27.12.02 Säätämö, Turku (w/ Giant Robot)

They have icy streets in Turku. And grocery shops are open 7 - 23. Säätämö is a nice venue. Looks good, sounds good. But no sandwiches whatsoever. There should be some sandwiches. SANDWICHES. We opened for Giant Robot and the house was half full when our set started but the mood was good. No hard dancing but happy smiling faces, tapping feet and encouraging commentation. YEAH! People seemed to dig the country songs as well as the rockers. GOOD PEOPLE. G-Robot's Arttu revealed his true countryblues nature and all around nice musical understanding was shared by him and us. Somebody asked us if our record company is going to promote us at the Midem music conference in France or in Miami later this year. Our answer was: "It's not likely". Extra thanks to A. Alanko for accommodation and to N. Young for wearing a green jacket and a Madonna-style headset. The next day we saw a sad parrot. SAD.

20.11.02 Bar Alahuone, Helsinki (w/ Baseball)

A nice audience of 30 music fans. More like semi-public rehearsals than a big rock'n'roll show. But it was OK. We enjoyed it and people seemed to enjoy it too, although we really did not play in the sharpest possible manner. Felt like being in a school play. It was also lousy weather to be dragging a guitar amp through Helsinki. This is hard. A true story about a middle aged woman speaking out the guitar riff from "Smoke On The Water" captured the audience. Ta-ta-daa, ta-tatta-daa. The Baseball people from way down under were nice and the drummer / violinist / singer guy a super dynamite showman.

01.11.02 Kipsari, Helsinki

Swell veggie pizza, candy, coffee & melted cd's. Bigger PA system than on all the Manowar gigs put together. Microphone hanging from the ceiling. OK gig, nice feeling, people sitting down, band standing up. A few mistakes, some lucky, some unlucky. First time live version of "Panther Walk" (from the new album) was enjoyed by the band and some members of the audience. Lots of inside jokes. Fierce guitar battle in "Kalashnikov". Extra special thanks to mr. Lazy for audio/car assistance. Mr. Underpants sez: "Lay it on down". I keep on saying: "Lay it on down".

26.09.02 Klubi, Tampere w/Red Carpet, Dashing Waves

Not too many people in the audience, but enough and nice people who seemed to listen good and like our music. Relaxed feeling, good versions of many songs like "Switched Off" which we hadn't played live for quite a while. Again some happy accidents occurred while playing "Kalashnikov" and the song turned out maybe better than ever. We met Mr. Autotehtaat and the coast seemed clear for the "Echo Hill" cd release and great plans were made for a very limited printing of 12-inch vinyl featuring dub- and other versions of Echo Hill songs. Lots of food served by Tulliklubi and Vesa's mum. Yummy. Mikko Alatalo and Aake Kalliala slalom video from the 1980's scared the living Jesus out of everyone, and so did Juice Leskinen's boobies also. In the soundcheck we tried a new song called "Only Human" and it sounded very promising. Nice to work on new stuff after screwing around for so long with the album. Korkalainen others were almost mentioned and Ville hanged from a pole for a couple of seconds which made the audience clap their hands in ecstatic joy.

06.09.02 Club Kasettiasema, Grammari, Lappeenranta

First Club Kasettiasema happening in Lappeenranta's nice Grammari. Good mood, good food, good amount of good people, good music, good feeling. DJ Vilunki 3000 and Japanomatiks had already tuned people to listening fine music so it was easy for us to continue in the same relaxed spirit. People smiled and some even danced. All around nice atmosphere helped us to come up with good jam versions of actually all the songs we played. Unbelieveable. Even the avant-garde version of Kalashnikov we stumbled on accidentally came out pretty good. Roadmaster Ilkka and Vilunki raided the Lappeenranta vinyl joints and bought music worth a million bucks. Thank you. Domo Arigatto, mr. Roboto. Don't let it end.

16.08.02 Kuningaspeijaiset, Bar Alahuone, Helsinki

A small yet very big happening with eight bands/artists. Everything from singer/songwriters to noisy hardcore. Lots of happy people, nice atmosphere, nice place. Chainsmoker was supposed to play just before us but strange electrical happenings occurred. Fuses were blown, lights went out, Chainsmoker's equipment stopped doing their thing and they had the cancel their show. Damn, we were really lookin' forward to hear them play. So, after these strange technical difficulties it was a bit scary to finally go on stage to do our own show. The possibility of everything blowing up hanged over our heads but luckily nothing bad happened. Lights stayed on most of the time etc. This was our first gig with our all new sampler system so it was fun for us. New sounds, new possibilities, new jamming versions of good old songs like "Louisiana" and "Kalashnikov" and a few new songs that we played live for the first time. People seemed to groove along, smile and have a good time. We had our fun also. ZZ Top's "Sleeping Bag" was in our set fot the first time and proved to be a fun live number although Ville remembered something like two lines from the original lyrics and the rest was all "come on, honey, yeah, baby, whoo, rock'n'roll". We played a relatively short set and ended with "Elvis Calling" since the whole happening was dedicated to the memory of the King. Further reading (in Finnish) here: http://www.desibeli.net/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=180

15.06.02 & 16.06.02 Provinssirock Festival

What kind of music does Donald Duck listen to? Or Goofy or Mickey or Gyro Gearloose and his Little Helper? These were just a few of the questions on our minds at the Seinäjoki festival/destruction zone. We played two shows; first at Paviljonki stage on Saturday and second at Hotel Lakeus steamy festival club Sunday night.

