Once again we're back from some festivals where I've once again been able to catch something that ain't making me feel any good. Oink. Oink.
This time we started from Hungary. We left Tampere again in the middle of the night. Our destination was Rockmaraton festival near or basically in Pécs, Hungary. A few years ago we played in Pécs at the indoor festival called Rocktriatlon. Maybe this was the same festival, just a bit bigger and longer now. At least this one lasted for a week.
We were greeted at the airport by our hostess Zsófia and a fellow who's name I didn't catch. We had again a bit of driving ahead since Pécs is about 200km south from Budapest airport. The driver was a lunatic. Some of us were afraid that they won't survive the trip. And then when we finally stopped to have some drinks he was really pissed off because we were losing time. He didn't speak a word of English but this is what Zsófia explained to us. We were quite quickly in the car ready to leave but the wanker just stands outside eating his whatever it was. Idiot. Of course when you start drinking beer you soon have to stop to relieve yourself. That was the next problem. The idiot just wouldn't stop. He was asked to stop many times but he just kept driving. Finally I raised my voice from the back so that he definitely heard that too. Zsófia translated that to him, probably included all the swear words as well, since the idiot stopped the car immediately!
In Pécs we checked ourselves in the hotel, quickly had a look at the rooms and decided to head to the festival area immediately. Except Hittis. He had learned something from the infamous Ukraine trip when he only got to Warsaw, Poland and told us that "the festival will be boring and I'll only end up drinking at the backstage the whole afternoon which will not end well."
We indeed spent the afternoon at the festival drinking beer. It was a hot day, you know. We checked out some of the bands playing and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere. At some point we were also informed that some of us will be "needed" to judge the wet T-shirt contest. We were headlining on Wednesday and our buddies My Dying Bride were headlining on Thursday. They arrived already on Wednesday and got in the festival area just before the contest. So I just grabbed Andy, their guitarist:
- "Let's go, follow me. It's going to be fun."
- "Where are you taking me?"
- "You are going to judge a wet T-shirt contest."
- "No way. Really?"
- "Yes way. Really!"
- "Let's go."
We were put to sit on a bench on the stage next to a children's plastic pool while the local announcer was getting the volunteers from the audience. We couldn't really follow that or anything else what was going on. Zsófia of course tried to explain as much as she could. Anyway, soon they had 8 or 9 girls on the stage all dressed in white t-shirts. At this point we learned that we were also supposed to be the ones pouring the water on them. Oh, well. It's shit job but someone's got to do it.
I won't go much into details since this was NOT the main event of the festival. Or was it? Once all the girls were wet we got a load of new instructions in Hungarian. Zsófia explained that we were supposed to pick three of them for the final. The first two were easy to pick since two of the girls had already exposed their boobs anyway. The third one was difficult. We couldn't really agree on that. Luckily one of the girls, a really small one, decided to take matters to her own hands and showed her boobs so the trio was ready for their final show. Which was nice. I don't know who won. The audience I'd say.
At one point during the contest Andy and myself had a short conversation. I asked him:
- "What do you think, aren't we like really dirty old men using these girls as objects right now?"
- "Yeah, we are. Excellent. I love it!"
After the competition I heard one of the nicest, if not THE nicest, things anyone has ever said about our band. Andy was talking to his band mates and said something along the lines "I just love those guys! I'd been here like a minute and they took me there! There's always something going on when they're near!"
Anyway, back to the real business. Since we were headlining we had a bit longer set than usually during the summer festivals. It was 70 minutes, so we had to play some songs that we don't do that often this summer. I can't really remember the set list that well anymore though. Our original idea now that the new album is out was that we'll replace "Tuli kokko" with "Huppiaan aarre" in the set but for example in Hungary I think we did both. "You Looked Into My Eyes" made a comeback to the set as well. I think the encore was maybe four songs so it was a decent set for the Hungarians. We have to give our best. We are related, you know!
The rest of the evening was already planned quite well too. The last band of the day was a local Iron Maiden cover band so we spent the evening watching them, drinking alcohol and behaving badly. That was nice. The band was actually pretty good. The singer sounded a lot like Bruce Dickinson. Not the current Bruce, the 1980's Bruce when he was still good.
