30,31-03 01,02-04-2011 Trashfest IV

Venue: Semifinale and Gloria, Helsinki (Finland)
By: Sabine van Gameren, Nina Mende & Lara Cappelli

Trashfest is quite a family party and so much more than just a festival. This year was the fourth edition of it and Tempelores was there as always. Besides a jewelry stand, a tattoo artist there was also our very own photo exhibition which got seen by pretty much everyone who attended the festival. But although we were obviously having our hands on this, we attended this festival with a larger crew than usual and so come we had our eyes and ears on it at all times.

Opening Party:

Back in Finland, back in Helsinki and back in Semifinal for the opening party of Trash Fest IV!
It didn’t take long for Semifinal to fill up after doors opened. Three bands were going to open up for this year’s Trash Fest: Trash Gallery from Canada, Crystal Rain from Finland and Night By Night from the UK.

The audience was just as international as the bands: From all over the world the people came to be part of the party. But despite the internationality it still felt like a family reunion – and that feeling would only get stronger in the following days.

Anyway, three bands were playing the small stage in Semifinal. The first one was the Canadian band Trash Gallery. The music of Trash gallery sounded like typical American Hard Rock and the guys also looked like that, too. The Canadians rocked the stage as if it was their home. The catchy tunes got everyone to go along. Everyone was having a good time with Trash Gallery on stage, and the night has only just begun. More and more people were coming and Semifinal was getting more and more crowded. Unlike last year, this opening party did not have that many Trash Fest band members in the audience, but still there were quite many familiar faces and lots of warm welcomes and reunions. Trash Gallery thanked the growing audience after each song. One fan was so stoked about the show, that he even went up to the singer in between songs to hug and thank him. A great performance.

And the night continued. This time a little slower, so time to relax and catch up with some newly arrived people while Crystal Rain supported this atmosphere with their music. The Finish band with the female bass player put a whole lot of emotions into their slow songs. Passionate the singer was leaning on the microphone stand, singing into his mic. Crystal Rain performed a very relaxing and chilling show so we could all regain enough energy for the last band of the night.

The UK rockers of Night By Night rocked the audience big time. With a partially new line-up they rocked more than ever. The music was energizing and powerful, the sound was brilliant and so was the light. Everyone was dancing along, cheering to the band. Night By Night owned the stage and the entire Semifinal. What an amazing showcase of the Brits. They definitely left us speechless. Showering the audience with words of appreciation in between each song, we all loved the guys more and more. Night By Night was definitely the best choice for headlining the opening party. Now everybody was hyped up and totally stoked. Trash fest IV has officially begun now!

Day 1:

On the very first day in Gloria the first band that got to play was The Black Room. The band has its origin in UK and performed an acoustic set. The band exist of Jacko, known from Spiritraiser which had an excellent performance at last year’s edition, Ben Christo of Night By Night and Daniele Panza. A wonderful trio that started the evening quite peaceful. What set the tone was their cover of Skid Row’s Quicksand Jesus, a song that lightens the fire within those rock and roll souls attending the festival. The performance of this trio was actually their first live appearance and it left us with a good impression. Worth to keep your eyes on.

Spiha is a band that comes with many expectations. If you have not seen vocalist Henry on Sonic Roots yet, you must have missed out on some of the other Trashfest editions and as well been buried deep underground cause there is a reputation around these names. And good for all fans the band lived up to it quite well. A good show, with catchy rock songs, driven by the tunes of the keyboard that stick in your head way longer than you could imagine. Take for example the song “Planet Horse” it makes people dance and rock at the same time. A great band to get this party started.

Black Light Discipline is not a stranger to Tempelores Magazine at all, though it has been a while and they found a new guitarist in Joonas Pulkinnen. They brought a little more aggression in the place with their Industrial Metal a little different from what we saw earlier this evening. This combined with the active show we are familiar with when it comes to them, made a show that many will remember. Quite some people were dancing in front of the stage next to the people who were just banging their heads, clearly the band makes a good impression at this festival. The band is currently working on a new album and played new material, but also got the songs of their debut album “Empire”. With their performance the band is responsible for one of the highlights of the festival, so keep your eyes on their pages and get that second album when it comes out in autumn.