Paviljonki gig: Sunny summer evening, a good amount of people who had actually come there to see the gig, not just fest around waisted wearing one of those god awful festival hats. We started with the smoother songs that fit the summer night feeling just fine and people seemed to like it and even know many of our songs. A collective "whooo...yeeeeee" -sound was made by the audience when we expressed our intentions of playing "Rock'n'Roll Egos". This puzzled us. Good feeling continued through the more danceable rock tunes and during "Someone Else To Blame" and "Kalashnikov" there was even some of that wild festival craziness. Mixmaster Mikko said that uncontrollable bass resonations shook the house every once in a while but people seemed to enjoy the show. As did we.

The festival ending party club-gig happened in a bar below ground level so it was a different mood. Lots more of that festival party craziness and wild dancing. We mostly played the rocking end of our musical spectrum for the party oriented crowd and fun was had - by the band and the dancefloor people. Ville used more bad inside jokes than at the Paviljonki. The name Mikko Pirinen was mentioned many times. We don't know him. Propably somebody on the dancefloor did. We played Velvet Underground's "Were Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together" for the first time ever. Jiihaa.

31.05.02 Kiasma, Helsinki w/Atari Satan

Kiasma's Basskeri club. The idea was great. But the PA system not suitable for live music. At least for non-acoustic live music. We did not hear a damn thing. Maybe the audience did. Occasional explosions of uncontrolled feedback happened. Sorry, people, it was out of our hands. Mixmaster Mikko did his best. But the Kiasma crowd seemed to understand and they laughed with us, not at us. Overall feeling was nice, sunny summer night, funny polaroids. Our art just came out even more modern than in our plans. Atari Satan ruled. We did not. Korkalainen others were mentioned.

13.04.02 Meduusa, Kouvola

Same big art student happening as last year. Big hall, massive reverb. Lots of party people dancing & clapping hands. Since it was a party oriented audience, we relied heavily on our uptempo rock material. A lot of partying took place. Fun was had. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the Kouvola party crowd bought our and new Louisiana singles and somebody wore a self made bootleg Black Audio t-shirt. Wow, maaaaan, fans. No "Onks Viljoo Näkyny?" -movie poster backstage like last year, spicy pizza, bad jokes, watching football in a pub (Sunderland 0, Liverpool 1), Johan Timman's "Trip Into The Body" from the flea market. Kirka R.O.C.K.S.

05.04.02 Semifinal, Helsinki w/Harry Hunks

It was a Club Limousine happening, house full of people. Harry Hunks played good tunes and had the nicest Rhodes sound. And were obviously nice guys with nice parents. We had some technical problems in the beginning but the gig turned out ok after all. A good live version of "Heal My Wounds" took place and some of the Helsinki audience started dancing and grooving along. All 'n' all, the feeling was better than the last time we played in Semifinal, girls danced, Ilves food was excellent, there was even a sort of backstage area and because it is a Club Limousine tradition we joined the Harry Hunks on stage to play a one minute version of Ypö-Viis song "Mikkitelineestä on puolet minun". None of us on the stage nor the audience understood what the hell happened.

23.03.02 Kerubi, Joensuu w/M.A. Numminen, Tulenkantajat

The grand tour continued to good ol' Kerubi. Showtime 21.45. All around good Kerubi feeling, a very short set. OK gig, people seemed to know our stuff and knew what to expect so there was dancing & happiness although it was so early and people were still coming in to experience the sold out Ilosaarirock related happening. Antti was really sick but grooved on like real stormtrooper of death. Vesa disagreed about the setlist. Quite justly. Ville wore sunglasses and did not see the delaymachine properly. Ilkka sold t-shirts and records. Mikko rocked the PA. M.A. Numminen, of course, is THE MAN. Kerubi sandwiches were mighty fine and potato chips great too. Mr. Kimmo provided a good place to sleep and drank alcohol to the wee hours with the road crew. Some Joensuu streetfightning was witnessed. And a row of people at the taxisign. And a drunken fatso wearing a party hat at Reijola's Shell the next morning.

22.03.02 Bulls, Imatra

Imatra, of all places, again. Showtime 01.00. We put on a bit better show than a month ago. We played many danceable tunes and towards the end of the gig we even got the people dancing. Strange technical difficulties in the beginning, Merzbow-like extreme noise terror appeared on the PA system and the stage monitors during the first couple of songs. Nor us or the sound engineers could figure out what the hell was going on. But all 'n' all, gig ok, warm atmosphere, some records sold, Antti suffering from high fever, Jackass on the big screen, Ilkka on the wheel, Miitri and Mikko behind the mixing desk, superluxus sauna facilities provided by DJ Ina. Thanks. Iron Maiden IS FUNNY.

08.02.02 J's 5, Imatra

We put on a lame show. Our artsy dub version of Grace Jones' "Walking In The Rain" proved to be too much too soon for ourselves and the audience as we played it as our second song. We didn't get it going. After that Ville just wasn't man enough to pull his crowdwarming antics and this "no connection between the band and the people" -thing took over. But we had our moments and decent versions of "Way Down In The Hole" and "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" were heard. The small pa-equipment remixed some songs by distorting basslines uncontrollably. Ilkka drove the car. DJ Ina used a lot of foul language, but also spoke the truth. Cool cats Riepu and Kyösti 6000 did their thang and prevented everybody from sleeping. Accept and King's Warriors provided amusement on the stereo.