On the Rocks & Happytime Baari (Feb 1st & 2nd 07)

[venefica]

A Fairy-Tale Concert in a Party City

I still can’t believe I was seriously worried about getting tickets for this concert. I remember Helsinki as a true party city with crowded pubs, bars and clubs and jam-packed gigs from the last summers. But this gig was so different in a very wonderful way.There were not many people at all. Eero said something like: “It’s good to play in our home town. So many friends here.” so it was somehow a very intimate atmosphere.

But let’s start with the support act (if I could call it like that… well, the other band that played there that night): Bullet Ride from Tampere. They were quite rocky and kind of entertaining but sadly not very original. I couldn’t help but thinking “stolen from Nirvana” – “stolen from Guns N’ Roses” – “stolen from Nirvana” with almost every song. For example the drummer started one song like the beginning of Guns N’ Roses’ Paradise City but then the other guys started playing something else above that. The cool thing about this band was that their singer was also the bassist. I could get used to bands like that. ;) (If not exactly to this one though.) He also looked a bit like a young (and less “spent”) copy of Axl Rose.

Then finally it was time for Hay & Stone. I was very curious after all that I heard about their previous gigs and I can assure you I was not disappointed. The band seemed in a very happy mood joking around all the time. (Sorry, my Finnish isn’t good enough for giving you a translation of all this.) It was cool to see them producing all these different kinds of sounds live on stage. Now, I finally know where that second guitar sound in Somebody Forgot to Dry up the Heat Room comes from: Eero is actually singing that.

It is almost like nothing is “normal” in this band. Just because you’re the bassist doesn’t mean you can’t take up an acoustic guitar for a song and just because you have an acoustic guitar on stage doesn’t mean you have to hang it around your shoulder to play it. Or just because you usually play the electric guitar doesn’t mean you can’t run over to the other side of the stage to borrow your band mate’s acoustic guitar like being the drummer doesn’t mean you can’t also play the harmonica for a song.

They were very spontaneous in their music playing a lot of solos and giving every one of them room and time to improvise. Eero was often very busy tuning his bass up and down because he was using different kinds of tunings for the different songs and you could often see Hannu diving down between his drums to find some new equipment with which to produce a new and different kind of sound – not only between the single pieces but also within the pieces themselves.

They played all the songs from their album and as a last extra number, they played an old Finnish song, which they made a bit of a secret of when announcing it. So unfortunately I can’t tell you what it was except for that it has been stuck to my mind ever since I heard it. It was a very beautiful song.

The sound mixture was a little bit strange in this place at some points. There was very much hall on Eero’s mic for example and a few other things. Sometimes I wondered whether they could hear themselves very well on stage, but then it was cool again. So I don’t really know what happened to the sound sometimes.

The lights were kind of cool even though maybe it wasn’t so charming for Hannu to have both green spots on his head coming from the left and from the right. With his big hair turning a very nice and bright green like that, he reminded me a bit of this:
“Dance your cares away,
Worry's for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Fraggle Rock.”
if you remember that… :)

At one time during the concert, someone was darting past me, who looked somewhat familiar. While I was still wondering where I had seen him before, it suddenly dawned upon me that it was Aki with a very strange hair style – or rather colour: very light blonde. I wonder what kind of bet he has lost… After the concert I also saw a big bunch of curly hair bopping down the stairs with Pauli’s face underneath and that’s when I thought: “Maybe it was better that Aki lost the bet.) ;)




A Party Concert in a Fairy-Tale City

Going to Fairy-Tale City, you will be welcomed by the fairies far before you actually get there. Don’t get too scared by the armies of ghosts standing by the side of the roads towards this place. They are just staring at you without moving, letting trolls and fairies hide between them. They are not the ones to be scared of. The dangerous creature out there is the commander of these armies: The evil Winter Witch. She puts heavy burdens on everything she can find. She turns forests into armies of ghosts. She turns singing waters into mute curtains. She will even attack your bus by getting a firm grip around it so the wheels are still turning but it cannot move forward anymore until it pleases the Winter Witch to let go of your bus.

But then there are the fairies, who make up for the witch’s evil games and moods. They paint beautiful flowers on your window like passing on secret messages to you. They throw white blossoms from the sky and sometimes they even roll out a white welcoming carpet on the streets for you.