We had 4 rooms from the hotel, all for three persons. Three of them were full and I was the lucky one to have a room of my own. In the morning I heard quite a lot of noise from the corridor and realized that it was our guys but I was just too tired to get up. Once I got up and took a shower I just wrapped a towel around me and went to search for them. Since we basically never close doors it was easy to find them. Or at least those who were up. At least Jonne and Cane were sleeping, some were out, but most of us were sitting in one of the rooms where we had taken huge amounts of alcohol from the festival previous night. I took a beer from the fridge and joined.
Tuomas and myself hadn't been up early enough for the hotel breakfast so we went downstairs to get lunch instead. When the waitress approached us I asked if she speaks English to which she replied something like "A little. Menu?" We said "Yes, please" since we thought that she going to bring us the menu from where we can order something but it turned out that we had just ordered their entire lunch menu. Well, the soup was actually really good and they actually understood when I said that I need something vegetarian. I don't know what it was but it was good as well. And it cost as 1260HUF together so it was practically free. For me at least since Tuomas paid. Ha! Sucker.
At some point of the afternoon we carried all our stuff to the nightliner that had arrived from Germany to pick us up. This may have been around 16 or 17. Then the driver went to sleep. I think we agreed to leave at 3 or 4 at night or so. Back to business ie. to the hotel room to drink. At some point we sent Valohomo shopping since he had been out and told us that he found a shopping centre. I gave him 4000HUF and asked him to bring me 10 Bacardi Breezers. He arrived later and brought those and some vodka and orange juice.
At some point of the afternoon we had already emptied the fridge and moved to the "technicians room" where they still had the fridge full. That room was right opposite of mine and both doors were fully open. At 19.00 I had to do a phone interview to Germany. I went to my own room to do that since I wanted to hear something. The sun was shining directly to my room and it was hot as hell in there so I decided to take my pants off. I was wearing only a t-shirt. The last question was "How does it look like in a typical Korpiklaani party?" I just walked across the corridor to the other room and described what I saw. Funny thing is that while changing the room I realized that the room next to ours wasn't an actual hotel room. It was a conference room with glass walls and it was full of people. Ok, I'm sure they had seen penises before. Valohomo had been out somewhere and arrived a moment after that. I told him what I did so he decided to take his pants off as well and walk past the conference room. I mean I only crossed the corridor but he walked passed the room. And did Michael Jackson style moonwalk back!
The rest of the day was quite normal festival day. I think we were taken to the festival area at around 20. We watched the shows, drank and spent time with the locals. And then it was time to pack ourselves in the bus and start the trip home. I mean, Masters Of Rock festival feels like home to us already and people working there probably meet us more often than some of our family members. Well, that basically just tells you more about my family than about Masters Of Rock...
Monday 13 July 2009
Wednesday 1 July 2009
Tuska and Україна
First of all, I got something from Ukraine. I don't know what that is but at least it ain't making me feel any good.
We were on at Tuska festival on Saturday at 17 but my festival trip started already on Friday afternoon when I packed my luggage and myself in the proletarian tube (i.e. train) to go to do a live interview with Jonne at Yleisradio. We were supposed to be there at 20. The actual interview time was 20.15. The train I took was supposed to be at Pasila station at 19.45 which should've been early enough. However the departure time came and went and we were still sitting at the Tampere railway station. Finally we hear the announcement that "There's too much traffic on the tracks and we'll wait here for another 10 minutes." Then after about a minute another announcement says that "No, we're actually leaving right now." And we did. The train moved something like 100 metres and stayed there the next 10 minutes. So finally we were about 15 minutes late from the radio interview, thanks to VR.
Immediately after the interview we met Sampo from Amfisound (www.amfisound.fi) who was bringing me my new bass. That indeed is a beautiful piece of work. I ended up using that at Tuska but didn't take it to Ukraine since I still don't have a decent flight case for it. The bass is just too long to fit in any standard case so I guess it's time to use the services of SmartCase again.
