All you who think Oulu is a crap town: open your eyes and smell the coffee! From Oulu we have Morley, who are not Moses Hazy even if they enjoy the support of the very same audience base.(more…)

Saturday’s second act at the Rentolava-stage was a Moroccan born Finn Momo Cat. Momo Cat gave a straight forward old school reggae act, preaching about politics, terrorism and the compulsory love and peace.(more…)

Saturday morning was spent in anticipation of a predicted thunderstorm over the festival area. During this time the soundscape was provided on the truck stage by Discard.(more…)

First the ruggedly beautiful Joisin viskin ja nousisin. Continued with the rhythmically rolling Naurava turskan kallo. And after that Scandinavian Music Group had the audience in a tight grip - and didn’t loosen it at any point.

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Lapko served its artsy rock to amazingly full YleX tent in the Saturday afternoon. A year has passed since they released their latest album Young Desire, but Lapko’s charisma endures. The trio kept to the fundementals and the results were convincing. They rocked.(more…)

Heaven Shall Burn has somehow escaped the attention of the larger audiences, so I didn’t wonder that I knew next to nothing about the band. I had heard a few songs, and enjoyed a ballet performance where they had made a good use of Heaven Shall Burn’s music, but that was it. So I took my place in the back of the tent, just behind some guys who looked like they knew thing or two about rock and weren’t about to be easily swayed.
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Diablo’s music is filled with the essence of melancholic Finland. Booze and skiing with frost-bitten face and ice hanging from your beard are among themes which the metal group from Tampere draws from.(more…)

Though rain kept drizzling from the grey skies outside, inside the Kolmoslava tent Tohtori Orff & Herra Dalcroze (Doctor Orff and Mister Dalcroze) brought smiles on people’s faces. For a moment it seemed like even the over-hanging clouds were forced to flee before the childlike merry-making.(more…)

The most famous baldie of Western Finland, Herra Ylppö, together with his band Ihmiset made noise on the main stage on Saturday afternoon. Angry clouds overshadowed the event, but thanks to the gloomy, but in no way po-faced, general attitude, the band’s music doesn’t really require the presence of the sun. (more…)

“And we’re off!” or “Yes yes yes yes yes”, as the announcer Kaarle Viikate put it. The actual festival has now started, with style and rhythm.

Had not an unnamed Turku-based definition of “average” ruined the title, Tuomo Prättälä could be described as the true Finnish ambassador of soul. For a long time Tuomo has been known as the multitalent of the Finnish rhythm music scene, and finally had a breakthrough with his own group last year. The fast pace success also provided him the possibility to open Ilosaarirock’s Saturday on the main stage already this summer.

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