I've really been busy these few weeks, and I haven't had the chance to upload any new pictures. This has been a shame, but my cycle shoul return to normal now that I've removed all the distractions from my life .


Actually I probably have few photos to upload as I type this. I hope you like them, and I have to say, they are very finnish. Whether that is a good thing is for you to decide.

Oh yes, I've been featured for the second time, and I have to say I was surprised, since other people in that feature had so good photos. So good that I was starting to wonder if mine was a "pity-feature".

With this I'm going to stay happy for the rest of the day.


Here is the feature page [link]

And here is the amazing Norodoma who did it [link]

Thank you.

I did it! Finally over 1000 people have seen my work. Thank you for this.

Next milestone is 10 000... How hard could it be?

First band, The Wrecking Queens, started playing around 16.30 friday. This awesome girl band played only 30 minutes, and because I was a bit late, I saw only about 15 minutes of it. This was a shame, since I was sweating like a pig after I had run to the festival area. Well, at least I got few good pictures from them. Very, very beautiful girls. In fact there wasn't even one woman that wouldn't have turned my socks around. Everyone was just, for the lack of a better word, amazing.

Second band was again a girl band, this time with only much younger members. Stalingrad Cowgirls had three 16-year-old girls. They had a pretty good liveshow. I have liked their music for a long time, but I didn't know what to expect from them as a live band. They were good. I mean I thought they played well and had a nice attitude towards the crowd, but they weren't mindblowing.
By the way, my little brother (age 6) managed to charm one of them over pretty nicely. They talked the whole evening and they thought my brother was "adorable". I personally have to disagree, but if he has this kind of power over women, I have to take advantage of it before it fades totally away.
Just kidding, but I have to say I was surprised on how good these girls were with children. It's always fun to see a band that can do that.

third artist(well, now it's a band)was Ari Koivunen. Our own Idols winner who has a band called "Ari Koivunen". Although I find his stage performance bit too corny, he has an amazing voice. One of the best ones I've heard in a long time.
Still, the corniness of his performance kinda ruined it for me. I still enjoyed his voice, but every cliché he pulled made me wonder if I was watching a very old video of Iron Maiden or AC/DC. Still, when he was talking to the crowd he was pretty funny.

Next was Viikate, but unfortunately I missed their performance. I had seen it so meny times already that I just took a nap on the sofa which was situated in the backstage.

After Viikate came Olavi Uusivirta, a finnish singer/actor (I know.. I also hate those "/" artists) and he was really good! I was positively surprised. I decided that it was because he was an singer first and actor after that. It had to be that.
Anyway, he was really good. He seemed orginal and, most of all, fun to watch. In some really weird way he seemed like the singer from a band called Lapko. Their stage performance was pretty similar to each other.

After that was the performance if Uniklubi, roughly translated as Dream Club.
Although they do have few songs I like, I wasn't looking forward on seeing them live. Probably it was the fear of all those screaming teens or something like that. I'm sure they were good. I just didn't see it.

at 21.00 Jenni Vartiainen, formely from a joke of a band Gimmel, started singing. I had looked forward on her performance the whole day and it wasn't disappointing. I think she did great. She was looking really beautiful and I like the way she sings. She can really sing, which is something I wouldn't have believed while she was in Gimmel. Well, I'm glad they broke up and she has her chance to shine.

at 22.00 Amorphis took the stage. DAMN! There is a band that can blow your mind away if you aren't careful! The lead-vocalist just looks sick with his hair and he is one of the best overall bands on the whole day. Their songs rock, they look cool, they make the crowd go psychotic...! They rule. If you haven't heard of the band, I warmly suggest that you do. At least their newest album.
At times you can't tell what they are singing about and you can only hear yelling, but gladly, they do it pretty well.

Fridays last band was The 69 Eyes. Ok, they were good, but nothing special. Nothing I didn't expect (which is usually the case with the "bigger" bands).
They sang their hits and made people go crazy. Nothing new and nothing I didn't already know.

Saturday was started by Corruption Inc. at 14.30. They played for 30 minutes and I completely missed them because of things I had no control over. This was a damn shame, because I hadn't seen them ever playing live and it would have been fun to. I didn't, but it was good thing there were other great bands and artists.

