Rockfest 2025

ROCKFEST 2025, 12-14 June, Turku, Finland

First day of Rockfest fell on a weekday (thursday), which probably limited the number of visitors a bit. The weather wasn't favourable either, it had been raining all morning. It did clear up for the opening of the gates, but unfortunately for us, we got the last shower of the day when we walked to the site.

KILPI opened the festivities on the Black Stage, which was inside the Gatorade Center ice hall. I was somehow under the impression that the Black Stage would have been a small one, but it wasn’t, the bands who played there had arena-sized stage, lights and audio system. And damn, the audio system was loud! Before every gig a festival intro was played, and the first time we heard it I thought we'd all go deaf if the band would play as loud! The volume was lowered to a tolerable level though when the band started.

Kilpi have been on a hiatus, and only recently re-started their engines. People had obviously missed their traditional heavy metal, as they had a respectable crowd checking out their ”comeback” and singing along. The band comes from the school of Priest/Accept/Maiden with two guitarists, but they have also visited the AOR class for a few lessons, as many of their songs have plenty of melody. Hits like ”Nerokasta Ikävää” and ”Sielut Iskee Tulta” sounded very good, and newer songs from the last album "Juggernaut" got a great reception as well.

The first band on the Main Stage was H.E.A.T. from Sweden. Their vocalist Kenny Leckremo was suffering of a bug of some kind, but despite that, he belted out the songs at almost full force. All things considered, a superb performance from him! The setlist was pretty well put together, covering their whole catalogue. It's nice to see that the albums with Erik Grönwall on vocals weren't ignored, about half of the songs were from that era. Highlights for me were "Cry", "Bad Time For Love" and "Living On The Run", but I did enjoy the whole set. So did the crowd, more and more people took notice of the band on stage and I've read many favourable reviews already. I’d rate this as my favourite post-Erik gig of theirs I’ve seen.

MILLENCOLIN was another Swedish group next on the Red Stage, playing pretty straight-forward punk rock. Not my cup of tea, but they had their share of fans and they were good at what they do. The first song they played had a bit of a Bad Religion vibe, that was my favourite of what I heard.

SEPULTURA, the South American Thrash metal legends weren’t my cup of tea either, but they were hugely popular. Their set was furious, non-stop aggression but in a kind of friendly way, spiced with some latin percussion or something. I overhead someone saying that "I saw these guys at Giants Of Rock in 1991, just 34 years ago"... maybe that tells you something about the average age of Rockfest visitors! No, it wasn't just us old geezers, there were people of all ages there, but maybe the average age was a bit higher that at some other festivals.

For the next slot, we had to make a choice between RØRY and D.A.D. We decided to start with RØRY, who played on the Black Stage. She is a British singer/songwriter, who we briefly checked out before the festival. The Avril Lavigne meets Skillet meets Taylor Swift sound of her records didn't quite meet her live sound, which was heavier and darker. The lyrical themes of her songs aren't the happiest ones, and she thanked the audience that they had taken time to come listen to her sing about her family issues and other stuff on a nice summer day. Pretty decent stuff and she had a good live band.

D.A.D. were closing their set with a long version of their biggest hit "Sleeping My Day Away". They've been praised as a great live act, but I wasn't that impressed. Not bad, but not something that special. Vocalist/guitarist Jesper Binzer is a charismatic frontman though, and Stig Pedersen's strange two-stringed basses are a familiar visual element for them. Not many bassists who settle for just two strings...

JUDAS PRIEST were the headliner, and they put on a fairly massive metal show. The band is legendary and they have a selection of well-known metal anthems. They played some of them, but they also played a fairly lot of new songs and a total of 7 songs from the "Painkiller" album from 1990, celebrating its' 35th anniversary. I only have some of their eighties' albums in my collection and never really got into "Painkiller", so this celebration didn't exactly blow me away. "Touch of Evil" was nice to hear though. It would have been great to hear a couple of songs off "Turbo", but I guess that album isn't high on the band's or most of their true fans' list.

