Radio City South Park Festival
Radio City South Park Festival
Def Leppard, Helloween, Amorphis
Eteläpuisto,Tampere, Finland
6th June 2015
Radio City South Park is a relatively new metal and rock festival held in Tampere. It was created last year after the demise of Sauna Open Air replacing it as the city’s main metal event. This was my first time at the festival and I was only there for the Saturday.
First up on the main stage was the Finnish speed metal band Ranger. They are a young and fairly new band who have only just released their debut album this year. Their show was very energetic and fun to watch, packed with furiously fast guitar riffs and somewhat cheesy lyrics. They reminded me of more establish speed and thrash metal acts such as Exciter and Witchburner. All I can say is that if all their shows are as good as the one I saw, these guys have a very bright future ahead of them. 5/5
Finnish “Rautalanka” heavy metal outfit Viikate were probably the most unique band in the line-up. This particular show was a little unusual because rather than playing their own stuff, they decided to focus primarily on Finnish language cover versions of Motörhead songs. Since this was the very first time that I’ve seen these guys live, it was a bit of a letdown to only hear a handful of original Viikate tracks. Whilst I like Motörhead, hearing the familiar tunes sang in Finnish by another band isn’t quite the same as the real thing. 3.5/5
Melodic metallers Amorphis are one of those bands whom I’ve seen live at least twice already and they are a regular feature at Finnish metal festivals. Whilst I like their older stuff, I’ve lost track of them over the years. Their show was mainly composed of new songs from the latest album so I didn’t really enjoy their show as much as I used to in the past. Luckily they played ‘Silent Waters’ and ‘House of Sleep’ towards the end which cheered me up a little. 3.5/5
I’m not into Def Leppard so the final band I saw was the German power metal band Helloween. The weather wasn’t the best, it had been raining for most of the day, but nonetheless there’s nothing quite like a nice cold beer and some power metal at a summer metal festival. This was definitely my favourite performance of the day These guys really know how to agitate the crowds with their funny stage antics and skillfully executed fast power metal. Sure, some of the lyrics might be a little cheesy but it’s all highly entertaining and fun to watch. 5/5
Overall South Park may not be the biggest Finnish metal festival, but it’s an interesting one. The good thing is that it featured a few bands whom I haven’t seen live before. I discovered the delights of Ranger and Helloween; Amorphis were pretty much what I expected them to be and I might have to give Viikate another try. Kiitos Radio City South Park! See you next year!
Iza Raittila
Valkyrian Music 
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