Tampere Metal Meeting 2016
Insomnium, Moonsorrow, Tiamat, Finntroll
Ratinanniemi, Tampere, Finland
17-18th June 2016
Tampere Metal Meeting is a brand new open air festival which was held in Tampere city centre for the very first time this year. The line-up included many well-known Finnish bands such as Finntroll and Insomnium along with a few foreign bands such as Tiamat (Sweden) and Deströyer666 (Australia).
Friday 17th June
The first band I got to see was Omnium Gatherum. I’m not too familiar with their music so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from them. They played some decent-sounding and fairly entertaining melodic death metal. 3/5
The next band that caught my attention was Baptism. These guys were on the smaller stage, playing in broad daylight with some bright “disco”lights flickering at them from all angles. Not really what you would expect to see from a grim black metal band but they made it work somehow. It was a good show. 4/5
The Man-Eating Tree are one of those bands who like to play beautifully dark, melancholic, melodic and atmospheric metal. It usually sounds good on the albums but their shows are not the most energetic although I did enjoy their cover of Type of Negative’ s ‘Everything Dies’. 3/5
The highlight of the night for me was a performance by Moonsorrow. These guys really know how to agitate the crowd with their super catchy and very entertaining folk metal. I’ve seen them live before but this show was much better than the one I saw a few years ago. 5/5
I’ve seen Insomnium live before so I decided to give them a miss. So the last band I saw that night was the Demilich. I only just discovered this band recently and so I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I heard was some good, old-school technical death metal. Nothing ground-breaking but it was fun to watch. 3/5
Saturday 18th June
This time I arrived at the festival area a little earlier in the afternoon, just in time to watch Ranger. I’ve seen them live before so I pretty much knew what to expect from their show. It was pure fun and energetic speed-thrash metal from one of Finland’s most promising new metal bands. They’re always good live, especially at a summer festival. 5/5
I tend to have bad luck when it comes to Barathrum gigs. The last time that I saw them live, the show was a complete disaster due to their singer being too drunk to even stand let alone remember his own song lyrics. This time was much better. He was visibly less inebriated and he actually managed to put on a good performance. They played all the hits including ‘Dark Sorceress’, ‘Legions of Perkele’ and ‘Last Day in Heaven’. Then Mr. Sova threw a bottle of cow’s blood off the stage at the end of the show. 4/5
Next up was the melodic death metal band Kalmah. Their style is fairly similar to that of their fellow countrymen Children of Bodom. These guys sure know how to entertain the home crowd with the singer cracking the odd joke before the song announcements. 4/5
Then there was Nocturnus AD who played an interesting and somewhat bizarre mixture of technical death metal with some experimental sci-fi themes and keyboard noise. It was ok at times and downright weird at others. 2.5/5
By the time that Finntroll came on stage, the weather had taken a downturn. Nonetheless this horde of merry troll-folk are always a joy to watch – even in the pouring rain. They promised “crazy madness and circus” and that’s exactly watch they delivered. The crowds loved it and so did I. It didn’t take long for me to join in the dancing and headbanging along to the happy troll tunes. They experienced some technical problems with the sound towards the end of their set. Luckily they managed to get it fixed leaving just enough time for ‘Trollhammeren’ plus one more song. 5/5
Next up was the Australians, Deströyer666 who played a tight set of fast and furious blackened thrash metal. It was a highly entertaining show in spite of the stormy weather. 4/5
The final band was one of my favourites, the Swedish metal band Tiamat. They played some truly dark and beautiful Gothic metal featuring Henriette Bordvik (ex-Sirenia) as a guest vocals on some of the tracks. The highlights for me were: ‘The Wings of Heaven’, ‘Thunder & Lightning’, ‘Vote For Love’ and ‘Gaia’. 5/5
In summary Tampere Metal Meeting was a great way to spend the weekend. The weather could have been better but the music was excellent. My favorite shows were Moonsorrow, Finntroll and Tiamat. Notable mentions go to Barathrum (well done Demonos Sova!) and Deströyer666.
Iza Raittila
For further info check out: http://www.tamperemetalmeeting.fi/
Valkyrian Music 
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