I checked in my hotel and still went to see the last notes of the first day of the festival. I met a lot of old friends, both musicians and "normal" people. Really nice. Since some of them were going to see the bands at the club called Virgin Oil I decided to go there too. I managed to get my American friends there too. I had a festival pass so I had no problems getting in even though the place was sold-out. The girls had no tickets but I was still at that point sober enough to tell the people at the door a sad story about the poor Americans who'd come all the way from Cleveland just to be left out. That worked. It was a nice evening although Turmion Kätilöt were waaaaay too loud. Really, painfully loud.
On Saturday we were supposed to meet Paavo Väyrynen, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development and his Brazilian guests. Or that's what the Finnish representative for Nuclear Blast told us. Scheduled time for that was 14.00. Well, as usual with Nuclear Blast, nothing happens on time but 2-3 hours late if ever. And they weren't Paavo Väyrynen's guests, they were Alexander Stubb's, Minister for Foreign Affairs. So all our other guys arrived to the festival area four hours before they were needed and they didn't even get to meet Paavo. Must've been boring. At least Jonne and myself were doing some interviews to kill time.
One of the bands was actually late. I guess it was Faceless. They knew already a few days earlier about that and we were actually offered their slot on the main stage. It would have been 15 minutes longer but also at the same time as the originally scheduled meeting with Väyrynen & co. so we said no. Well, after all we would have been able to that slot as well.
Last year we had to cancel our Tuska appearance since some of our gear was still in Germany. This time we were coming directly from Tampere so we were not expecting any problems like that. We were wrong. The festival claimed that they had not received any of our riders, including backline rider, so they were expecting us to bring everything including drums and guitar cabs which we of course didn't have with us. Dauntless, the previous band on the same stage were kind enough to lend us all we needed so that all went well. However, it was a bit strange that the festival who had not received ANY of our riders were still able to fill the catering rider exactly...
The show was not our best. The audience was brilliant. The tent was packed and afterward I heard people complaining that they couldn't get in or see or hear anything. I guess we were a bit nervous. Tuska just is a special festival for us. It took years to get to be part of the main event. The stage sound was not perfect. After about 4-5 songs it turned even worse since there suddenly was this really loud mid-frequency rumble that was making it really hard to hear anything precisely. I hope the audience enjoyed the show anyway. At least they got to hear two new songs, Juodaan viinaa and Huppiaan aarre.
Our flight to Ukraine was leaving at 6.55 next morning which meant that we'd have to be at the airport around 5.00. Most of us went to spend the evening at Nosturi but Hittavainen decided otherwise. He did promise to be at the airport at 5.00 though. Well, everybody else was there on time but he wasn't. And didn't answer our phone calls either. We took all his stuff from the van and checked in. The first time we heard about him was when the boarding had just started. He called from outside and asked for his passport which was in one of his bags. Why doesn't he carry it with him? Beats me. Anyway, I informed him that he can get on the flight with just his ID, since the first flight was to München anyway. But of course he couldn't get to the plane since the check-in closes exactly the same time the boarding starts. Well, we boarded anyway and though that he still has like a day and a half to get to Ukraine. How difficult can that be? Well, impossible to some.
We are in contact with him again from München airport. We try to organize it so that we can leave his passport at Lufthansa desk so that he can book the same flights for the next day but that doesn't work out with Lufthansa. Paukku tested it and managed to get through the passport control with just ID, so basically it would be possible to get to the Ukrainian soil without the passport. Ukrainian immigration would be the first one asking for that.
Ok, I have to admit that at this point this becomes a bit blurry since we arrive to Ukraine and it's mostly Paukku who is in contact with Hittis. Arriving there was interesting. Usually we have to get through the customs and immigration by ourselves and only after that there's someone at the arrival hall with a piece of paper saying "Korkiplaani", "Korplikaani" or whatever. In Ukraine they were actually standing right next to the plane when it stopped. Gogol Bordello, a crew of 15 persons, were actually on the same flight. The locals took us all apart from the other passengers, took care of our luggage and guided us through the immigration. It was slow but still probably easier that way. The terminal was interesting. It looked nothing like a terminal. It just like any other old federal building in the former Soviet Union. I guess they don't get that much international traffic there.
