Beat a Go Go

Perttu Kivilaakso

(photo: Taisija P. Štupar)

Apocalyptica has created miraculous, beautiful cello music. It goes from minimalistic repetitions to thundering darkness, heavy metal riffs and drive, to almost classical string parts and rock ballads. Wherever we try to place their music -- in "cello rock" or somewhere in the space where metal and the classical world meet -- they are in a space by themselves.

Ismo Alanko (photo by Harri Hinkka)

In a voice like a lion's purr, Ismo Alanko is complaining about how hot it is. He looks dazed and he walks as if the sun is a weight on his shoulders. It's high noon and the midsummer heat is hitting the Finnish countryside with the force of a hammer. Nobody here is used to this kind of weather. And it's a bit early in the day for a rock star who had a big concert the night before.

Stam1na, Tuska 2005 (photo by Toni Välisalo)

Tuska is a lucky bastard when it comes to weather. For all the years I've been there, it's been incredibly hot. If it has rained, it's rained during the night and the metal audience could have happily partied for three whole sweaty days.

No, I'm not whining, I'm happy about that. Summer, sweat, shorts and long days belong together. And if there happens to be a rock festival, it surely is two thumbs up. Festivals are the best - there's nothing like a summer festival. At least there's nothing like it in Finland. But when you combine rock, festival and summer, there is nothing to beat that. Not in Finland anyway.

"Viikate has become a real rock band," was the thought that came to my mind while watching the band playing at the Tuska Open Air Metal Festival at the notorious mellow-out day of any festival, Sunday. Although the band was easily the lightest of the bands performing in Kaisaniemi during the weekend, a couple of things were sure: Viikate connected with its audience the best and the band seemed to enjoy its first ever Tuska performance the most of all the bands I witnessed during the weekend.

A.W. Yrjänä, Tavastia, 4/30/03

A few years ago, I was needing a break from work and life and thought that a trip to Montréal might be in order. I was surfing the net, hoping that I might find that my favorite Québécois band, Les Colocs, might be playing in Montréal sometime in the near future.

Sadly, instead of tour dates, I found heartfelt messages posted by distraught fans in memory of André Fortin, the lead singer, who had committed suicide a year earlier. I looked to see if my favorite Finnish band, CMX, were playing any gigs soon. And, to my dismay, I found a posting on their website that they were not planning to tour any more. I spent the rest of the day wallowing in thoughts of missed opportunities.

Marko Annala (photo: Mikko Hinkkanen)

Mokoma was relatively unknown to the majority of the record-buying audience when they were recording with the multinational EMI, even though the band itself was formed in 1996. Not until they left/were kicked out from EMI and after they had put together their own label, Sakara Records - and after they had recorded the first-ever thrash-metal record sung in Finnish, Kurimus - did the majority of record-buying people, me included, start to notice Mokoma. To me Mokoma was an oddity and their music did not open up to me at all. Maybe it was because of the artsy-fartsy songs they used to perform. Anyhoo, I was wrong, that image I had was based on one record I had heard and a bunch of gigs I had seen Mokoma perform as a warmup to other bands. Everything changed one night at the Tavastia club, right after Kurimus had been released, when I saw Mokoma on stage, opening for Kotiteollisuus. I listened to them with every hair on my body standing up. I was literally awestruck.

left to right: Tapani Varis, Ruthie Dornfeld, John Miller, Petri Hakala of Helsinki Express

April 25, 1946: The Liberty Theater in Ridgefield, Washington showed its very first film, Bandits of Sherwood. April 25, 2003: The renamed Old Liberty Theater hosted a concert by a unique musical group, Helsinki Express, on their first US tour. What do these two facts have in common? Not much, except possibly the excitement that a new experience has to offer, and the anticipation that something good is about to happen.