So, when I booked my ticket for Kuopio RockCock back in September last year before many (if any?) bands had been announced, the plan was just to attend and have a great time. But then, when Turmion Kätilöt played a mindblowing set, I made up my mind to just cover them. And then, after being thoroughly entertained by Badfellas on the last day of the festival, I figured I’d give them a writeup as well. And then, after having such a good time watching Bloodred Hourglass at the afterparty, I just decided “FUCK IT” so here we are, let’s just write about everything!
Day 1 – 26th July
After getting no real sleep upon arriving in Finland, just short naps on the train ride to Kuopio followed by a quick power nap upon arriving at my hotel, opening band Beast In Black served as a decent wakeup call thanks to the powerful vocal performance from the frontman. However, one step forwards…two steps back, because when Viikate began their set on the second main stage they didn’t exactly captivate me. Largely the same as I remembered them to be when I saw them at KuopioRock 2015, the bar held more interest to me than their somewhat dull set.
Wanting to get a good vantage point for Turmion Kätilöt, the band whose set I was most looking forward to, I slipped into a gap at the barrier and then spent most of Lauri Tähkä’s set (who was performing on the stage opposite) talking absolute nonsense to a very drunk Turmion Kätilöt fan whose English skills were no-doubt hindered due to the profuse amount of alcohol he’d drunk – but he and his girlfriend made for great and amusing company, and the wait didn’t seem quite that long with company.
Having seen Turmion Kätilöt on numerous occasions all over Finland, I’ve come to adore seeing their live show. They’re just one of those bands that needs to be seen to be believed – on CD they’re good, but they take things to a whole new level in a live environment. Their songs have a bit more punch to them and the visual performance to go along with the music is unmatchable! After their recent set at Nummirock being the best one I’ve ever seen them play, I had high hopes for their RockCock set (especially since they’d be in front of a home crowd!) and I was not disappointed. In fact, they even managed to surpass their Nummirock set!
The set was a good mix of old and new, with highlights including the always-good Pirun Nyrkki and Minä määrään, but the song that got perhaps the best reaction was Pyhä Maa, no-doubt due to the fact that they’d got presented with platinum discs midway through their performance to celebrate the single going platinum by Kuopio’s mayor! (I’ve also been told that he’d not heard of Turmion Kätilöt prior to the festival, so I can only imagine what sort experience he must have had discovering them!)
Whilst I do sometimes wish I could understand what was being said onstage, it’s always fun to be a part of the performance and watch the wacky onstage antics. In short, Turmion Kätilöt are fantastic, and going from strength to strength – I’m counting down the days until their new album Universal Satan, and am already searching for the next show of theirs that I can go and attend!
Following the end of Turmion Kätilöt’s set, I headed to the signing tent to meet them and then subsequently feeling dead on my feet, decided it wouldn’t be a huge loss if I didn’t hang around to see Finnish rap sensation Cheek, and instead had a nice catchup with a friend of mine on the way out of the festival.
Day 2 – 27th July
Got to the festival, saw a bit of S-Tool and met Amorphis, then headed over to the second main stage to see Raptori, as recommended by the friend I met the day before. Upon arrival in the arena, I made a beeline for the stage purely because it was the only place in the whole arena that had a bit of shade…and then wondered WTF I had got myself in for when I saw the blow-up sex dolls positioned onstage (thankfully wearing underwear) and mused to the effect on twitter…
Thankfully there was no such end to the friendship but it did feel like I’d been transported to Nummirock and was watching the ‘novelty’ act opening the main stage on the Saturday…! They were somewhat entertaining, in all fairness, but there was only so much I could take of rap music so after about thirty minutes, I grabbed another drink and headed over to the main stage for Amorphis.
With the main stage being directly in the path of the unbearably hot sun, it was a very uncomfortable wait, exacerbated as more people got closer to the stage in anticipation of the performance. Nevertheless, it was worth enduring the heat because Amorphis gave a red-hot performance (literally! I was told it had gotten up to 40/50 degrees up on the stage!) with a good amount of songs from their new album Queen Of Time as well as plenty of older songs for good measure.
However, the highlight of the set wound up being the security guard who spent a good chunk of the performance walking up and down in front of the barrier spraying a hose on the crowd. Godspeed, you absolute hero.
In desperate need of a cold shower (I don’t care how good the following bands were – I needed to go back to my hotel because I was dying after being stuck in the heat for over an hour!) I didn’t make it back to the festival until it was time for Turmion Kätilöt take on Cry For Sanity in a game of beach volleyball. No comment on how certain members of TK only came onto the field when the team was one point away from winning on two occasions, and no comment on how one member in particular feigned a back injury to swap with someone more reliable in order to seize victory after the three of them were unable to score the one point they needed to win the tournament…😉
After watching some of Nylon Beat‘s set (how on EARTH did my friends rope me into that?!) it was time for one of my other must-sees of the festival – the excellent Project Silence.
