Live Giggin!
Live venues have been opening one by one here in Turku, Finland. First there were still some restrictions but even those last ones have now been removed. So every band has around here has been busy asking around for gig opportunities, and we have done our part. This month we have not one, but two live gigs, one we already had at Turku band Festival on March 19th and the other will be at Hard Rock House, Helsinki, on 31th March. Finally some action, finally out of town! We've been waiting for this!
As you may be aware, the work to get gigs starts months, sometimes a year ahead before the actual show date. In this case too. Turku Band Festival usually announces it's application process in October and the bands are chosen by the end of November. The festival was supposed to be held in January, like it always is, but because of the corona situation not being that good it got postponed. Luckily, the new date fit all our schedules. That is not self evident, since all of us have other music projects as well.
Come March, it seemed like the situation would be better, at least when it came to vaccinations: more people covered. But the number of actual cases has been quite high, it's just that the disease itself isn't that serious or risky anymore for most people. Still, if you catch it, you stay home. So, the date of the festival was kept but two bands out of four actually cancelled due to illness. There was only us and Turku based Metal Band Rahko playing. Despite that there were people enough to fill the place, and even though the place itself was a bit remote.
We played first, had a blast! The sound guy knew what he was doing. (and there was a sound guy!) We heard everything quite clearly to the stage and there were no complaint from the audience either. The set we had formed included a few new songs, so there was an element of surprise and excitement for us too. All went well and was over too soon! The only thing that went wrong was a pick that flew out of my fingers at the very last minute while playing Siouxsie on the Beach! Oh well, continued with hands only then...
Rahko was a full-on Metal band, a lot of influences from Black Metal (to my ears at least) with the female vocalist growling in Finnish. Incredible concept! It was all very well thought, energetic, aggressive music, sometimes adding beautiful clean vocal lines into the mix. The vocalist was very talented, in my opinion. I don't know how to really growl, I just sometimes use the false chords as a spice up to the vocals. But judging on how her clean vocals sounded right after growling and her speech after the gig, she knew her stuff! No sign of fatigue what so ever. Impressive! Alas, and unfortunately, they announced just at the end of the show, that this was her last one with them. Hopefully they'll all find the path that's right for them. It's just a bit sad to see a good thing end...
Anyway, Thank you Rahko, for allowing us to use your equipment and being there with us! We hope to see you around in the Turku live music scene! And Thank you Turku Band Festival for having us! We'd love to participate again!
So, next week we'll play at Roihuvuori, Helsinki, at a place called Hard Rock House. We asked about their Thursday Club slots maybe a year ago already, but then the restrictions kept many venues from opening. Even when these were at times lifted, all the venues just couldn't take the risk, having to arrange everything with the corona passes etc. So I had settled for nothing probably happening. but then they returned to us out of blue and suggested a slot 31th March. Yess! We asked around and got another band to join us: Grand Sorceress, a Turku based Fuzz Rock/Doom band. Since they had to cancel the festival this will be their debut gig! Makes me really happy to be able to help!
I hope you'll all just swarm Roihuvuori next Thursday! We'll have CD's for sale and we'll rock your socks off! And we have new material, so if you want to hear those new pieces, be there!
Love Flora/ Hateful Chains