Seeing To/Die/For again is kind of interesting. The band broke up some times before, and in 2009 they announced they would never ever re unite on their myspace blog. Guess what, they got back together and they were scheduled to play a show here at Trashfest. Although the band played quite ok, they got the venue quite empty at the end of their set. It seems like the people who enjoyed the tunes of Spiha and Black Light Discipline are not really into this band. It may also be said that the fact they were walking around as a bunch of Angry Birds probably did not do much good either. Though quite some left the band has still some devoted fans and those seem to enjoy the entire set. To the point, wondering what was lacking in their show, it may be that the people missed the strength and passion as felt in the previous bands in the music of To/Die/For. The last couple of songs seemed more intense though and maybe more people would have liked them if those were played earlier. It seems like the band is still searching on what hand they want to go on and how to present themselves in the future when their new album is out.

Headlining this day was Iconcrash. The band makes electronic rock music and we got warned that they would have included loads of disco in their music which made us quite curious for their set as we remembered their sets in the previous years and thought the addition of disco must bring some strange results. The surprise was definitely there, disco yes, but on a way we could not predict at all. Maybe best not to be described at all, rather something you have to experience yourself to get the cause of it. Though not everyone was sticking around, it were only people who appreciate Iconcrash their music that were left which was actually a good thing because the majority of the crowd was enjoying it, bringing a positive vibe in the air. It may take a while to get you into the music when you have not seen the band before but the band always works their set in such a way that the intensity comes slowly and when you are into it, you get overwhelmed with it. And so it was this time. Seeing Iconcrash live is always an interesting experience.

Day 2:

Kinetik Control was the first band for this day. The six guys started around the year of 2000 and released two albums. Recently the band signed an international deal with Danse Macabre. After the underground words that go round about this band we had some high expectations, but the actual performance was a little disappointing. Was it that the keys were quite behind in the mix, or that we expected some stronger material? Who will say, but what must be said that the band gave a nice performance, it was not bad. It just did not stand out as much. Apparently they could not bring their message towards

Stala & So was next. The band participated in the national contest that brings a winner to Eurovision and made it quite far. Unfortunately they did not win the contest but yet it brought them some fans. This band is 80% show and 20% music as it seems, the vocalist enjoys posing on stage as if he is in a photo shoot and the songs seem a bit simplistic. Songwriting for beginners. Sounds not like a nice thing to say but there is an audience for this music as well. And when being done with decent vocals of Stala the total outcome gives you some catchy songs, easy to pick up and a show that is entertaining to watch. Why not?!

The British band New Generation Superstars have played at Trashfest twice before, so now up for their hattrick the guys were ready to make a spectacle of it. They did leave a nice impression and to involve the audience with their performance they had an interesting request for them. During the song “Hell City” the band asked everyone to make video’s of them, to put on youtube. This was the opportunity to get the fans involved with the making of their new video. Not much new on these Nottingham guys, they delivered exactly what we expected of them: a wonderful rock and roll show as the Brits have showed us before.

Much more aggressive are the Metal guys from Stoneman. The band comes from Switzerland and released their album “Human Hater” recently. Of course the guys played songs of this album, but also played the German song “Wer Ficken Will”. Seems like there were quite some people in the venue who speak German or are familiar with the song otherwise. Most outstanding was their song “Zombie Zoo” which is originally featuring Wednesday13. Unfortunately he was not here, but nevertheless got people cheering for them. Stoneman is a band you either love of hate, completely dividing the audience, but somehow brings the evening alive, giving the wake up call to those who partied late the evening before.

Closing the evening is Acey Slade. Acey brought some of his friends together to join him onstage. Niclas Etelävuori of Amorphis was there to play some bass and Jack of Private Line is included in tonight’s line up as well. The set included songs of bands he performed with in the past as Murderdolls, Dope, Trashlight Vision and The Dark Party. A nice show of a man which has a great heart for performing and radiates his love for the stage in all ways.

