[ ROCKFEST 2023, June 8-9, Hyvinkää, Finland ]

Just like good old times! We’re on the road again!

Yeah, it’s been a while since we visited a summer outdoor festival, way too long. This summer looks better, and ROCKFEST was an excellent kick-off for it.

Back in 2019 we attended the previous Rockfest at Hyvinkää, if only for one day and not ”on duty”. We had a good time, and when this year’s line-up was released we thought that it deserved a full-blown RockUnited.Com coverage. Most of the mainstream festivals in Finland are catering for the ”big majority” with artists known from TV and radio or for the younger audience, with rap and EDM artists who are ruling the Spotify charts. These festivals have very little to offer for us and I believe for our readers. Rockfest does push all the right buttons with their line-up dedicated to rock and metal, and I certainly hope they won’t change to format. Given the success of this years’ fest, I don’t think there’s any need for that.

The festival started on Thursday with Sick Of It All and Santa Cruz, but the first band we got to see was LORDI, the monsters who took the world by storm when they won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006. For a while, they were probably the biggest band in the country. As expected, the hype ended, but Mr. Lordi and his cohorts have stayed on their chosen path and delivered us album after album of melodic monster metal. With their recent 7-album boxset of new material, they’re probably one of the most productive bands of all time.

The last time we saw the band was actually at Rockfest 2019, and since then, there’s been changes in the line-up. Bass player Ox and guitarist Amen have left the band, and Mr. Lordi is the only original member. The lizard-like bassist Hiisi and bio-mechanical-looking guitarist Kone are worthy additions to the line-up, very lively performers.

One thing you can count on is that Lordi will always deliver an excellent, visual show with plenty of catchy songs. With a new album ”Screem Writers Guild” out, we got a few songs from that, ”Scarecrow” even making its’ live debut. Apparently the band had never rehearsed it together.

Frankly, I had almost forgotten how good some of the early Lordi tracks are. ”Blood Red Sandman” and ”Would You Love A Monsterman?” worked really well, as did the others. In fact, their set was one of the best ones of the whole festival, and I’d love to see a full-length Lordi show in the near future.

Next up were a couple of bands I hadn’t really heard before, merely heard of, MONSTER MAGNET and SWALLOW THE SUN. Monster Magnet are pioneers of the Stoner Rock genre and certainly had their share of fans in the crowd. We checked out a couple of songs from them and sure enough, they were heavy and groovin’ but definitely not for me. SWALLOW THE SUN were very heavy too, but more in a meditative way. The band looked like they were in a trance, swept away by their music… Good thing that they played in the dark tent, their music would lose some of its’ impact in sunshine. Hence the name, I guess.

Punk legends RANCID were the next band on the main stage, and their high energy songs were more suitable for the summer weather. Their songs had some hooks and I liked the way how Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen shared the lead vocals even within one song.

The Rancid songs were short blasts of energy, and they played a total of 26 songs in 70 minutes! My favourites: "Roots Radicals" and "Ruby Soho".

VV. That’s Ville Valo, the singer best known as the frontman of HIM. He released his first VV album earlier this year, and I quite liked it. I have all the HIM albums too, so I was looking forward to this gig. So were a lot of other people, he pulled a big crowd to the second stage.

Much has been said and written about Ville Valo and his charisma, but I didn’t find him to be a very exciting performer. He has a fine, unique voice but it was mixed quite low, and because of that it sounded rather weak. His interaction with the crowd or his backing band was minimal, as I recall he only addressed the audience once, before one of the last songs.

His set was cleverly built to accommodate the old fans and to introduce his new music - each new song was followed by a HIM hit, and if I’m not mistaken this continued throughout the set. Although I like the new material, it paled a little in comparison to the classic HIM songs. I especially liked "The Funeral Of Hearts" and "Wings Of A Butterfly", both among my favourite songs from him (the man or the band).

PANTERA wasn't the last band of the day, but they were definitely the headliners. It seemed like every other person was wearing a Pantera shirt, and there was a lot of anticipation in the air. Or maybe it was just dust, but anyway...