We were taken to a really nice hotel near the city centre and then to a restaurant to eat and drink. It was a bit difficult to order vegetarian food but I managed after all. Fried salty cheese is always good.
Now back to Hittavainen. He was trying to book him the same flights for the next day. The local organizers told us that they will be waiting there at the airport with his passport which would be alright for the immigration. However since his final destination was outside the Schengen area they were demanding to see his passport at the Helsinki airport when he was trying to book the flights. Passport number was not enough. Why not, I don't know. You can book that flight on the internet with just the passport number. Why didn't he use the internet? I don't know. Too drunk? Why didn't we tell him to use the internet? Too stupid?
The next idea was to get him to Warsaw, Poland since Poland is part of the Schengen area and passport is not needed. Warsaw is only about 500km from Lviv. Someone from Ukraine would drive there with his passport to pick him up. Hittis then later informs us that he's booked a flight that will be in Warsaw at 21.15 so we organize the driver to pick him up.
In the meantime we hang around the town, check the festival area and just generally enjoy life in the extremely hot Lviv. For a while it looks like everything is good and we'll have a violinist for the show. Until in the evening Hittis calls us and tells that he was denied from boarding the plane because he was too drunk and that he definitely has no money to book any more flights. So we of course do the only wise thing and call the driver back since there's no point in making him drive all the way there for nothing.
The rest of the evening went as usual. Nothing that special to report. However, in the morning we hear from Hittis once again. He's calling from Warsaw and asking where the hell is the driver! He had managed to exchange his booking to a different flight but didn't think it was necessary to inform us. So we started to figure out the ways to get him to Lviv. At that point it was not going to be easy anymore. It was 10 in the morning, showtime at 17 and a 1000km drive. The only way to do that was to get him somehow to Medyka, the Polish border town and at the same time someone would drive to get him from there. After a lot of talk, expensive phone calls, etc. I finally told him: "Hittis, go back to Finland." He couldn't really find any way to get there. So, it was going to be a show without a violinist.
For some reason we were taken to the stadium really early. Hours before they let the audience in. Not that it really mattered though. The catering was excellent and the weather was beautiful. I was a bit concerned if the success of the festival would be like it was in Romania a couple of weeks ago (=disaster) but luckily it wasn't. The turn out was quite good. That's always really difficult to estimate, but a few thousand people I'd say.
We played a good show. Although we were a bit different than basically all of the other bands on the bill we still got a really good response from the crowd. The organizers were the whole time really concerned about the schedule and kept telling us that we should play exactly an hour, not a minute more. We did that and got off the stage. Paukku put the outro on. I was already at the backstage packing my bass when they came to us and said "You've got to play more, you can't just leave an audience shouting like that!" So we had to go back and play some more. The schedule was not a problem anymore. Next morning we also heard from our manager that the promoters were already booking more shows in the area so I guess we were ok. Even without the violinist.
We stayed at the festival till the end. Gogol Bordello kicked ass. The rest of the night is a bit blurry. I guess I was a bit drunk. But I do remember talking to some Gogol Bordello guys outside of a night club. And then later falling asleep at the hotel bar.
Next day we were taken to the airport. It was a terrible hassle with the local airport crew. They didn't seem to know what to do with our gear. I don't really know if the problem was the locals or the Polish airline. It all seemed highly unorganized. We managed to board the plane anyway and to our surprise all our gear ended up at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. Even after the stopover in Warsaw.
Interesting weekend it was.
j.
We were on at Tuska festival on Saturday at 17 but my festival trip started already on Friday afternoon when I packed my luggage and myself in the proletarian tube (i.e. train) to go to do a live interview with Jonne at Yleisradio. We were supposed to be there at 20. The actual interview time was 20.15. The train I took was supposed to be at Pasila station at 19.45 which should've been early enough. However the departure time came and went and we were still sitting at the Tampere railway station. Finally we hear the announcement that "There's too much traffic on the tracks and we'll wait here for another 10 minutes." Then after about a minute another announcement says that "No, we're actually leaving right now." And we did. The train moved something like 100 metres and stayed there the next 10 minutes. So finally we were about 15 minutes late from the radio interview, thanks to VR.