I’ve been a fan of Project Silence for ages (over four and a half years ago, in fact!) and have been eager to see them live for almost as long, so it made me really happy to see when they got announced for the festival. With songs such as Infection, Abyss and new song Day Of Reckoning, it was great to witness the tracks in a live environment – and what made it even better was that frontman Delacroix even addressed the crowd in English on a few occasions! I often spend shows overseas staring blankly at the stage between songs whilst the band addresses the crowd in their native language, so it was nice to get a greater involvement in the set and I appreciated the gesture tremendously.
Once I’d caught up with them (super nice guys!) I watched a little bit of Helloween before calling it a night and heading over to the afterparty at Henry’s Pub curated by One Morning Left and High School Dropouts, which for some reason started at midnight and clashed with Helloween’s set.
One Morning Left got things moving nicely with their blend of hardcore and electro, bringing both the noise and melody, and getting plenty of heads banging for their set. It was energetic and high-octane, leading in well for the main attraction of High School Dropouts and just…OH MY. Playing cover songs of bands I used to listen to all the time when I was younger, there was no way that this wasn’t going to be my thing, and as a big Offspring fan I appreciated the inclusions from their back catalogue in particular. All I Want was especially crazy, with a large pit being created in the middle of the room – and I felt sorry for all those that got their drinks spilt! It was an all-in-all awesome end to what was ultimately the strongest day of the festival, and hopefully I’ll get the chance to see both of these bands again in the future!
Day 3 – 28th July
Upon first glance at the lineup for the Saturday, it seemed like the only artist I was going to see was Billy Idol, headlining the festival all the way at 23:30. Feeling like I shouldn’t waste my day, I checked out the bands I hadn’t heard of on YouTube ahead of heading over to the festival and what can I say, I’m so glad I did because otherwise I wouldn’t have witnessed the majesty that was Badfellas.
Badfellas. Badfellas, Badfellas, Badfellas. What can I say to do justice to this utterly bonkers and insane hour spent with this band? Coming onstage as if they were in a boxing ring, two of the members threw blows whilst the third threw Badfellas dollars into the air, I instantly knew this was going to be a set to remember. Playing covers of everything from Social Distortion to Robbie Williams, it was fun to listen to their renditions of the eclectic mix of songs, and that’s before taking into account the hilarious performance given by them.
Perhaps I would have appreciated the set even more if I understood what was being said to the crowd which was making them hoot with laughter, but there was still plenty of funny moments unbounded by a language barrier – such as percussionist Arska taking a shine to one of the security guards at the side of the stage, lead vocalist Jarno constantly playing so hard that he broke numerous strings of his guitar, Arska just giving the whole performance like a man possessed, and the grand finale of Let Me Entertain You was something else (especially with a burlesque dancer thrown into the mix for good measure)!
Go and see this band if they’re playing a show near you, I implore you. And I sincerely hope that I’ll get another chance to see them again.
Now, after Badfellas I wound up hanging out with a friend who was in Kuopio for several hours, and when I returned to the festival area, it was time for Popeda with their awful My Little Pony themed backdrop. For reasons I can’t begin to understand, several of my Finnish friends had implored I checked out their set and honestly, I feel annoyed at myself for finding them catchy! There wasn’t much variation to their songs, that much was true, but everyone was having a great time. Maybe I’d have appreciated them more if I was a Finn.
Closing the festival was the legendary Billy Idol, and another of the artists I’d really been excited to see – despite living in the UK myself, I’ve never had the chance to see him. Unfortunately, everything just felt a little bit flat, much to my intense disappointment. His vocals sounded unsubstantial and lacking in emotion, and I just felt unable to connect with the performance as a result, so when I learnt that the headline act of the afterparty were coming onstage at 1am and it was already 0:40, I decided to give the rest of the set a miss and hurried over to Henry’s Pub to bring my festival to a close.
To say I made the right choice was an understatement. Bloodred Hourglass, who’d already seriously impressed me at Nummirock the month before, utterly dominated the stage at Henry’s Pub and gave me a much-needed metal fix. Massively tight, full of energy and giving a relentless performance, it was nice to be in a room full of many massive fans of the band, and the atmosphere they helped to add to the show really helped to give it an extra sparkle – when a band is backed up by such passionate fans, it makes all the difference.
And there we have it. Another festival over until next year! Tickets are already onsale for next year, so if this festival sounds like your sorta thing, you can purchase a ticket from here.