Day 3:

The weekend went by way too fast. It was already the last day of Trash fest IV here. Everybody seemed a little exhausted by now, but happy. It was one amazing festival so far with lots of great bands and people.

The first band of the night was Latexxx Teens from Italy. Fast and energetic electro rock with glitter and glamour: Latexx Teens knew exactly what the audience wanted. They did not speak much in between the songs but rocked all the more. The flashy light added the final touch to the music. A brilliant show by Latexxx Teens with LaNuit of Dope Stars Inc on guitar. The guys moved and rocked around on stage. Simply amazing. the audience loved it. They danced and sang along to the songs and cheered out loud after each song. The 45 minutes of their performance went by so fast.

The night continued with another electro act. Cold Cold Ground was going to rock the stage now. Cold Cold Ground is an industrial rock group from Helsinki, Finland. Their debut album is going to be released by the end of April, but Cold Cold Ground are rocking Finland’s stages for quite a while already. Famous not only for their bunny-headed guitar player, the fans were excited to see the band perform. For tonight they had an additional drummer: Miikki Kunttu joined them on stage for the entire show. The make-up as well as the way he drummed on stage reminded a whole lot of both Combichrist drummers – but both combined! It was breathtaking to see that guy perform on stage. But Cold Cold ground were just as brilliant. Energetic and powerful industrial rock was rocking Gloria and all the visitors for the entire showcase of Cold Cold Ground. It is always fun to see them and I can’t wait to see them again, maybe even with Miikki as additional drummer. Simply amazing.

You might have thought now that this night could not get any better. But believe me. It did! Up now was Lord Of The Lost from Germany. They are in quite many gothic magazines right now, so one or the other might have heard of them by now. They have just released their second album and now they were here at Trash Fest IV to play. With a low voice the singer shouted and sang the lyrics to the rocking music. Nobody was able to stand still during this – for the evening yet another – amazing performance! The energy the band head infected the audience. All the tiredness had disappeared and instead the body was filled with power and energy to rock out and bang your head along to the music. And the audience did.

Now, it was time for probably one of the best rock bands Helsinki has to offer: Private Line. Their new album is coming up, so they also presented us some new songs as well as old classics. The band rocked around on stage and the audience sang and danced along to the songs. The only times when the singer was not moving around on stage was when he played on his acoustic guitar. Slow and fast songs in a mix gave everybody time to catch one’s breath in between and then continue rocking. It seemed like literally everyone knew every word of the songs. An extremely familiar and positive atmosphere was filling up Gloria. The hour show time went by so fast. sad, because it would mean the festival was almost over.

But as last and final act, Mama Trash had put together an All Star band with a changing line up for each song. Together they played classics by Mötley Crüe, Danzig, Kiss and many others. For the final song they all came up on stage to perform the very last song as well as saying good bye to everyone. The audience had a blast. Since it was rock classics, everyone knew the lyrics because they had been grown up with those songs. Which meant you could see everyone in the venue going crazy, whether it was crew, musician or fan! What a wonderful highlight and ending of another amazing Trash Fest. I miss the family already and am looking forward to the next one already. Make sure to not miss out on that one!

Reviews Kickoff party and day 3 by Nina Mende, Day 1 and 2 by Sabine van Gameren.
All bands have been photographed by both of us.
More photo’s by Sabine van Gameren at Sabinevangameren.com
More photo’s by Nina Mende at roseofthedevilsgarden.com

Lara’s photo’s are now online as well:

Links:
Trash Gallery Facebook
Crystal Rain MySpace
Night By Night Facebook
The Black Room Facebook
Spiha Facebook
Black Light Discipline Facebook
To/Die/For Facebook
Iconcrash Facebook
Kinetik Control Facebook
Stala and So Facebook
New Generation Superstars Facebook
Stoneman Facebook
Acey Slade Facebook
Latexxx teens Myspace
Cold Cold Ground Myspace
Lord of the Lost Myspace
Private Line Official
Mamatrash Website