Immediately after the interview we met Sampo from Amfisound (www.amfisound.fi) who was bringing me my new bass. That indeed is a beautiful piece of work. I ended up using that at Tuska but didn't take it to Ukraine since I still don't have a decent flight case for it. The bass is just too long to fit in any standard case so I guess it's time to use the services of SmartCase again.
I checked in my hotel and still went to see the last notes of the first day of the festival. I met a lot of old friends, both musicians and "normal" people. Really nice. Since some of them were going to see the bands at the club called Virgin Oil I decided to go there too. I managed to get my American friends there too. I had a festival pass so I had no problems getting in even though the place was sold-out. The girls had no tickets but I was still at that point sober enough to tell the people at the door a sad story about the poor Americans who'd come all the way from Cleveland just to be left out. That worked. It was a nice evening although Turmion Kätilöt were waaaaay too loud. Really, painfully loud.
On Saturday we were supposed to meet Paavo Väyrynen, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development and his Brazilian guests. Or that's what the Finnish representative for Nuclear Blast told us. Scheduled time for that was 14.00. Well, as usual with Nuclear Blast, nothing happens on time but 2-3 hours late if ever. And they weren't Paavo Väyrynen's guests, they were Alexander Stubb's, Minister for Foreign Affairs. So all our other guys arrived to the festival area four hours before they were needed and they didn't even get to meet Paavo. Must've been boring. At least Jonne and myself were doing some interviews to kill time.
One of the bands was actually late. I guess it was Faceless. They knew already a few days earlier about that and we were actually offered their slot on the main stage. It would have been 15 minutes longer but also at the same time as the originally scheduled meeting with Väyrynen & co. so we said no. Well, after all we would have been able to that slot as well.
Last year we had to cancel our Tuska appearance since some of our gear was still in Germany. This time we were coming directly from Tampere so we were not expecting any problems like that. We were wrong. The festival claimed that they had not received any of our riders, including backline rider, so they were expecting us to bring everything including drums and guitar cabs which we of course didn't have with us. Dauntless, the previous band on the same stage were kind enough to lend us all we needed so that all went well. However, it was a bit strange that the festival who had not received ANY of our riders were still able to fill the catering rider exactly...
The show was not our best. The audience was brilliant. The tent was packed and afterward I heard people complaining that they couldn't get in or see or hear anything. I guess we were a bit nervous. Tuska just is a special festival for us. It took years to get to be part of the main event. The stage sound was not perfect. After about 4-5 songs it turned even worse since there suddenly was this really loud mid-frequency rumble that was making it really hard to hear anything precisely. I hope the audience enjoyed the show anyway. At least they got to hear two new songs, Juodaan viinaa and Huppiaan aarre.
Our flight to Ukraine was leaving at 6.55 next morning which meant that we'd have to be at the airport around 5.00. Most of us went to spend the evening at Nosturi but Hittavainen decided otherwise. He did promise to be at the airport at 5.00 though. Well, everybody else was there on time but he wasn't. And didn't answer our phone calls either. We took all his stuff from the van and checked in. The first time we heard about him was when the boarding had just started. He called from outside and asked for his passport which was in one of his bags. Why doesn't he carry it with him? Beats me. Anyway, I informed him that he can get on the flight with just his ID, since the first flight was to München anyway. But of course he couldn't get to the plane since the check-in closes exactly the same time the boarding starts. Well, we boarded anyway and though that he still has like a day and a half to get to Ukraine. How difficult can that be? Well, impossible to some.
We are in contact with him again from München airport. We try to organize it so that we can leave his passport at Lufthansa desk so that he can book the same flights for the next day but that doesn't work out with Lufthansa. Paukku tested it and managed to get through the passport control with just ID, so basically it would be possible to get to the Ukrainian soil without the passport. Ukrainian immigration would be the first one asking for that.
