This thing has gone to the point that I'm almost too desperate to even start writing this update. I mean, so much has happened since the last English update. But hey! That's just a good thing, right?
Alright! Let's get going then.
So last time we left off right before the Wirtaus 2012 gig. Well, we played it and it was awesome to say the least. It's always exciting and fun to play at an event that's properly organized with big enough stage, lights, enough dedicated people and that kind of stuff. So this was definitely your typical bar gig where you set up everything yourself, there's no backstage and not even the sound guy is interested in what is happening on the stage.
Nope. This was pure professionalism compared to that.
And the gig itself went great. There was a decent amount of people there. And even though the main act was the finnish main-stream rap group
JVG, they seemed to enjoy our show as well. There were also two other bands besides us and JVG there. First one was the finnish rock group
Bad King and the second one
Self Deception from Sweden. We didn't have time to see Bad King since they played just before us. But the Self Deception guys rocked pretty good. On stage and at the after party! But that's completely another story...
So we made it though Wiratus 2012 and got the Acoustic Video for April shot there. As you hopefully already know the song for April was 2 People 2 Places.
And we made it in time! Even though we had a tight schedule. The song was recorded in two afternoons just a week before the release. But the great thing about these acoustic songs is that we just play them like they are. There's no major producing involved. We just hit record, play and get on with it. And that's just awesome! At least I think it is.
Oh yeah. And even before the release of the official acoustic video we played at
Luomustudio. Luomustdio is a Finnish YouTube channel that makes videos of bands playing their songs acousticly. So that was like a perfect fit for us. The video is spoken in Finnish but you can at least listen to the song even if you didin't understand anything else.
After that we played a couple of show at Youth Centres in Helsinki. One regular show and one acoustic. I think they went both great. And as you can see the Spring is getting warmer and warmer here in Finland.
The next stop was May Day - or
vappu in Finnish - at Bar Bäkkäri. On May Day's Eve we played a normal rockin-ass show upstairs at Green Room and an acoustic set downstairs on May Day.
Both of them went great in general. On May Day's Eve we played really late since we were the main act of the evening. So I think we started at 1:30 AM or something. And as people had been partying all day we were worried no-one would be up and partying at that point anymore. I'm glad we were wrong. A good deal of people stayed until the very end of the evening and we had a great time despite the late showtime.
May Day's Eve was awesome even without the playing-a-show part too. We spent the evening driving around Helsinki listening to music and playing NHL12 on Xbox. Great times!
The next day we played an acoustic set at Bar Bäkkäri. Otto couldn't make it so we had to play without him. To be fair the stage downstairs at Bar Bäkkäri is so small that we would've had a hard time fitting in there if Otto would've been with us. It's alway more fun to play as a whole unit but anyways...
So it was a bit tricky since we didn't have any percussion with us. It's ok if we're playing with Juho having just two acoustic guitars. But having two guitars and bass and
not having any percussion is pretty tricky. But we didn't take the whole thing too seriously and I think it went alright.
So once that was done we returned to the Bat Cave... I mean rehearsal place.
I think we told you guys about how we got kicked out from our last rehearsal place since some cleaning company offered to pay more rent. That's real nice, ain't it?
Anyway, we had to get a new place about a month ago. And since it wasn't really a rehearsal place to begin with there was some work to be done. We had to get some damping boards on the walls so we would be able to record in there. And it's easier to hear what you're playing when it doesn't echo that much all the time.
We had some problems since we first tried to glue the boards to the wall. One of the walls is of concrete and one is wood. So we thought since we would have to use glue on the first wall, we would use it with the wooden one as well.
Well... It didn't go so well.
The boards wouldn't stay on the wall. I think we got only two boards glued with the whole tube of glue. I don't think it was because of the glue so much but the boards are just hard to glue.
So we ended up just using screws when attaching the boards to the wooden wall. And we even got some of the boards glued to the concrete wall with another type of glue.
Okey... We're almost done here.
Yesterday we went to visit the annual Bass Players' Day event. Jesse demoed his ESP basses there. We even got some of it on video. We'll just have to wait for Juho to edit it.
After that we went to Espresso Edge, a small coffee house in downtown Helsinki to play an acoustic gig with Face of God. The gig went great! The place was packed and the atmosphere was there. Face of God are playing 50 acoustic gigs in just one month and this was a part of their tour. They have Red Bull sponsoring them on the tour. So free Red Bull! How awesome is that!?
There is a video coming of the event too in a couple of days by the very same Luomustudio guys. Let's hope they'll get it out soon.
So that was it. I made it through! We're playing an acoustic gig at Cybershop in Kamppi shopping centre, Helsinki this Thursday and normal rock shows at Jyväskylä on May 19th and Hyvinkää 25th. So busy times ahead! But exciting nonetheless! Hope to see you on the road. Bye!
-Tom