Rob Halford, aged 73, can still hit those eardrum piercing high notes, but overall his vocals were a bit off at times. This was the first show the "Shield Of Pain" tour, so maybe it was just that, he hasn't quite settled into the touring mode yet. There was one strange moment during "Painkiller", when the microphone was aimed at the crowd, yet the vocal continued, but I am not sure whether it was Andy Sneap's backing vocal I heard. The band was tight as ever, and even though it's not the original Tipton/Downing guitar duo, the work of "youngsters" Richard Faulkner and Andy Sneap was sharp and intense.

DAY TWO, and the gods of weather were in a good mood, the sun was shining. The band that I was most looking forward to seeing had gotten a rather challenging slot: NESTOR were the first band on the Main stage at 15:30. A lot of people were still at work, so the field was sparsely populated when Nestor kicked off their set with "We Come Alive". The "already converted" filled the first rows, and welcomed the Swedish AOR heroes very warmly. The band thanked us by playing a killer set, and I am pretty sure they converted a few new fans too. The crowd grew bigger as the show progressed, and by the end of the show, we got to hear some very nice crowd participation. Tobias Gustavsson was a whirlwind on stage, with bassist Marcus Åblad and guitarist Jonny Wemmenstedt doing their share of classic rock antics. Compared to many of the other acts in the line-up, Nestor's set was about having fun, happiness, summertime and maybe with a bit of longing for days gone by and "old flames". No signs of aggression, tough guy attitude or politics whatsoever.

Knowing that the band only had a limited time my only concern with their show was that "shit, it's gonna end soon"! They played about 10-12 songs, out of which my favourites were... well, almost all of them but if you insist, I'll say "Signed In Blood", "Last To Know" and "On The Run". You may call them cheesy, you may call them a pastiche of the eighties, I couldn't care less. They were The Band Of The Festival for me, hands down.

Just like on Thursday, the first bands on both outdoor stages were Swedish, but quite different to each other. After Nestor's AOR Fiesta we went to DEAD BY APRIL's open fire BBQ party. This was the second time we saw them, but a lot has happened since the last time. It was back in 2009 at Ruisrock, and I just checked out my review... apparently MySpace was a thing back then, and I said that the band was a mixture of metal, hardcore and boyband pop. During the 16 years the boys have grown into men, and actually only two of the 2009 line-up are still in the band - bassist Marcus Wesslén and guitarist/clean vocalist Pontus Hjelm. The frontman of the band has been Christopher Kristensen since 2020, providing the unclean vocals.

The band had fairly nice amount of pyrotechnics and Kristensen engaged the audience quite well. The songs I heard followed the formula of screamy verses and more melodic choruses, but I can't say I remember any of their hooks. Probably they saved those early hits to the end of the set, but we were elsewhere by then.

BATTLE BEAST promised new music and a new look. Indeed they had a new stage setup and the reigning metal queen Noora Louhimo had an updated outfit and horns. The two latest singles "Last Goodbye" and "Steelbound" had been added to otherwise very familiar setlist. "Steelbound" got its' live premiere at Rockfest, and what a great song it was! It has polarized the fanbase a bit with its' pop influences, but I thought it was a breath of fresh air. Some say the chorus is very Abba-like, but I heard some Night Flight Orchestra in there. I am really looking forward to their next album.

The Rockfest crowd was very much into Battle Beast, and they were one of the most popular non-headliner acts of the festival. They've built a respectable fanbase and are at a level where they can draw enough people to easily headline smaller festivals. Hard work pays off, they always deliver the goods and I've yet to see a less than good gig from them.

The industrial sounds of DIE KRUPPS didn't appeal to us, but Mira did take a few photos of them. They weren't particularly visual band though, they let the music do the talking. If you were a fan you probably got your money's worth, and I've read some really positive comments of them.