As you probably know, the founding members of Pantera, Abbot brothers Dimebag Darrell (guitar) and Vinnie Paul (drums) have both died, Dimebag was murdered on stage in 2004 and Vinnie died of a heart disease in 2018. The band itself broke up already in 2003.

Last year the remaining members Phil Anselmo (vocals) and Rex Brown (bass) announced that they would return to the stages, with Zakk Wylde on guitar and Charlie Benante of Anthrax on drums. Their motives were questioned but they insisted that the concerts would be a celebration of the band's legacy, not just a way to cash in.

"For The Brothers, For The Fans, For Legacy" has been the "catchphrase" of the tour, and for what it's worth, I think this version of Pantera did it with style. Wylde and Benante are both great players who did justice to the legacy. Phil Anselmo has beaten his demons and was very convincing, and Rex Brown was solid as well.

To be honest, Pantera's crushing, aggressive and unmelodic metal has never appealed to me, but thanks to great visual elements and lights they were tolerable, and some of the riffs did get my foot tapping. I did feel like I had been given a serious (musical) beating afterwards, but I guess that's what it's all about...

It was getting close to the midnight when Pantera finished, and the temperature had dropped to 7 celsius degrees. A lot of people headed to the buses and their cars, but quite a few stuck around for the last band of the day, BATTLE BEAST. We've seen the band a few times recently, and they have never disappointed. Sure, there's no element of surprise since the setlist hasn't changed that much over the last couple of years, but they still put a lot of effort into entertaining their fans and making new ones.

Vocalist Noora Louhimo is a tornado on stage with a roaring voice to match. The other members of the band are no slouches either, and all together they are an unstoppable metal machine. With plenty of pyros their show was very visual, and they provided welcomed blasts of heat to the shivering crowd. I was quite well prepared for the weather, I had a hoodie and a jacket, but I was still shaking. I can only imagine how frozen the guys in shorts and t-shirts or the girls in short skirts and small tops were!

The Battle Beast set was full of hits from their three previous albums, the ones released after the much-publicized split with founding member and main songwriter Anton Kabanen. Although some fans might like to hear the old material too, I can understand why the want to concentrate on the songs they have written themselves. And why not, they've gone from strength to strength with the new songs and have never been as popular as they are now.

If I have to pick just one song, I'd have to go with the closing number "Beyond The Burning Skies". It has slowly become one of my favourite Battle Beast songs.

Once the show was over, we headed to the parking lot, got into the car, turned up the heater to eleven and drove out of there with the festival personnel directing the traffic. Nice and easy, as it should be.

Thursday had been a good day, but the main day for us was Friday, and we had a busy schedule ahead of us. After spending the morning and early evening exploring Riihimäki, where our hotel was, we headed to the festival site. The 69 EYES were marked in our schedule as the first band to see. Thanks to the much bigger turnout and the traffic jam caused by it we didn't quite make it, and only saw the last few songs of their set. No photos from the pit I'm afraid.

"Never Say Die" was the song they were playing when we got through the gates, and their cover of Boycott's "Gotta Rock" was the first song we actually saw them perform. I like the original but I like the Eyes version as well, the song doesn't suffer of "gothifying". TApparently two other songs from the new album "Death Of Darkness" were played, but we missed them both. We did get to hear my favourite song of theirs, "Lost Boys", their tribute to the great movie by the same name. All in all, they played a solid set. Them being dubbed "Helsinki Vampires", their show would work better after dark, with added athmosphere created by lights... they didn't turn into dust or explode though, so I have a sneaking suspicion that they aren't real, blood-thirsty vampires!

As the Eyes' outro track "Are You Lonesome Tonight" was echoing on the field, we ran to the tent stage (or "Black Stage" as it was officially called) to see CRASHDÏET, the Swedish Glam/Sleaze act.