Ok, I have to admit that at this point this becomes a bit blurry since we arrive to Ukraine and it's mostly Paukku who is in contact with Hittis. Arriving there was interesting. Usually we have to get through the customs and immigration by ourselves and only after that there's someone at the arrival hall with a piece of paper saying "Korkiplaani", "Korplikaani" or whatever. In Ukraine they were actually standing right next to the plane when it stopped. Gogol Bordello, a crew of 15 persons, were actually on the same flight. The locals took us all apart from the other passengers, took care of our luggage and guided us through the immigration. It was slow but still probably easier that way. The terminal was interesting. It looked nothing like a terminal. It just like any other old federal building in the former Soviet Union. I guess they don't get that much international traffic there.
We were taken to a really nice hotel near the city centre and then to a restaurant to eat and drink. It was a bit difficult to order vegetarian food but I managed after all. Fried salty cheese is always good.
Now back to Hittavainen. He was trying to book him the same flights for the next day. The local organizers told us that they will be waiting there at the airport with his passport which would be alright for the immigration. However since his final destination was outside the Schengen area they were demanding to see his passport at the Helsinki airport when he was trying to book the flights. Passport number was not enough. Why not, I don't know. You can book that flight on the internet with just the passport number. Why didn't he use the internet? I don't know. Too drunk? Why didn't we tell him to use the internet? Too stupid?
The next idea was to get him to Warsaw, Poland since Poland is part of the Schengen area and passport is not needed. Warsaw is only about 500km from Lviv. Someone from Ukraine would drive there with his passport to pick him up. Hittis then later informs us that he's booked a flight that will be in Warsaw at 21.15 so we organize the driver to pick him up.
In the meantime we hang around the town, check the festival area and just generally enjoy life in the extremely hot Lviv. For a while it looks like everything is good and we'll have a violinist for the show. Until in the evening Hittis calls us and tells that he was denied from boarding the plane because he was too drunk and that he definitely has no money to book any more flights. So we of course do the only wise thing and call the driver back since there's no point in making him drive all the way there for nothing.
The rest of the evening went as usual. Nothing that special to report. However, in the morning we hear from Hittis once again. He's calling from Warsaw and asking where the hell is the driver! He had managed to exchange his booking to a different flight but didn't think it was necessary to inform us. So we started to figure out the ways to get him to Lviv. At that point it was not going to be easy anymore. It was 10 in the morning, showtime at 17 and a 1000km drive. The only way to do that was to get him somehow to Medyka, the Polish border town and at the same time someone would drive to get him from there. After a lot of talk, expensive phone calls, etc. I finally told him: "Hittis, go back to Finland." He couldn't really find any way to get there. So, it was going to be a show without a violinist.
For some reason we were taken to the stadium really early. Hours before they let the audience in. Not that it really mattered though. The catering was excellent and the weather was beautiful. I was a bit concerned if the success of the festival would be like it was in Romania a couple of weeks ago (=disaster) but luckily it wasn't. The turn out was quite good. That's always really difficult to estimate, but a few thousand people I'd say.
We played a good show. Although we were a bit different than basically all of the other bands on the bill we still got a really good response from the crowd. The organizers were the whole time really concerned about the schedule and kept telling us that we should play exactly an hour, not a minute more. We did that and got off the stage. Paukku put the outro on. I was already at the backstage packing my bass when they came to us and said "You've got to play more, you can't just leave an audience shouting like that!" So we had to go back and play some more. The schedule was not a problem anymore. Next morning we also heard from our manager that the promoters were already booking more shows in the area so I guess we were ok. Even without the violinist.
We stayed at the festival till the end. Gogol Bordello kicked ass. The rest of the night is a bit blurry. I guess I was a bit drunk. But I do remember talking to some Gogol Bordello guys outside of a night club. And then later falling asleep at the hotel bar.
Next day we were taken to the airport. It was a terrible hassle with the local airport crew. They didn't seem to know what to do with our gear. I don't really know if the problem was the locals or the Polish airline. It all seemed highly unorganized. We managed to board the plane anyway and to our surprise all our gear ended up at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. Even after the stopover in Warsaw.
Interesting weekend it was.
j.
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