From Kuopio to Neuhaus an der Pegnitz

The original schedule for the weekend of July 25-27 was Finland, Germany and Portugal but the Portugal festival got cancelled which left us with a slightly difficult flight schedule. Anyway, on Friday it was one of the few Finnish appearances at the Rockcock-festival in Kuopio. It's about 300km from Tampere so we left at noon. Not really because we had to since our showtime was at 21.00 but some of us wanted to see Popeda at 18.00.

We arrived there around 17 and the first thing I did was that I looked up this small girl from Oulu who brought me a screw from Amfisound. On Thursday evening I was changing strings at home and when I removed A-string half of the machine head fell off. Only the string tension was keeping it together. At some point one screw had fallen off. It can't have been that long ago though since I change strings in every 4 or 6 shows. So first thing was to fix the bass and then it was time for Popeda. They are one of the more popular Finnish rock bands who started already in the mid-70's. I guess they were good. I honestly think that the band is good but the lead singer has gone worse and worse during the years. But I did watch the entire set which I almost never do at the festivals.

Our own show was at the tent on the beach. The band before us had maybe 20 people watching them. Jonne for example was really worried because of that. However, during the change over people started to gather up and when we started the tent was quite full. Not packed, but full. We did once again the normal set. Orbina made a comeback but then again we left out Keep On Galloping because Jonne forgot to put this plastic thing on his broken finger and couldn't hit the djembe anymore. We also finished with Ii Lea Voibmi for a change. We had some time to hang around the area after the show but in a couple of hours we started our journey to Helsinki-Vantaa since we had an early morning flight to Frankfurt. I tried to sleep in a van which wasn't really that easy but then again the flight went quite fast since I fell a sleep immediately and don't even remember the take-off.

We arrived Frankfurt around 10 local time and packed ourselves in a van again. Distance was only something like 300km and showtime was a 20.00 so we had plenty of time and we stopped at Thomann in Burgebrach which was almost on our route. I was able to keep myself from buying anything. I spent some time testing a 5-string Fender Jazz but didn't buy that after all. Hittavainen on the other hand bought a 5-string violin. While he was testing it the others were playing double basses although we didn't really know how to. Must've been pain for the staff.

Veldensteiner Festival took place at Veldenstein Castle in Neuhaus an der Pegnitz. I believe the exact year when it was built is unknown but some sources say that it was started in 1008 so it's quite old I'd say. The festival also included a medieval market and many of the people were dressed accordingly which I always like to see. A part of a castle is nowadays a hotel and we had one of the rooms as a dressing room/backstage.

While we were waiting our showtime we checked the area, ate something, had a few drinks and met some fans. I wasn't really checking if the whole festival was late but at least the band before us, Knorkator, played 20 minutes over their time. The change over was 30 minutes and we probably could have been able catch up with the schedule slightly but we decided not to hurry. We have always been the band who does that. Catching up the schedule and even finishing a bit earlier if things are running late. Those times are over. If the other bands or the festival don't take care of that, why should we?

The show itself was not the best from us. At least I felt it that way. Personally the reason was that we hadn't really been able to sleep well and that took away some of the fun. The audience still seemed to enjoy the show which was the main point anyway. We really should tell Paukku what songs we're going to play because we still had encore to do when he already put the outro on. Then again we don't necessarily know what we're going to play until we're actually on the stage. Maybe we should do something about this. Since the outro was already playing the audience wasn't really expecting the encore but we went out and did that anyway. I believe it was Let's Drink and Ii Lea Voibmi.

We hung around the area till the end of the evening. The idea was that we could watch Schandmaul's set but I really couldn't see them. I tried but didn't really see much. You see, I am a dwarf. Basically we ended up meeting people and signing strange things, like female asscheeks. I am not complaining. This wasn't our usual crowd since it was more medieval festival than a rock concert and probably therefore people seemed to be genuinely surprised to see the band there. I guess they are more used to the bands who don't go to meet and greet their fans.

After the festival was over we drove to our hotel in another village. They seemed to have some sort of a village festival going on and some of us still went out to see what's happening. Not much. I went bed quite soon but some of us stayed out a bit longer.

On Sunday we had a whole day to spend since our flight was at late afternoon, first to Copenhagen and then Helsinki. We arrived home in Tampere around 2 in the morning so we ended up spending awfully long time on the road for just one show in Germany. Live and learn.

Next stop: Pellavarock.