Metalheim

October 7, on board of Air Berlin.

Last weekend we did the Metalheim festival in Finland. The festival was put together by the booking agency Metalheim with whom we were for a while. Now Rock the Nation is taking care of our business in Finland too. Basically everywhere except the Americas. Anyway, it was a 2-day festival in the different cities, Oulu and Helsinki. The bands who played in Oulu on Friday played in Helsinki on Saturday and vice versa. Nice concept although I would have preferred cities a bit closer to each other…

We started in Oulu on Friday. Our crew and gear had left already on Thursday evening, the band started the journey on Friday morning. We did the trip with Jonne's car where we could easily fit the whole band. We had decided to leave Tampere at 10 and to save Jonne's time I did the round in Tampere and gathered everybody to the local bus station. We had a soundcheck waiting at 16 and that where we were aiming. The trip went as planned. Until Pyhäsalmi, Pyhäjärvi whatever that was. We stopped for break at the local gas station and when we got back to the car we noticed that the right back tire was almost empty!
- "Where's your spare tire?"
- "I don't know. Do I have one?"

We asked some locals if there was any chance of finding a tire repair shop there. We got lucky. Even though we were basically in the middle of nowhere, there was a local branch of one of the biggest tire chains only maybe 3km away! We filled the tire and drove there.
- "Hello! We have a flat tire, can you help?"
- "You will have to wait until I've finished shoveling this."
The guy was eating.

Since the summer tire season is basically over the place was full of winter tires but no summer tires of the size we needed. Nothing even close.
- "But you guys do really need a tire. Let's see what I can do."
We finally left there with one used tire that was actually in a better shape than the other three…

We even managed to get to the soundcheck in time. Almost at least. The first song we played at the check was a song from the forthcoming album (February 4, 2011). Jonne had an idea that we'd do that in the evening too. It didn't go that well. I for example recorded that in the studio with a bass down tuned a full step and live I am on standard tuning. I am just not good enough to transpose on the fly!

Otherwise it was a loooooong evening. We were headlining and our showtime was at 0.35. We finished the soundcheck a bit after 17 and we had nothing else to do except to listen to Popeda and wait. Me and Jonne at least took his car to the hotel, checked in and walked back to the venue, Teatria. That took half an hour. We still had 6 hours to go. We really just sat at the venue. Boring as hell. Had a few beers and some wine though.

Teatria always has a tight curfew at 1:30. So we were schedule to play 55 minutes. The band before us whose name I can't remember now, maybe Sólstafir or something like that, played too long and our change over took too long because of a too drunk violinist so in the end we played maybe a 45 minute set. In my opinion not even a real show. That put together with the fact that the attendance was a huge disappointment, I'd say that it wasn't really worth going through all the trouble to play that show. Although the audience that there was was a good one, as is always the case in Oulu.

After the show the local guys were taking us to a bar. Or trying to. We ended up in the upstairs pub of some nightclub. I guess it was ok although it had been a terribly long day and another one was ahead.

We had parked our car in front of the hotel where you have to pay for parking. I had put 2€ to the machine which gave us time till 9:16. That's when we left then. I was really surprised how Jonne actually managed to drive since he hadn't had that much sleep either and everyone else in the car was sleeping and snoring anyway. We did stop for breakfast after about 80km. A place starting with "P". Pulkkila?

Since Jonne was going to leave right after the show in Helsinki and would not be driving us back to Tampere we stopped in Tampere to take my car too. I drove alone to Helsinki, found a parking place near Omenahotelli at Lönnrotinkatu and walked to Nosturi. A small side note: The journalists' listening session for the last album Karkelo was held at a small studio on Bulevardi. Afterwards we were taken for a dinner at the close by Thai restaurant. We were already then wondering that. Why are we, a really Finnish band, taken to a Thai restaurant? Now when I was walking down Bulevardi I even noticed a fucking Lappi restaurant maybe a 100m away! Why didn't we go there?

Now to my favourite topic: food. Nosturi had excellent vegetarian food and more importantly it had a sign telling that it's strictly for vegetarians. Usually the veggie food is gone before I get to eat even if I was the only vegetarian of the tour. Anyway, the food was excellent. Lots of lovely fried tofu cubes!

The day in general was the same as the day before, long and boring. We really had nothing to do. We had decided to skip the soundcheck anyway so there indeed was literally nothing to do. Some guys like Jonne tried to get some sleep where ever possible. Kalle and myself just sat at the backstage listening to Popeda. While doing that we even finished a bottle of Koskenkorva just to have something to do. It didn't really work that well. The other bands at the same backstage even liked Popeda so we couldn't even annoy them.