The band hasn't had the easiest road. Their first singer Dave Lepard committed suicide back in 2006, and the band called it a day. However, a few months they had a change of heart and decided to continue. Their second vocalist was H. Olliver Twisted (nowadays known as Olli Herman of Reckless Love), with whom they released one album. Simon Cruz was the third vocalist, 2009-2015 and two albums. In 2017 Gabriel Keyes was announced as their fourth singer, and he's been in the band ever since. But that's not all, both drummer Eric Young and bassist Peter London have recently taken a break from the live duties of the band. From the line-up that recorded the first album only guitarist Martin Sweet is in the current live line-up. His brother Michael Sweet (not the Stryper guy!) is on drums and Sam Söderlindh plays the bass.

Gabriel Keyes gets the award for the fastest frontman of the festival, he was all over the place, and he does have a set of pipes too! As far as I could tell, the band was playing without the help of backing tracks, which is a rare sight these days.

The band didn't actually play a lot of new, Keyes-era material, but concentrated on the classic tracks. They played several songs from their first album, including "Riot In Everyone", "It's A Miracle" and "Breaking The Chains". "Generation Wild" album was heavily featured too, with the title track and "Chemical" being crowd favourites. I was half-expecting Olli Herman to make a guest appearance as I saw him at the site the previous day, but he didn't. Two guys from Shiraz Lane did pop up at the stage during "Generation Wild" to sing back-up vocals. A good gig, and I think we'll be there in Turku when they return for a few gigs of their own in September.

STRATOVARIUS surprised me earlier this year with a very solid new album "Survive", so I was looking forward to checking them out. They were solid on stage as well, providing us a few samples of the new material among the Strato-classics like "Black Diamond", "Hunting High And Low" and their more recent hit "Unbreakable". It was nice to see that new material was well-received. If anything, to my ears some of the older songs like "Paradise" and "Father Time" hadn't really aged that well.

While we were walking towards the Tent Stage, we noticed that Timo Tolkki had dropped by to check out his old band. As you probably know, he has a new band called "Timo Tolkki's Strato", which consists of old Stratovarius members, and they're going to release a new album later this year.

Would you believe that the main attraction of the whole festival for me was a Swedish band who has only released one album so far? I am talking about NESTOR, who came out of nowhere in 2021 with their peculiar videos and THE best album of that year, "Kids In A Ghost Town". The album was re-issued last year with 3 excellent bonus tracks, which made it even better. The band name made me think of a grandpa type of a figure and the videos lead me to believe that they're some sort of an AOR Steel Panther, but that's not what they're about. They are unashamedly retro and 80ies, but they are also very good musicians and write superb, catchy songs.

Nestor played an absolutely brilliant gig and I loved every minute of it. What's more, they really connected with the crowd and every song got a great reception. They played the original album almost in its' entirety, leaving out only the ballads "We Are Not Ok" and "It Ain't Me". "Signed In Blood", their latest video track and one of the bonuses of the re-issue was also played, and it was one of the most popular tracks. Vocalist Tobias Gustavsson proved to be an excellent frontman, but both bassist Marcus Åblad and Jonny Wemmenstedt were real showmen too. Keyboard player Martin Frejinger and drummer Mattias Carlsson were obviously stuck behind their equipment, but Martin did join the "frontline" with his keytar a couple of times.

On the album, the big ballad "Tomorrow" features an 80'ies icon Samantha Fox. To bring her over for every show would be almost impossible, so Nestor has hired a worthy replacement, the excellent, husky-voiced Lollo Gardtman. I don't know whether she added some backing vocals offstage, but apart from that, the band didn't seem to rely on pre-recorded material. Especially Marcus Åblad sang really well.

The band did disappoint me a little - they didn't use the 60 minutes that had been allocated for them! I was sure they'd come back to play their Whitney Houston cover "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" and maybe something else, but no, they disappeared backstage after only 45 minutes or so. Outrageous! Talk about leaving the crowd hungry for more...

MÖTLEY CRÜE. A band we've seen a couple of times before, and to be honest, they haven't gotten better with age. They made a big deal about the end of their career a few years ago, even signed contracts that they would NOT return... and here we are, last summer the band embarked on a major U.S. stadium tour with Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett, and are now touring the world with Leppard. Original guitarist Mick Mars left the band after the U.S. trek, and it hasn't been an amicable break-up. He has been replaced by former Marilyn Manson/Rob Zombie/David Lee Roth guitarist John 5. But on with the show...

