Vielä on pesää jäljellä

The summer is about to end. You know that because the festival bookings are getting fever and fever. And from the calendar too. I am not absolutely sure but I think Summer Breeze and Lowlands were the last open air festivals this year so the summer is officially over. We had a pretty shitty schedule since we were flying from Helsinki-Vantaa really early on Friday morning which meant that we had to leave around 2 in the night. Nö sleep at all. Both me and and Jonne were by the way at the Motörhead show where they recorded their Nö Sleep At All live album. The show was brilliant, the album sucked then and still does. Aaaanyway, really early at the airport on Friday. We had some new lighter guitar cases and for the first time in some time we were way under our weight limit.

We were in Frankfurt a bit before the bus. We had a meeting at McDonalds. Why don't they have veggie burgers? They should. And the same goes to Burger King. The bus arrived. The best tour bus we've ever had. Really cool double decker with two lounges, two TV/Stereo/DVD-systems and everything. Really nice. Looks like we're doing the Finnish Fire tour with the same bus which is more than fine with me.

I really have to admit that my memories from Summer Breeze are a bit vague. I do remember the area and the show but the rest is a bit blurry. I remember some people though, like Emmi from Enska with whom I was watching Eluveitie and drinking her vodka. It's so nice that she's finally old enough to buy that herself. Then I remember later meeting Eluveitie people at the backstage including the two new members. I also remember talking to them. No idea what though. Probably insulted them: "You'll never be able to replace the Kirder brothers!" or something like that. And then there was this German female bassist we've met several times through the years. I think she was with Pain at some point. And I believe I have a picture of her boobs. At least they look like hers.

I remember that at one point of the night Cane and myself were telling Jonne that "No, we can't do a TV interview now, we're way too drunk for that", but Jonne just said that "C'mon, it will be even better like that!" Next morning when I wake up in the bus on our way to the next festival I check my messages and see that there's a message from Matte, the manager: "TV interview @ 21.30. Press tent." Paukku was also awake at that point and we had a small conversation:
- "Oh, we must have missed that one."
- "What do you mean?! You did the interview. Jonne, Cane and yourself."
- "Really? I have no recollection of that."
- "No wonder, you were a bit drunk. All of you. Luckily I have some video material from that."
- "Great."
It appears that there happened quite a lot of things during the interview. Not exactly the interview though. I was talking most of the time to someone else, Cane passed out during the interview but Jonne did his best with the interviewer. Or so I heard. And it only went downhill from there. You'll get to see the video when all persons involved are dead and gone. And with the life style like this, it won't take that long.

On Saturday we were playing in the Netherlands at Lowlands festival. I had not checked anything about that festival before and it really surprised me with it's size. It was a really big festival with several stages which were all in tents of different sizes. It was also nicely diverse. There were many different musical styles represented which was really nice for a change after all the metal festivals. That doesn't really mean that I watched them but still. At least it was a nice change to maybe get some new fans since the main portion of the crowd was definitely not metal crowd. I think we did that. We did a good solid show with no big problems. The tent was full, not packed though. It looked like there indeed was quite many people who probably saw us for the first time and they seemed to enjoy the show as well as the more familiar people, so I guess it did some good to us.

After the show we once again had plenty of time do whatever we wanted. It included alcohol. I had a lot of fun with the bus driver and Hittis during and after the dinner since they were serving free alcohol and we started using the straws as weapons, meaning that we were blowing pieces of napkins through them. The floor was covered with the paper mass when we left.

During the evening I went to see only two bands, Nightwish and Sex Pistols. I think I watched maybe three songs from Nightwish until I understood that I honestly really don't like their music. Later it was time for Sex Pistols. I went to see them from the beginning and ended up waiting an extra 25 minutes since they just decided to let people wait. I was a bit skeptical about the whole thing. They finally started and four songs was enough for me. Tired, uninspired, boring. Good sound though. They released one album in 1977. Nothing more. 31 years ago. It is a good solid rock album. But still. They are touring around the world playing the entire album and a few covers. I guess they are still doing "The Great Rock'n'roll Swindle".

I guess that was basically our summer. Now we have a few one-offs to do and then another tour starting on November 13. See you then!

Pellavarock and rehearsals

Pellavarock, Lammi, Finland. Nice little one-day festival at the lake side. Last time we played there was in 2005 and from there we left for our first although short European tour which included Summerbreeze festival as well. Three years later it happens again, first Pellavarock and a week later Summerbreeze. Coincidence? Yes.

Anyway, I drove to Pellavarock myself. It's only about an hour drive from my home and we left around 14.30 which felt a bit strange since we were supposed to play in like three hours or so and it didn't feel like a festival at all. It was nice to meet some Finnish friends for a change, like Janne from Rytmihäiriö/Moonsorrow and the festival guys. The festival itself had two stages, we were on the small one. The basic idea was that there were no big gaps between the bands. When one band finishes the other one starts on another stage. This also meant that the change over times were really long. I think we had something like 1 hour 20 minutes or so. And still we manage to be ready just in the last minute. That wasn't entirely our fault though. There seemed to be quite a lot wrong on the stage and for example the bass setup which usually is the fastest took really long. And we didn't have our own stage guys either. Paukku was giving a hard time for the festival crew and the stage tech got so pissed off that he walked off the stage. FOH tech brought him back and together they managed to get the stage done.

We played our normal set once again. No changes whatsoever. From the stage I noticed some familiar faces in the front row. Of course there were the "local guys" as usual but also some old friends from Italy and UK which was a nice surprise. I hope they had a good time in Finland. After the show we spent a while sitting at the backstage but quite soon left and drove back home. So nothing spectacular in this festival trip.

We've been playing basically the same set from the Paganfest till now. Only small changes every now and then, mostly when we have had to adapt to shorter sets. However we've been talking about changing the set a bit and it's finally happening. We've been rehearsing quite well in the past few weeks. I guess we're going to continue with the same set through the festival season but later this year there's going to be some changes. We've been rehearsing four songs that have never been on the set list and three songs that haven't been there for a while. One of them is so old that Juho and myself have never played that live. Oooooh, the excitement!

Anyway, we're leaving tomorrow morning at 2 to Germany again. Maybe I should get drunk today. Paukku can pick me up from a bar. Hmm. Interesting.