The show itself was better than in Oulu. The place was not even close to being full but still better than the day before. Honestly I think that with better timing Metalheim in general would have been a bigger success. There were also two other metal festivals in Helsinki that weekend. Anyway, the band was tight and the audience was nice. We played a slightly longer set since there was no curfew and since the violin player was way more sober than in Oulu it was after all a nice show.

Afterwards it was a bedtime immediately. We walked back to the hotel via a kebab kiosk and went to bed. I was sharing a double bed with Kalle. He snored. Got up around 10 in the morning and drove home. Actually we did make an extra stop. We stopped at the retail hell of Ideapark in Lempäälä since there was a record fair. Hittavainen stayed in the car and slept but Matson and myself went shopping. I got myself some 7" and 12" singles. I am indeed a sucker for vinyl singles. Excellent stuff.

Ookkona Oulusta

On the weekend of October 17-18 we did a large scale tour through Finland. Two shows. In Kalajoki and Oulu. Kalajoki is a small town about 130 kilometres south of Oulu and as far as I know the place is practically dead during the winter months. The town has one of the most beautiful beach areas in Finland and is therefore really crowded during the summer. The club was called Dyyni (Dune) and it was located right next to the sand dunes of the beach. We arrived quite late, a bit after 19, so I really couldn't see anything but judging by the really strong wind I'd say that we were quite close to the sea.

I felt that the club was not really our kind of place since it felt more like one of those fancier kind of night clubs, but at least the people working there were really cool already from the start. I don't think the place can be called a hotel but it did have some rooms as well. One of them was used as a backstage. Sometimes I just just can't get into the "concert mood". It's not about alcohol or anything. I just feel a bit out of my place. Kalajoki was one of those shows.

The show itself was surprisingly good. I wasn't really expecting many people to show up so the audience was a nice surprise. Not even nearly full, not even half full, but everyone was in the party mood so it wasn't bad at all. I'm writing this two weeks afterwards so I can't really remember the set list or basically any other details. If I don't do this right after a show I start forgetting details and they get mixed with memories from other shows. One thing I do remember from the show. During "Beer Beer" someone gave Jonne a pint. At one point he raised a pint up in the air but forgot that the ceiling was quite low. So he ended up breaking the pint and cutting his hand. It looked quite bad since with the beer it seemed like there was a litre of blood on the stage.

On Saturday around noon we got up, packed our gear and headed to Oulu. The first stop was for breakfast at a gas station in Pyhäjoki. It seems that the further north or east you go, the more difficult it is to get vegetarian food. Well, at least I managed to send a really ugly "Greetings from Pyhäjoki" postcard to the lady. C'mon. Why would anyone put a picture a town's office building on a postcard if the building is just a concrete block from the 1980's?

We arrived in Oulu well on time since the distance was only 130 kilometres or so. Teatria is not really that far from the city centre but I really don't know Oulu at all and the weather wasn't that good either so I ended up spending the afternoon at Teatria backstage getting bored. Teatria gig was like a first gathering of the Finnish Fire tour since three and a half of the four bands were present, missing only two Falchion members. It was nice meeting for example the Druidi guys and a gal again. The last time I met her was in St Petersburg, Russia and I don't think she was with Druidi at that point yet. Or was she? Does it matter? No.

Anyway, the gig itself was brilliant. Certain members slept the whole day and were in a great condition for a change. The Oulu audience was just as good as the last time. There must be something in their water. Or maybe it's the alcohol. Either way, once again we had a really good show in Oulu. Except for the small problem of stage falling apart in the middle of the show. Apparently they had torn down and rebuilt the stage for some reason and had done something differently this time. In the middle of the show I stepped on nothing. Suddenly a 10-centimetre gap had appeared in the centre stage and it was growing. I tried to catch to stage managers attention but at first he just pointed to Risuparta because he thought there's something wrong with the equipment. Finally I managed to point out the hole in the floor and they pushed the stage back together and tightened some straps which was nice. I mean, Jonne has fallen from the stage a few times, but never actually through the stage.

The show was over quite early so we headed to our hotel in the city centre and spent a couple of hours in the local metal bar with some Druidi and Battlelore members. Nice. I'm sure we'll get to do more that during the next four weeks.

The Sunday was shit. Crappy weather and you have to drive all the way from Oulu to Tampere. Oh well. It was a good trip.