A couple months ago we applied to perform at the Sompio Rock Festival. Well, we got confirmed, but our bass player Eero not being available, we thought about our new friend Charlie. We met this talented young man in Poland at the SlotArt Festival this summer and tried our luck… and he agreed to join us! Just less than a month ago we booked his flights and sent some material through. Unfortunately our guitarist Juhani went on a work trip to Las Vegas right on the day of our gig at Sompiorock, so Taavi asked his old friend Erno (link) to jump in, which he without hesitation agreed to!

We got talking about the days leading up to the festival; since Juhani would fly off on the day of the festival and Charlie would arrive on the previous Tuesday night, we started to discuss about more opportunities to perform together and in the end we had three gigs lined up. Lucky us, our friend Hartsa was free to drive up to be our sound guy for all those gigs! On said Tuesday, just as we got ready to meet for practice before Charlie arrived, we got a call to jump in for a cancellation at another one day festival in Monde, Rovaniemi for that same Friday. This made the last week into a four gig tour in three days!

Charlie arrived Tuesday evening and Wednesday was a practice day to go through our set. During the day we went to check out the two different venues in Rovaniemi to discuss gear, get some more gear, practice some more, meet up with Hartsa at our practice room and have a first sound check with his (and ours) gear, only to pack down all the instruments, gear and PA to be ready to be loaded in for the drive to the first gig the next morning.

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Our first gig was at Jolie’s in Ylläs, where we also performed at about a year ago (link). We had planned to perform together with Jade (link) but she got sick right then and was unable to join us. Fortunately, Thomas Ahola (link) was able to jump in for this gig – we had already agreed to perform with him for our friday evening gig and he was free to jump in for Thursday as well. We met at 8am to load the bus, then drove up to Ylläs with Hartsa and Taavi at the front, Jordan, Charlie, Thomas and Eli in the back. Juhani would arrive later, like a rockstar, straight to the soundcheck after work.

We got there around 11am to get our corner prepped and gear unloaded. Eli wrote setlists for the band on the terrace in sunny +20 degrees, the year before at Jolie’s we experienced -20 degrees. We were blessed with some sunny warm autumn days last week! Juhani arrived in time for soundcheck and Thomas started the night with his acoustic set.

In his talks between the songs Thomas was switching between english and finnish, since we got quite an international crowd for the night. His songs, performance and style made people sit on the edges of their seats and his Guitar sound proved that Hartsa definitely is the right guy at the sound desk!

It was so good to be back at Jolie’s! Her lounge has a very cozy and sweet atmosphere – and the best cakes, if you are ever around! Check her out here

We did a switchover and had so much fun with our set. We had thirteen songs prepared, dancing on stage, with Charlie doing a phenomenal job with songs he only went through with us once before. We even got the treat of him playing a solo on the flute for our song “Whispers In The Wind”. We squeezed into the corner, but the limited space did not dampen the freedom in our playing. Thanks for everyone coming out to this gig, making it a special night! After pack down and a drive with some northern lights along the way, we came back to Rovaniemi at around 2am.

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In the morning we met with Thomas (Juhani was back at work, good job dude!) at Taavis place for breakfast and feedback.

Arin Baari is a new pub in Rovaniemi and we would be the first live acts in the history of the pub. Since we were the first bands to ever play there, we met at 11am with Eero to discuss the set up. We needed Ari, the owner, to drill some holes for hooks to be able to cover the wall behind the stage with Molton and all the other hassle involved, so it was a lengthy set up process, leaving not much time for our soundcheck at the last minute opening gig at Monde’s Kirjastorokki -event. We grabbed our instruments and drove two streets down to Monde at 3pm. With got our backstage passes and were shown around. Juhani arrived around the same time and at 3:30pm we did a set up and soundcheck. The guys at Monde were all checking out Eli’s electric Ukulele, as many had not seen the Flight Ukulele in action before. Of course Taavi tried to sell it off for 5400€, but they wouldn’t bite. We barely had time to scoop in a couple of slices of Pizza before opening the night with our half an hour set. During the set more and more people spilled into the venue and we had lots of fun with our more upbeat songs for the night. During the last two songs a bigger crowd took the invitation and came to the front feeling our punk based song “Shortsighted” with us.

Eli got to talk with some girls during pack down, before rushing to the bus to finish the set up and sound check at Ari’s. As we arrived and were getting ready for our soundcheck, Thomas and his band showed up with their gear. We hurried to get ready and leave the stage to those guys. With our set at Monde starting at 6pm, we did soundcheck at Arin Baari after 7pm, delaying the time Thomas and the guys had. So we ended up starting the night at 8:20pm with all seats taken and a constant flow of people between bar and terrace. It was a (also physically) hot night and Juhani was the star of the night! The stage was a bit too small, so he stood on the floor right next to the stage, receiving many thumbs ups, fist bumps and such during his sweet solo parts. Due to policy there had to be a bouncer at the door, since the seating for the pub provides for 50 people and was succeeded, but people managed to cramp in at the back next to Hartsa and by the bar, total headcount being somewhere around 90. No wonder it was hot!

Some good friends came out, since most of us are local to Rovaniemi, feeling the love and support. A big Thank You to all of you for being there! It means a lot! At the end of our set, we took most of our gear to the basement to make space for the Karaoke crowd on stage.

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On Saturday we met at around midday to pack the rest of our gear at Arin Baari. We brought what we didn’t need to our practice room, had some lunch at Taavi’s place, Picked up Erno from the train station and we headed off towards Sompio Rock. A couple hours later we showed up to the venue with our gear, to be the only band in the whole festival to do a proper soundcheck; Hartsa mixing us again. Which paid off big time! We got quite some amazing feedback having the perfect mix! Right after a cool show in the river (!) we opened the night inside the venue at 9pm. Somehow our hour went past in no time, Eli needed the cut down the set drastically on the spot, but as we finished off the night with “Battlefield” we had the whole crowd with us! Another amazing gig in the books! Erno gave us the most with his incredible Guitar parts, giving us a different flavor in our songs.

Speaking of which, it turns out we were the only band to play our own songs that night, well except for Pelle Miljoona (link), and in general most of the bands were playing covers only. We did a quick feedback round by the bus, before sending off Erno and Hartsa on their way back down south. The last band finished at about 2:30am and our boys sneaked into the Backstage Sauna at about the same time. We caught some buffet brekkies at 10:30am on Sunday before driving back to Rovaniemi, enjoying autumn in full swing. What a beautiful country!

We unloaded the rest of the gear on Monday and on Tuesday we sent off Charlie on his merry ways back home to Poland. We sure hope to play together again sometime in the future! Afterwards we had a fruitful meeting with Ari for some exciting events happening in the next few months. So stay tuned for more info on this later on.

Thanks again to all the people that made the last weeks happen!!! Love you!

You Rock!