[Previous entry: "fairly old"] [Next entry: "officially bad day"]

I've been trying to get this thing written since Friday morning, but nothing sensible's come out. So I thought I'd give up on writing a good gig report and settle with random babble. So here we go. Sakara Tour 2006.

Take the hypothetical situation of having to take the history of folk music exam on Friday afternoon. What does a sensible person do on Thursday evening? Spends the evening at home, revises, relaxes, gets a good night sleep. What do I do? Hop into a car with a bunch of friends, drive to Kuopio to see three gigs.

Ah well. Fun was had and the evening was pretty much brilliant. And as I was in the guest list and thus didn't have to pay 20 euros for my ticket, it wasn't terribly expensive either. The pizza I had for dinner, the huge bag of sweets for the drive home (somehow me and Jaakko ate it all), token gig pint, my share of the petrol, cloakroom payment & the ridiculously over-priced take-away coffee I had on the way there adds up to about 20 euros in total.

It's been years since I've queued outside for any gig (save James Marsters in London in 2005, but that doesn't count) and therefore the dreadfully long queue felt a bit distressing at first. But it moved fairly fast, so we were inside in about twenty-five minutes. And our queue frustration was even immortalized: this guy came out with a video camera and shot some footage for whatever - naturally at the point when our amazingly not r'n'r credible bunch was standing very visibly in the foreground. Go us.

The deal with the tour is that Rytmihäiriö plays always the second with Mokoma and Stam1na opening and closing (the order is tossed every time). This time it was Mokoma's turn to open, and though it took me some time to gte into proper mood, it worked very well. So there. The set list was good and I still think their energy is absolutely mind-boggling. I'd hoped to hear Ärräpää, but that unfortunately didn't happen. Ah well. I was fearing they'd also skip Valapatto, but that was in the encore. Thus, happy.

It was actually weird how little they actually played songs from Kuoleman laulukunnaat, maybe only three or four songs (someone correct me if I'm wrong). But with the new EP out, it's not such a surprise, is it?

I don't have too many comments about Rytmihäiriö.
Erm. I think baffling is the word I'm looking for. Even though I didn't appreciate it all that much, I observed almost the entire gig. Half out of curiosity, half for support. I pretty much think the Seppo song topped everything. What the hell?

Not so surprisingly, the Stam1na gig then was pretty much excellent in my opinion. And finally my bad Stam1na karma has been broken! In other words, I managed to see the entire gig (save one loo break) feeling fine (ie. I wasn't about to faint of hunger or running a fever). Though I can't argue that progressive metal would be exactly my cup of tea, I liked the gig, a lot. It's a strange band, really. I don't know. Having listened to the albums probably did its share too, as I now recognised more than two or three songs :D I still can't say I would've experienced any great Stam1na awakening (people tend either to be really into them, or alternatively be all "er.. Stam1na huh?"), but they're effin' good, you have to give them that.

To summarise, good evening, good company, good gigs, and moments of great confusion. I'm so glad we went.

Bonus:
+ everything ran very smoothly so the break between the bands were short
+ no age limit, some of the little people were so cute!
+ earplugs, hurrah!
+ nice evening, good company
+ Matti's sweater (it gave a good excuse for endless taunting, ha!)
+ registration book for a trailer :D

Minus:
- didn't have a proper chance to talk to M. (then again, do I visit all the other people I know at their work places in order to chat? no.)
- the momentarily panics about Friday's exam
- the bad, bad takeaway coffee causing Weird Stomach Feeling
- feet freezing during queueing
- lack of sleep

---
On a side note, I did wake up early enough for the exam, but the questions were so inexplicably bad that even thinking about the whole thing makes me want to go "RRRAAHH!".
Also, it was a most exhausting week. Tired now.