I briefly sneaked into the dungeons of the Gatorade Center, where AWAKE AGAIN were playing on the Black Stage. I was not familiar with them, and my first impression was that they had a really strange, mechanical sound with millisecond blackouts. Of course it wasn't a gimmick but some sort of a PA malfunction. Hats off to the band for not letting it bother them too much. The band's modern metal covered many bases, from industrial to metalcore to more melodic stuff via Faith No More-like weirdness. Interesting.

BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE were on tour celebrating their first album "The Poison", which was released 20 years ago. It was my first encounter with BFMV, so I was quite happy when they announced that they'd play the whole album.

The opening track "Her Voice Resides" is one of my favourite tracks from the band, so the gig couldn't have started better for me. The crowd seemed to agree too, there was excitement in the air and later circle pits and that sort of things associated with the genre. After the first three songs, Mira came back from the photo pit and said that "this is a very entertaining band" and who am I to disagree? The band somehow managed to build a cross between two generations of metal, and I kept thinking that the band's twin guitar attack was an updated version of that of Judas Priest's. The riffs were sharp and catchy, and the leads had enough melody for a wimp rocker like me.

After "The Poison", the band played "Waking The Demon" and "Scream Aim Fire" from their second album "Scream Aim Fire". "Knives" was the only newer song, from their latest, self-titled studio album (2021). The band expressed interest in returning as the headliner, we'll see about that. Apparently the first bands have already been booked, and the festival will continue in the same location.

JINJER from Ukraine were the next band on the Red stage, and they seemed to be very popular. The band's focal point and absolute star is vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk. She is a very versatile singer and a captivating performer. I thought she had a magic, witch-like presence on stage and one moment she could growl with the best of them, then effortlessly change her style into angelic clear sound.

The band's music was admittedly too much to handle for me, as they could move between several styles even within one song. After the first four songs they had cruised through the whole spectrum of rock and metal genres, maybe even a bit of jazz and whatnot! Final verdict - super talented, uncompromising and quite complicated.

Rammstein vocalist TILL LINDEMANN was Friday's headliner, and one could tell he was the biggest draw of the day, just by looking at the number of Rammstein or Lindemann T-shirts. A major Finnish news media even announced that he was "on his way to Finland with his band Rammstein", but that was not the case, this was a Lindemann solo show.

Rammstein shows are known to be spectacles of pyrotechnics and industrial metal, but Lindemann has taken a different approach. Musically, not so much, maybe with an additional doze of quirkiness and weirdness, but visually, yes indeed.

The Lindemann show wasn't a rock gig. It was a twisted musical, a freak show, an artistic performance. There was a band on stage, but they appeared to be more like characters in a play than musicians. As far as I can tell, they did play their instruments too. The show was enhanced by strong visual elements on screen, some more disturbing than others. As the show progressed, the people in the front were given a light snack of raw fish, which was a first for me... W.A.S.P. threw pieces of raw meat back in the eighties, but fish? Haven't heard of that before.

Lindemann himself showcased his vocal versatility of which I wasn't aware of, but then again I haven't really listened to Rammstein or his solo material that much. As for the other "characters", the strangest looking was the drummer (see above). A bit of a stretch...

On Saturday (Day 3), the profile of the audience had changed. While on previous two days majority of the crowd had been easily indentified as rock fans, now there were more people in normal summer clothes and more women, many of them there to see Muse. Somehow I thought there weren't that big a draw anymore, considering that two days before they had played in Helsinki at The House Of Culture, which holds about 2000 people. I was very wrong, Saturday seemed to be the busiest day of the three.

I had work obligations so I only made it to the site when THE CULT (below) were playing their last two songs. Our photographer Mira had been there for couple of hours already, so we have photos of them and the previous act GHØSTKID (above). She wasn't too familiar with the two acts before, but was quite impressed by Ghøstkid's show, which was full of action and the characters were very visual. The music wasn't too bad either. The Cult failed to win her over, and the strange incense spread over the stage before the gig got a special mention for its' horrid smell. I only heard two songs from The Cult, "Fire Woman" and "Love Removal Machine". I'm most familiar with their biggest album "Sonic Temple", and I guess I got lucky that I heard "Fire Woman", the only song their played from it. Vocalist Ian Astbury's voice was in pretty good shape and the band sounded good.