In the middle of this fantastic world of mysterious creatures, you can find some doors leading to a different world. One of those doors was a big two-winged door with a long staircase behind it and a silvery shining sign above it that said happytime baari. No witch, no fairy, no ghost can get through these doors and suddenly you find yourself back in the kind of world you are used to. There may still be some white blossom from the fairies in your hair or some fluff of the white carpet on your shoes but it will soon magically disappear as if nothing of this was ever real.

So there was a stage with Hay & Stone’s instruments and about ten people spread all over the fairly big place. But it was filling up more and more and by 11 o’ clock it was pretty crowded and most people were already in a good party mood chatting away and laughing around their tables or at the bar.

That was the time when Eero, Petri and Hannu entered the stage and opened the concert with a very rocky sounding intro leading over to their first song Freedom Fighter. Quite early during the gig Hannu suddenly jumped up from behind his drums and darted through the crowd to disappear in the backstage area on the other side of the bar. Eero said some explaining words about equipment, which I didn’t really understand until I saw Hannu coming back with a foot machine for his bass drum. Petri and Eero just stood chatting away on stage as if it was the most usual thing that one of them fled from stage in the middle of a gig. Quite funny.

There was a little dance floor in front of the stage, which was only used by people for going to the bar and back to their table. Behind the dance floor, I was leaning against a billiard table together with a few other girls, who were watching the gig. At some point Eero said something about that there were only girls watching. (Sorry, my Finnish is very bad. So I didn’t understand everything.)

So they tried to animate everyone to dance a little bit for a change. Eero asked Hannu to play a techno rhythm, which he started with a bit of a puzzled look on his face like “Techno?!?”. Then Petri and Eero started playing some famous techno tunes to Hannu’s rhythm and made a spontaneous medley of them. Very interesting to hear “I like to move it, move it.” or “No, no, no, no, there’s no limit.” from Eero’s mouth. At the latest from this point on, they had won the audience’s hearts.

Some people even dared to stand in front of the stage then, especially one guy in a Black Sabbath t-shirt, who placed himself right in front of Eero. A bit later Eero said to him “Hey, cool t-shirt.” and the three of them started to play a song by Black Sabbath, which probably made the guy fall in love with them. Also another guy suddenly came rushing towards the stage through the whole bar, dropped down on his knees and bowed to the band for playing this.

I liked the sound much more in Savonlinna than in Helsinki. There was not so much hall on Eero’s mic and you could hear Petri singing second voice much better. But the lights weren’t that good (at least not for taking pictures) even though it was nice to see Hannu with his normal hair colour for a change. Like in Helsinki, they let everyone play their solos and improvisations again. Also this time, they played all the songs from their album and the wonderful Finnish song as an extra number. So beautiful!

Some things that happened in the audience were a bit funny, too. For example, I heard a conversation where one was saying that the singer was from The Rasmus and the other one went “Ah! Lauri!”. Or at some point a guy came towards me and started saying a lot of things in very fast Finnish. So I apologized and said that my Finnish wasn’t that good. “Not? Where are you from?” – “Germany.” – “Oh.” and he left. I wasn’t so sad though because he seemed very drunk.

If you go through the magic door again at 2 o’ clock, it is the time of the fairies. They have already prepared a dense and purely white carpet to welcome you back to their world and to show you its beauty, while the Winter Witch has left to play her evil tricks in other places.

Just don’t make the mistake to go through the magic door at 4 o’ clock. That’s the time of the trolls. Most of them aren’t really dangerous but their appearance can be very scary. They are very loud and shout a lot. Sometimes they can suddenly burst out in hysterical laughter. Maybe because they don’t see humans that often and they think we look funny. They can’t walk straight and when they’re looking at you, it seems like they are looking at some point behind your head. Sometimes they will try to convince you to follow them to their troll caves but if you pretend you can’t see them, they will leave you alone. Their troll dialect is related to Finnish, but not very closely. You can easily escape from them through the magic door leading to your bus back home.



Thank you so much to Eero, Petri and Hannu for the wonderful music and for giving me a reason to visit this beautiful fairy-tale country. These guys are such a charming band. Every single one of them is a great musician for himself and it’s so wonderful that they found each other to form a band. And on top of all this: They are all such charming and nice guys. I think we can be very proud to be their fans. :)

This post has been edited by venefica on Aug 26 2007, 12:27 AM

[Jacqueline]

Thanks a lot for the great reviews and the pics!!! :hug: Seems like you really enjoyed yourself and had a good time! ;)

[Lintu Immortal]

fraggle rock! hahaha

sounds like you had a lot of fun! great review and pictures, thanks a lot for posting them :D