Monday, 2 June 2008

Finnish tour = 2 gigs

So, after a weeks rest(?) it was time to head for the two Finnish shows with Skyclad(UK) and Heavy Metal Perse(FIN). The first gig was in Turku on Friday, May 30. I was at work on Friday and couldn't leave before 14.30. Some of the backline was supposed be ours so the crew consisting of Paukku and Tuomas and three band members were leaving already earlier since they had to be there at 17.00. That meant that I would have to drive myself which is never good. I like driving but it's not really good with the gigs because then you can't really drink. On Friday Paukku told me that we were not going to do soundcheck on Friday anyway and for example Jonne had promised to be at the venue at 21.00 so I really didn't have to hurry to Turku.

I finally arrived to Turku around 19.00 just to find the angry Korpiklaani crew doing all the work without any venue crew members around. I carried my stuff in anyway and changed quick "hellos" with Skyclad. The crew didn't need me there to lean on anything so I drove to hotel in the city centre. Actually I didn't go in to the hotel, I just left my car there to wait for the morning. It was time for a drink. I got some wine from the liquer store and a bag full of Strongbow and started the journey back to the venue. It did take a while since it included some drinking on the banks of river Aurajoki.

A few words about the venue, S-Osis. I don't really know who owns or runs it and I am too lazy to find out. It is located at the university area and the name comes from either "Satakuntalais-Hämäläinen osakunta" or "Savo-Karjalaisen osakunta" or both so I guess it is or at least has been run by the university students. Finnish word "osakunta" is something like "student society" in English. I believe the venue can hold something like 300 people, but I think that would already be quite uncomfortable. The venue is basically nice, but definitely not my favourite because of a really, really small stage and the lack of shower. Fresh air during the show would be a nice bonus as well.

The Finnish band Heavy Metal Perse started the evening and got the crowd going quite well. I didn't really watch them though. I was concentrating on drinking and talking with old and new friends. The music sounded like 1980's metal, a bit Maiden-like. We started around 22.30 if I remember correctly. I wasn't really following a clock. The set was pretty much the same as in Romania except that we skipped one or two songs in the end again just to get Skyclad on the stage sooner. The stage was so small that I for example was practically invisible to most of the audience except the ones at the side of the stage. My main audience was our monitor tech Tuomas "Saatanan Risuparta" Vahtera. He brought me more "Fiskeman" from the backstage during the show so it was good anyway.

Yes, the monitors! The monitor desk war our FOH engineer's own. Paukku was understandably quite angry about that as well since it was meant to be used in the live recording which now didn't happen just because someone failed to provide a monitor desk! So, there will not be "No Sleep 'til Turku" live album from Korpiklaani.

The attendance was around 170 + the guests etc. That was pretty good I think. One thing that I don't really understand is that quite many people actually left after our set and Skyclad played to a smaller audience. I mean, I understand if you are a fan of Korpiklaani and we were the main reason to be there but I for example would have stayed to see Skyclad as well since they are always entertaining even if you are not really a big fan of theirs. This time however I didn't really watch them since I started to be quite drunk. So drunk in fact, that I have only very little memories of my trip to the hotel, but I do remember having a small rest on the grass next to the Turku Cathedral...

The morning after. Headache. Terrible headache. We had to leave the hotel before 12.00. I was out before that but one certain member was once again quite difficult to get out of the bed and I think it went a bit longer than 12.00. Paukku and the van were not there so I went for breakfast. I decided to get something that is originally from Turku, so I went to get a veggie hamburger from Hesburger. Afterwards when we got the group together we drove to S-Osis again to load the gear. We still were not in a hurry to get to Helsinki so I drove back to the centre and went shoe shopping. Or was it a record store? Well, I bought a couple of Kiss and Ozzy 7" singles so you can figure that out. And finally Blackfoot's "Highway Song Live" on CD. And some other stuff as well. I definitely should ban myself from the record stores for a while. During the past three weeks I've bought at least 20 CDs. Several Johnny Cash albums, 5 or 6 Annihilators...

The idea was to be at the next venue Gloria, Helsinki around 17.00 again. I left Turku around 14 something. The road between the two cities is one of the main routes in Finland but I had never before driven that. Strange. Then again it wasn't that interesting anyway. Although there was a sign saying "Meijerimuseo" and I though that would be interesting. "Meijerimuseo" is "Dairy museum" in English. The word "Meijeri" in Finnish can be used to describe really big boobs so I though that I would find some huge knockers there, but then I was informed that it wasn't the case so I passed the museum. I don't like milk.

Gloria is right in the city centre on Pieni Roobertinkatu. I don't know about the capacity, but it's a lot bigger and in many ways better than S-Osis. Go check out the website and the pictures http://nk.hel.fi/gloria/ This time I believe the crew was happy too and so was Skyclad. They seemed to be generally happy about the sudden upgrade in the venue department.

In Gloria we did a soundcheck too but without Cane. He was in a family member's graduation party and didn't manage to get there in time. As everyone in the business knows, being a musician on tour is mostly waiting. I still had some wine left from Friday so I started with that, sitting on a nearby church stairs watching the locals. For some reason the wine just didn't go down that well anymore. It was also getting a bit chilly outside when the sun was going down so I headed back to the venue. The whole evening was basically just sitting at the backstage. Skyclad even wanted us to headline so the evening was really long. Well, at least Markus from Moonsorrow came for a beer and brought me the hoodie he promised me two months ago...

The set list was again the same as usual but this time it was played entirely to the last note including the encores "Let's Drink" and the inevitable "Ii Lea Voibmi". We had a really good audience. It was somewhere between 250-300, which was a disappointment for the organizers but we had a great time. I think we had the biggest polka circle I've ever seen. I was a bit tired though and wasn't really enjoying it as much as I should have but it was good anyway. I made a really stupid mistake in the spot that I never fail, which isn't really good for the live recording, but at least we recorded it. Let's see if we will ever use that anywhere. Maybe Paukku will use it to calm us down when we start thinking too much of ourselves. Like the infamous Swiss live recording from August 2005...

This time I remember a lot more from the journey to the hotel. We were already getting asleep when Hittavainen decided to go out and get a kebab. Matson ordered one too and as a joke I told him to get me some falafel as well. He did. I was already sleeping when they woke me up to eat. Great service.

Apart from the drive back home, that is pretty much our Finnish tour. Next stop is Sweden Rock in just three days on Wednesday and then Rocksound Festival in Switzerland on Friday.

3 comments:

Socke said...

You missed the tractor museum, which is also on the road between Turku and Helsinki. I still haven't visited it.

Jarkko Aaltonen said...

I actually remember seeing that too, but I couldn't connect the word "tractor" to boobs so I wasn't interested.

Malitsu said...

Wish I could've warmed you in that cold doom... um, church yard! But seeing the gigs was nice, especially the one in Hellsinki, where there were that eerie circle during the yoik number and lots of yummy young pagan flesh. Thanks boys! Maybe next time I actually manage to drink some...