Live @ Pup Stop

June 20th, 2007

On the 2 of June 2007 we played a show at a familiar place, Pup Stop at Nokia. The ride there was way hotter than on the last time, after all it was summer now and something like 25°C. This story includes no jalapenos.

Happy workers.

More happy workers.

We began by packing our stuff (PA and backline) already on Thursday, well everything but the drums since Ari was feeling lazy, so he packed his drums on Saturday morning. Then at Saturday we drove our cars to the yard of our rehearsal space and began to pump our muscles. We stuffed pretty much all of our gear to the van, and so began the trip to Nokia. At Vampula there was a really bad traffic accident, and later on we found out that a motorcyclist was killed in the accident. Needless to say the view wasn’t nice at all. But now, back to nicer things… After a quick coffee pause, a bit more driving and a lot more of Jouni’s tales from his youth we arrived at Nokia.

The first thing we did at Pup Stop was, as you guessed, eat. They had really good food there, just as last time. With our stomachs full we began to unload our van and to set up the PA and backline. This time we were going to play two sets with the first one being acoustic so we had to do two soundchecks. It took way more time than we had anticipated, but we managed to adjust quite good sounds, at least the drums were loud enough…

To the gig itself then: this was the first time we played an acoustic set. Cause we had only little time to rehearse (mostly because of our own laziness) we decided to go with only one guitar, so Johannes played the guitar and I concentrated on singing. We played two old tunes and three completely new ones (actually the songs themselves are not new by any means, but we haven’t played let alone rehearsed them earlier). For some reason my throat was really itchy throughout the acoustic set, so I was coughing all the time. Luckily I managed not to cough to the microphone, or else the audience would’ve had an interesting listening experience…

Ari making sure that his drums are not touched.

This is how the pros do it, right?

Setlist (acoustic):
Flames
Not Beautiful
A Step Away
362
For You

We actually played fairly well given the fact that we rehearsed only two times. The audience seemed to like our set, and since it was a warm and sunny day people were happy. How can you not be happy on a sunny day off?? After the acoustic set we had a break for about an hour, and then hit the stage with our full capacity, so to speak.

Our playing was quite relaxed, probably because there were pretty much only familiar faces in the audience. For some reason there were not that many people. It was “lakkiaispäivä”, so most people were probably celebrating in discotheques, but it didn’t stop us from having fun on the stage. This was our last public gig of the spring/summer, so we tried to get everything out of it that we could. I myself did not have the best feeling when we started to play, but the bad mood was gone on the instant I hit the first power chord.

Up on the stage, part one.

I couldn’t have said anything funny, could I?

Up on the stage, part two.

Ari wasn’t paying that much attention when numbers were taught in elementary school…

A basic gig, friends in the audience liked our stuff and we had fun up on the stage, what more can you ask? A few beers after the show, packing all our stuff into the van, and the rest of the boys were ready hit the road back to Turku, but I decided to stay at Tampere for the night and drove home the next day. On the way home Jouni was amusing Ari and Johannes with his really bad jokes. “Tää on kesä!” That’s all you need to know…

The things you have to do for food… Why can’t they build handles on these things?

Jouni with his game face.

And here you see the latest trends for men’s purses.

A few more things to pack then we’re ready to head on home.

That’s all for this spring/summer. Thank you!

-Kari