SOOOOOOON, a word 70000tons of Metal cruisers know all too well, love it or hate it. 70000tons of Metal, The Original, The World’s Biggest Heavy Metal Cruise, returns for its 2026 edition from January 29 – February 2, 2026, setting sail from Miami, Florida to Nassau, The Bahamas aboard Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas. For booking and full details are available on the official website. Read our essential packing guide here. Check out the testimonials from several 2025 artists at this location.
70000tons 2025 Round 13: ARTIST 47 of 61 Swallow The Sun
Stats
2025 Voyage:
Dates: January 30 – February 3, 2025 Destination: Miami to Ocho Rios, Jamaica Ship: Independence of the Seas
Artist Spotlight
Band: Swallow The Sun Number of 70000tons Appearances: 3 (2014, 2018, 2025) Set 1: January 31, 2025 – Royal Theater – 9:00 pm – featuring Ballet Finland Set 2: February 2, 2025 – Royal Theater – 10:30 pm – featuring Ballet Finland Attended: Set 1 – Yes, Set 2 – Yes Country: Finland Genre: Death/Doom Latest Album: Shining(2024) Standout Moment(s): Rewind seven years from the 2025 edition, and you’ll find Swallow the Sun performing three sets on the 2018 voyage. At the time, it felt like the Finnish death/doom metal giants had already raised the bar simply by adding an extra performance. In 2025, they managed to outdo themselves once again, this time by raising an entirely different bar, one that involved ballet slippers.
For the 2025 cruise, the Avant-Garde Ballet Finland joined Swallow the Sun for not one but both sets in a specialPlague of Butterflies performance, one they did back in Helsinki as they brought the show to the Caribbean. Presenting fully choreographed ballet performed to the band’s crushing metal soundscapes. If this can happen, perhaps there’s still hope for tap dancing set to blast beats, someday.
Arguably one of the most unique performances in the history of 70000tons, the collaboration was magnificent, emotive, poetic, heavy, and powerful all at once. It was uncomfortable yet radiant; those contrasts being exactly what made it so captivating. Following the ballet portion, the sets transitioned into a more traditional Swallow the Sun performance, with the band alone on stage, letting their emotive compositions unfold in a different kind of beauty with instruments replacing sautés and pliés, but no less moving.
Before the cruise, in late 2024,Metal Insider interviewed Juha Raivi, and he shared the following on the band’s decision to bring the ballet on the boat:
“We are a band that never shy away from doing exactly what feels right music wise and with other things too about Swallow the Sun, so playing with ballet is no exception. We did 3 sold out shows in Helsinki with the Ballet Finland playing the Plague of Butterflies and it was such amazing thing that we really want to do more of those shows. We are so happy that 70000 tons of Metal have such big balls that they wanted us to bring the whole ballet with us and do this again. It really is something special and those gigs will be a big celebration of music, dance and art. Funny to think we will bring the Finnish forest and winter in the middle of Caribbean stars. It will be amazing.”
Swallow The Sun– Set 1 & 2
Latest Swallow The Sun News
Swallow the Sun are in Dubai at the moment for their current run, followed by upcoming dates in China and Australia, before returning to Finland for a series of winter shows. For tickets and additional tour dates, visit thislocation.
Well, it’s more than a review of their performance; as 70000tons goes, each band is a headliner, and we treat each one as such, giving them their own spread, discussing who they are and what they’ve been up to since the cruise. Each spotlight coincides with any updates from 70000tons organizers (if any), leading to days before setting sail. An extensive coverage like no other.
70000tons 2026 Lineup 53 out of 60:
Ad Infinitum Amorphis Anthrax Arkona Beast in Black Bloodred Hourglass Cemetery Skyline Darkane Dark Tranquillity Dødheimsgard Dragonland Dust Bolt Eluveitie Ereb Altor Firewind Gama Bomb Groza Haggard Harakiri For The Sky Heathen Hiraes Hirax Hour of Penance Ignea Illdisposed Illumishade In Mourning Insomnium Izegrim Jag Panzer Kamelot Kanonenfieber Orden Ogan Paradise Lost Persefone Rhapsody of Fire Royal Hunt Satan Saturnus Seven Spires Skeletal Remains Skyclad Soen Soilwork Suidakra Tribulation Tyr Vader VBO Vio-lence Wind Rose Wolf Xandria
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