming fourth album. Seems like we are in for a proper treat – trust me when I say this song sounded utterly fantastic.
The set wound up with Enter Black Fire, another favourite of mine. I absolutely love the main melody featuring in this song as it’s a major earworm and the song itself is wonderfully bouncy; it’s one of those songs that must be experienced live, and it served magnificently as a set closer. I always leave a King Satan show feeling satisfied, and this one was of course no exception – and it was great to finally catch a headline show from them, as my last four gigs of theirs were either festival or support slots.
As a whole, this was an utterly fantastic night. Both bands delivered and gave 110% – what more can I ask for? Project Silence and King Satan have set the bar very high for the rest of my gigs in 2024 and I’m already fairly certain this show is easily going to wind up being one of my live highlights of the year. If you ever get the opportunity to see either band, make sure you don’t miss out.