Second artist to take the stage was Anna Abreu, the 17-year-old girl who lost to Ari Koivunen on the Idols-finale. She was also the only RnB-singer on the festival and was more of the American mainstream kind of singer. Ada, my lovely and overly social cousin, was disapointed because she "wasn't as good booty shaker" as she had thought she would be. Oh well, I enjoyed her performance.

Next was the older finnish band called Klamydia (Chlamydia... You know what I'm talking about )and made the crowd go crazy. No wonder, really. They have around with 20 years of experience and they have almost gigantic status around us finnish people. It was fun to see around around 1000 people singing their songs with the rest (and these lyrics aren't the most child friendly, although every kid knows them. Seriously I'm sure these songs would never pass the control in America. It's weird how open we are with our language and how closed they are). At one point the lead-vocalist yelled "Have the pussies been popping?!" and when it wasn't loud enough he continued "FUCK! HAVE THE PUSSIES BEEN POPPING?!" and about 5-7 years old kids yelled back "YEAH!!".

Next was our Sturm Und Drang. The metal band that has five kids around the age of 15-17. I wasn't expecting much. They play really well on the album, but somehow I thought they were bunch of kids trying to be hardcore.
They played well, as I already knew they would, but they also did a pretty good job on the stage. Vocalist seemed to enjoy what he was doing, but the real star for me was the lead-guitar. He looked like he was about to fall asleep when he first go to the stage, but after he started playing... Lets just say that he can play. He is no Jimi Hendrix, but for 15-year-old it was really good.
And when they played Breaking the Law by Judas Priest, I went euphoric!

Hybrid Children was going after Sturm Und Drang and they were excellent. They are like a glam rock band and they can make a kick-ass gig. Probably because they don't have so big of a fanbase as the rest of the bands, so they have to give 100% every time they play. It worked.

I have never though too highly of Poets of the fall. I always thought that their stageshow sucks and their music isn't that good either.
I can say I was wrong. Their stageshow was one of the best, and although I don't like their music that much, they sound pretty darn good when you are listening to them playing live.
But at least they don't always do the same freaking album over and over again. For me it looks like every album is a new one from bottom to the top.

I don't think Mokoma has very good music, but they are fun to watch. Their vocalist is funny as hell and everything they do on the stage seems like they didn't plan for it to happen.

After Mokoma came one of the most waited bands of the Festival. It was PMMP, the girl duo who can explode the stage if they want to. They take it so over the top that you can't do anything but to enjoy!

Peer Günt started playing at 21.00.
I like Peer Günt. Their music is pretty ordinary heavy rock and their stage performance isn't anything I haven't seen before, but still I like them. They just make me wanna sit down by a tree and listen without caring for anything else.
Unfortunately I heard only three song from them and then I was needed somewhere else. Those three song were enough for me to take few good shots of them also.

Turisas is a finnish band that doesn't really do gigs in Finland. For the last four years they have been around the world and this was their first (and only...? I'm not sure about that) gig in Finland in meny years. They were great if you like that kind of "warrior heavy metal". they were great although their music wasn't good. They probably had the most pyrotechnics of all the bands, including a huge voice-bomb the pretty much murdered every regulation there was involving how much noise can one bang bring.

Last band was Stam1na and they were really good as I had expected. Heavy from the best. I doubt the guys were high, but their stage show was crazy. Jumping up and down, running around the crowd, feeding the crowd with their sandwitches, throwing the rest of food to the crowd, asking for women to give them their bra (they got them) and everything you can possibly think of.

I was a VIP-guest for the first day (gave me access to the backstage, I got free drinks and food... The regular stuff.) and most of the second day, but then I relised that I want to be able to take great photos of the bands as well, so I went to talk to my uncle who is the boss of these festivals (meny more included) and the guy who makes it all happen and asked for a press pass so that I could go in front of the crowd to take better pictures. I'm only choosing few out of all the 380 pictures I took, but if I add more to another site, I will give you a link.

I love it! Man, only had to pay around 350 for it and couldn't be happier. From now on I'm going to use it instead of my crappy old one.

And I'm going to a rock-festival this weekend. Hopefully I can use my new Sigma and take some good photos of some bands.


EDIT: I typo too much.