Back in 2019, we saw UGLY KID JOE at Rockfest, when it was still held in Hyvinkää. That gig didn't leave a lasting impression, but somehow this time UKJ were better. Whitfield Crane was one of the most commanding frontmen of the festival, the crowd did what he asked them to do. I actually felt the earth move when he asked the crowd to start jumping!

The band has a handful of decent songs, my favourites included "Neigbor", "Goddamn Evil" and the two big hits "Cats In The Cradle" and "Everything About You". As a surprise, Michael Monroe jumped on stage for a cover of AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds". Well, a Monroe cameo appearance isn't that big a surprise, it was more of a question of "where and when"...

MANIC STREEET PREACHERS played next on the Main Stage. They have a handful of decent songs too, maybe even two handfuls, and they played many of those. Highlights for me were "You Stole The Sun From My Heart", "The Everlasting", "If You Tolerate This..." and "Decline & Fall" from their latest album. I can also tell you that vocalist James Dean Bradfield's voice still soars like back in the nineties.

At times the crowd seemed to lose interest, and there was a whole lot of commotion and yapping going on during the less familiar songs. I kind of understand why, some of the songs were frankly fairly boring for me too.

After Manics, we briefly checked out BLACK FLAG. I gave Mira a break and took over the photographic duties. Black Flag are a legendary hard core punk band, who were formed way back in 1976. Only guitarist Greg Ginn, aged 71, remains of the original line-up, and the band has gone numerous changes. The most famous former member is Henry Rollins, who was the band's frontman from 1981 to 1986. Black Flag 2025 is Greg Ginn and three young musicians, Max Zanelly on vocals, David Rodriguez on bass and Bryce Weston on drums. Zanelly was a lively performer, she sang (or shouted) with passion, while the others were more static.

It didn't take long for us to realize that Black Flag's music wasn't for us, so we headed elsewhere. A band called HEALTH had started at the same time in the indoor stage, and some of the photographers had chosen to see them. One guy said that "I've never been scared of a band, but this band was so intense that I was a bit scared of them!". Of course the curiousity got the best of me and I had to check them out. Maybe they had used all of their energy during the first songs as they weren't too intense when I got there, or maybe the couple of songs I listened were just a calm before the next song. I wasn't scared or intimidated at all.

When I was back outdoors, I heard Black Flag again. They were playing a monotonous riff, and Zanelly was shouting "F**k! F**k!" over it. This lasted for the couple of minutes it took me to walk to the media area. Interestingly, when we came out of there much later, the same riff (or another one) and "F**k! F**k!" continued...

The headliner MUSE had a strict photo policy, and only a limited number of photographers got the permission to shoot them. Unfortunately were weren't among them. As Muse isn't really close to our hearts, the initial plan was to check out a few songs and then head home. After the seventh song or so, the plan was scrapped and we stayed until the end.

The show was simply spectacular, and even though I still won't call myself a fan, I really enjoyed watching the gig. The song that stood out the most for me was "Compliance" with its' pulsating synth riff. It kind of reminded me of Queen's "Scandal", and several other parts of the show had a bit of a Queen vibe as well. What I also noticed is that a few of the songs reminded me of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus". And despite Matt Bellamy's views of "the guitar becoming a textural instrument rather than a lead instrument" he did some serious shredding.

So what did we get from Rockfest 2025? Some great gigs from our favourite bands and some interesting new discoveries for starters. The festival was really well organized, most everything worked like clockwork and I don't think any band suffered of a poor sound, apart from the skips of Awake Again.

Extra special thank you to Taija & Katja for keeping us media folks informed at all times and taking care of us. You rock!

Review by Kimmo Toivonen
Photos by Mira Suutari-Toivonen

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