Summer concert programme favours heavy rock consumers
Stadium not in use, but Arena and festival gigs aplenty
Rock concerts in the Olympic Stadium have become something of a summer tradition in recent years, but 2005 will be an exception. The renovations to the venue and the IAAF World Championships in August mean that there will be no mega-events in Helsinki this summer to rank with the arrival of Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones in 2003 or Metallica last year.
However, this is not to say that international stars will be absent altogether. Provinssirock in Seinäjoki will be welcoming Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, and Slipknot, while there are also concert appearances slated for Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Lenny Kravitz, Audioslave, Mötley Crue, and Kent during a frenetic period from June to early July.
Before that, Mark Knopfler and Rod Stewart will both be at the Helsinki Arena, and Lou Reed makes three May appearances in Helsinki, Tampere, and Lahti with an acoustic backing band. Even earlier, the spring kicks off with Robert Plant (ex-Led Zeppelin), a farewell tour by The Shadows, and a welcome return to Helsinki by singer-songwriter-producer Nick Lowe.
The traditional Turku rock draw of Ruisrock will be headlined this July by Velvet Revolver (featuring three former members of Guns N' Roses), Rammstein, and Flogging Molly, and will also include the summer's only Finnish appearance by local heroes H.I.M.
As usual, there are an appreciable number of "veteran" heavy bands among the summer concert line-up, reflecting a strong Finnish leaning towards the heavier and more metallic end of the rock spectrum.
There will even be a visit from shock-rock veteran Alice Cooper in August.
The Tuska Open Air Festival in Helsinki in mid-July provides a meeting-place for all metal devotees. German band Accept and Norwegian rockers Dimmu Borgir will be headlining, alongside Monster Magnet and Testament from the United States.
Fans of U2 are probably those most likely to curse the work being done on the Olympic Stadium. The band are touring Scandinavia this July, and would almost certainly have been the summer's biggest single attraction.
It is a little unfortunate that there are no other major venues for acts of this size. Tampere's Ratina Stadium, which has deputised for Finland's soccer internationals, can hold only around 30,000, but promoters require a gate of 50,000 for stadium-scale artists such as this.
Finland also suffers to some extent from geography: moving equipment, often several truckloads of it, by sea from Sweden and back takes out precious time from touring schedules.
There is also competition with other festivals. Ruisrock, for example, is on the same weekend as the T in the Park festival in Edinburgh, and as a result Finns will not be seeing either Green Day or Foo Fighters this year, as they will be on stage in Scotland instead.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 9.3.2005 - TODAY |
 Summer concert programme favours heavy rock consumers |
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