Ruisrock claims to be one of Finland's most important summer festivals and rightfully so. With a strong lineup of impressive international acts and domestic heroes, it attracts a solid 70-thousand-strong crowd to the idyllic Ruissalo park in Turku, southwestern Finland, year after year. Ruissalo is a fragile nature park the festival organization is quite concerned about: green values are stressed in all festival infos, and the park itself is hard to reach as the main roads are closed for the whole weekend, which means that there's a few kilometer walk ahead to reach the shuttle busses that take you either to the camping area or city.
The seaside walk towards Ruissalo and its four stages from the busses is long yet pleasant. It's evident that most people flowing towards the festival area wouldn't really mind if they didn't see all the bands: people are here to party! The crowd of people is all but homogeneous as the bands on the billing range from rap to death metal.
Friday
The always energetic Finnish powerhouse Stam1na pulled most teenagers in front of the tent stage to open up the day. The metal patrol from Lemi is state-of-the-art Finnish asskicking at its best and it's no wonder they're playing this year's Wacken Open Air despite frontman Antti "Hyrde" Hyyrynen screaming the band's witty lyrics in Finnish.
My personal favorite of the weekend, the Swedish melodeath legends At The Gates, were kind enough to schedule one show on their reunion tour to Finland as well. The Finnish hardcore fans had waited for this day to come for over a decade and the massive turnout of fans at the Niitty stage wasn't a surprise. Singer Tomas Lindberg led the band on stage wearing a Rotten Sound (Finnish grindcore legends who toured with his other band Disfear) shirt. Asslicking or not, the crowd bought it. Although the show lacked the kind of intensity many probably wished for, the song material At The Gates has got their pioneer reputation for spoke for itself. With a set leaning heavily on their most acclaimed 1996s Slaughter Of The Soul album, they left the Finnish crowd picking up their lost valuables and patching up their broken bones after the dust from the hurricane they started finally settled down.
Amorphis were next on the beach stage and they are a rare example of a veteran band whose success only keeps growing. Relatively new singer Tomi Joutsen handles both the clean vocals and growls better than any of their previous frontmen and at his command Amorphis delivered in Ruissalo, with the radio hits "House Of Sleep" and "Silent Waters" getting the most horns up.
It was time for a quick tour between the food stands: Nothing out of the ordinary here, various low grade meals at around eight euros a tiny cup, but I guess you can't really expect anything else on a festival. Raised Fist was already on a roll on the Paviljonki -stage and the crowd seemed to love it. However, the Swedish hardcore act announced that they're probably going to take a break after the summer and by the looks of it, many disappointed faces stayed hungry for more.
Finland's no. 1 export product in music Nightwish closed the first day of Ruisrock with an epic show. New singer Anette Olzon has a magnificent talent to put her soul into music but she's a poor front woman for a metal band as she sounds between the songs like she'd still be in an ABBA cover band performing for grannies in their 60s. The massive "The Poet And The Pendulum" and the enchanting "The Siren" were the highlights in the set that consisted only of songs from their three latest albums. Pyros were flying left and right on nearly every song until 01.30, when the 90 minute set finally ended.
Saturday
Disco Ensemble is yet another proof of Finnish quality, as they rocked the Ruissalo park with their energetic punk-pop-rock performance in the Saturday afternoon. It took a while to realize what was that something that didn't seem quite right, as both the bassist and guitarist are lefties. It was, however, singer Mikko Koskinen who dominated the stage and every now and then played some short passages in songs like "Drop Dead Casanova" with his mini synthesizer.
On the festival grounds all kinds of stands and games were present. The usual sumo-suit wrestling, bungee jumping, tests of strength, climbing crooked ladders for prizes and so on. All fun games for the pissdrunk crowd. Oddity of the year was the stand for the Finnish betting company and their "lotto-karaoke" where you had to announce the winning lottery numbers on top of the theme music of the weekly lottery...
Sweden's Opeth is always a strange booking to a summer festival. Their progressive and mellow, 10 minute long tracks just don't work in sunlight. Meanwhile, the goth-rockers The 69 Eyes and the Finnish rock legends Hanoi Rocks both brought some excellent 80s spirit to the sunny evening but the sold out Ruissalo park seemed more interested in 'sleeping' on the festival grounds and enjoying the intoxicants smuggled in various containers. Saturday was seemingly the wildest day and many teenagers were doing things their parents will hopefully never know about, but somehow, isn't puking your guts out on a summer festival these days a rite everyone has to go through around the age of sixteen?
The Ark is a common visitor on Finnish soil and once again they got a warm response from the crowd as the sun finally started to set. Real showmen with catchy sing-a-long tunes just can't miss in front of a festival audience. Later in the night, Jackass celebrity Bam Margera introduced the day's main act HIM on stage. Singer Ville Valo has publicly admitted he's been through rehab and for the time being he has changed his beer for water. Thus, this time around it was actually a pleasure to hear his personal voice instead of the mumbling I've sometimes had to witness in the past. HIM proved to be a solid rock act at their prime.
The carnage after midnight was quite overwhelming, both the medical and the security crews seemed really busy with all the customers in their teens...
Sunday
Finnish Manowar carbon-copy Teräsbetoni had a tough spot trying to wake people up on early Sunday afternoon. Their songs about the metal truth, warriors, glory and blood aren't meant to be taken too seriously. After their appearance in this year's Eurovision contest, they've apparently got some new fans as there was a Swiss flag in the audience. The Eurovision hit "Missä Miehet Ratsastaa" didn't, however, get quite the same reaction as their first single "Taivas Lyö Tulta".
Saturday's alcohol madness was long gone and people were taking it easy and enjoying the sunny Sunday in Ruissalo in a more considerate way. Teen favorite Bullet For My Valentine played on the beach stage and got quite a few circle pits going on. All in all, the crowd seemed to love it and their heavy live sound was a positive surprise compared to their nauseating, over-produced cheesy radio ballads.
Swedish pop rockers Kent started their set with a huge cloth hiding the band and the stage behind it during the intro of their first song to reveal... not a fancy stage set, but just the band dressed rather casually. A bit too dramatically for them, but still a nice detail. The Finnish crowd seemed to know the lyrics for their Swedish-sung hits, especially "Blå Jeans", quite well and the band has always had a fanatic following on this side of the Gulf despite the language problem. Kent's performance may have lacked energy but not feeling.
Apocalyptica was next on the beach stage and they have improved their live performance a lot. The four cellists don't sit on their chairs anymore but are actually running around the stage and banging their hairs with the kind of intensity you just have to see to believe. They performed many of their songs that feature big name singers on the album versions as instrumentals and, of course, some tracks like "Fight Fire With Fire" from their first album, an instrumental Metallica cover album.
The next big thing, the Finnish battle metal group Turisas, filmed material for their upcoming live DVD as the last band of Ruisrock 2008. The warpainted, fur-wearing posse played a comprehensive set with songs from their both albums to please the fanatic audience. Led by the singer Warlord Nygård, Turisas made the crowd clench their fists in the air to the war tunes. Netta Skog's accordian and Olli Vänskä's violin are both crucial elements in Turisas's music to contribute to their unique sounds. "To Holmgard And Beyond", the Boney M cover "Rasputin" and "Miklagaard Overture" among others were all well worth performances to record for further use.
The Ruisrock organization has managed to solve some of their problems regarding transportation and queuing in the course of the past few years after listening to feedback from their customers. Ruisrock 2008 was an extremely pleasant festival to visit and we can only keep our fingers crossed the authorities allow the rocking to continue in the Ruissalo park in spite of the annual arguing whether the festival is too heavy for the nature or not.
// Lari Häkkinen |