The show began with some Mozart and very cool intro tape, a news broadcast type of a thing with the big screens used very well. Soon we were on the "Wild Side" and the crowd went... well, wild. Vince Neil did what he has done for years, sang some of the actual lyrics of the song and then something else. John 5 was much more animated than Mick Mars ever was, but in his sheep-like jacket and guitar up to his chin he just looked weird. He did lose the jacket at some point, and looked much more like a MC member for the remaining gig. The guitar playing was very good, so musically he filled the big shoes of Mars. As for Nikki and Tommy, they were okay. I wasn't close enough to inspect whether the allegations of pre-recorded bass parts were true, and frankly that wasn't my intention. I tried to enjoy the songs and the visual side of the show.

The two dancer girls got a lot of screen time, and each song had their own graphics, which were impressive. For "Girls, Girls, Girls" (and forward) two giant inflatable female figures were blown up, and the dancers did their moves in similar outfits as the figures on the screens.

The most touching moment of the gig was when Nikki invited a girl from the front row to the stage. The girl was overwhelmed and once she was able to talk, she told him that his father had passed away last year, and Mötley had been a band they both had liked and sang along to. Nikki then dedicated the show to his memory and asked the crowd to raise their hands for him. Seemed like a genuine, beautiful moment among the debauchery.

It might be that I just got used to it, but it seemed like Vince's singing got slightly better as the show progressed. Then again, I just watched a video clip I filmed of the closing number "Kickstart My Heart", and I mostly couldn't tell what the hell he was singing. It didn't help that band's sound was was far from perfect.

Bay Area Thrash Metal legends TESTAMENT were next. They had a good-sized crowd waiting for them when they invaded the stage. They did it with all gus blazing, reminding everyone why they are thrash metal legends. They may not be young dudes anymore, but they can still put on a show, throw shapes and get the crowd going. As our photographer Mira said, "I didn't really care for their music but they were fun to photograph". What's more, the guitarists Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson are old-school guitar heroes, shredding very impressively. Chuck Billy is a charismatic frontman but his somewhat monotonous singing isn't my cup of tea.

The last time we saw DEF LEPPARD was in 2019 - at Rockfest. No complaints about them returning to the festival, they are a fine band and have created some truly classic albums and songs. If the Crüe show was a bit of a mess, Def Leppard showed how it's done. They could easily put together a set of nothing but rock classics, but they aren't only a nostalgia act, they're still releasing new music. Three songs from their latest album were played, "Take What You Want", "Kick" and "This Guitar". I'll be honest, they can't match with the classic tracks, but they still worked quite well, especially the balladic "This Guitar". Never mind the guitar playing, these guys can really sing! Maybe they have some extra help piped in, but I could tell that the guys were singing their heads off too, and sounded awesome. And okay, the guitar playing isn't too shabby either! Joe Elliott's singing voice was in excellent condition, which isn't something that can be taken for granted. He's 63 after all, and to sing the Leppard songs isn't an easy task.

The visual side of the show was excellent again and as the sun went down, Leppard got the best out of the lighting. There were some truly spectacular moments, and the screens were put to good use. That combined with songs like "Animal", "Photograph", "Promises", "Love Bites"... yeah, I enjoyed it a lot!

Def Leppard weren't the last band of the day, the closing act was STAMINA, Finnish new generation thrashers. We decided to skip them and beat the traffic jams by leaving a little early. Well, that didn't work out as planned, as a lot of other people decided to do the same. We were stuck in the parking lot for more than an hour, moving a few metres every now and then. I don't know why the organizers had dropped the ball and decided that there's no need for traffic guards, like there were on Thursday. Now it was plain chaos, and I wouldn't be surpised if there were some fender benders.

The festival continued on Saturday, but unfortunately we couldn't stay for the whole three days. Most of the bands we wanted to see we did see on the two days we were present.

The dates for next year's ROCKFEST have been already announced, from thursday 13th of June to Saturday 15th the Hyvinkää Airport will be the place to be.

Review by Kimmo Toivonen
Photos by Mira Suutari-Toivonen
Additional photos by Kimmo Toivonen

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