Welcome to Finland!.. from a drummer’s perspective…

On a very cold Tuesday morning, The Eternal arrived in Helsinki, Finland!!

Our friend Matti (who drove us around most of the time, and I can not thank enough!!) picked us up from the Airport and he drove us up to Jyvaskyla, which was almost 3 hours drive.  As we had not had too much sleep the night before or on the plane, I know I personally spent most of the drive sleeping!!!

Once we arrived, we checked into our hotel, and had a quick look around. Jyvaskyla is a very lovely place, and this would be where would be spending  few days.

Our first gig was on the Wednesday night, at a venue called Lukatto! On the wednesday morning we travelled the 5 mins across the train tracks to the venue. From what I had seen and heard, some bigger bands had played this venue. The venue was about 4 levels from memory, and the levels consisted of rehearsal studios, Art studios and Yoga studios. The venue was a very cool place, maybe the size of the Hi Fi Bar in Melbourne, but a bit more impressive!!

The band we were playing with tonight was Dark The Suns. Very nice bunch of guys and girls. After setting up and sound checking, we were fed some lovely food by the venue, and found out that most of the people who worked there were volunteers. We spent most of the afternoon having a look around the venue and catching up on outside life with the free wifi!!

Dark The Suns took to the stage first, and had a great sound!!  Not my personal cup of tea, but I thought they were great, and bought some merch from them at the end of the night.

Next up were The Eternal. There was a cosy crowd on hand to watch The Eternal and we gave them our all!! After the show the guys and girls who watched us had a few beers and Dave, Mark and myself went down to the backstage area to drink some more beers and take in a sauna!!

Not much really can be said about the next morning that people probably don’t already know about, but Terry, our guitarist, left and went back to Australia.

This day was spent recording some guitars on our backing tracks so that we could continue onto one of the biggest shows we had done on this tour so far, The Firebox Metal Festival!! So after recording what we needed to, and drinking into the night, we all retired to the hotel.

The next morning we headed up to Seinayoki (about two hours drive) to where the FMF was held. On the way it snowed quite heavily and so we took the opportunity to take some 3 piece band photos in the snow right next to a frozen lake. I personally have been the snow, but never seen actual snow fall, so it was an incredible experience for me!! After we got to Seinayoki, we  checked out the venue, and I must say i was impressed!! It was a huge venue with an impressive sound and lighting setup.

On the stage sound checking were Sotajumala. I can honestly say I have never seen a drummer like this guy ever before. God damn awesome drummer. These guys were up first and I almost felt I couldn’t be the drummer to follow him!!!

After we checked that our backing tracks would be able to do everything we wanted it to do successfully, we headed back to our hotel room for a bit of rest before the show. The firebox guys had told us they had sold a fair amount of presale, and were expecting a 600+ turnout.

When we came back after being at the hotel before the start of the night, we found a fair crowd already in the venue. After enjoying Sotajumala, it was our turn to get up and rock hard in front of 650-700 people!! It  was a good reaction from such a big crowd, and we rocked like never before, and afterwards we received quite high praise from the people who came up and spoke to us, so I would imagine even as being a 3 piece for the first time for a whole show, we still delivered a great performance!!

After the show we watched the bands on after us, unfortunately I can’t remember all the names  of those bands, and after quite a few drinks, can’t remember the trip back to the hotel, or the snow all over the ground, but from the photos and people talking to us the next night, it was a great night had by all!!!

The second night of the FMF, I can honestly say my attention was focussed on seeing Katatonia… and wow .. did they ever impress me!! Swallow The Sun, who also played with us the first night and did an amazing job, were drinking with us this night, and my oh my how they can party!!! We ended up in bed as the sun rose, drinking and partying with Swollow the Sun and some other lovely people!!  A very memorable two nights of the tour for me for sure!!!

The next day we headed back to Jyvaskyla for the night, and just realxed in the hotel room, as we had a long trip to Helsinki the next day, which was also my birthday!!

So Monday, we headed to the bus station, and caught the bus for the 4 hour trip to Helsinki!! I must say it was alot more enjoyable than I would have first thought.. and even thought I slept alot of it, it was quite a nice trip, and we saw some lovely countryside along the way.

So when we arrived in Helsinki, we were greeted by the lovely Antza and Katia. Antza was a good friend of Mark’s who played in a band called ToDieFor. By the end of the Finland/Hungary leg of the tour, I would consider him a close Finnish brother of mine.. he is an awesome guy!!!

Antza had agreed to play guitar for us for the Helsinki show, and we decided we would fly him to Hungary too. So after drinking way into the night for my birthday, Mark and Antza spent the next day working on the set and getting everything together.

The show in Helsinki had a few issues to begin with venue wise, but we sorted everything out and meet The Chant, who I must say I was impressed with.

Antza really impressed me at this show, he had the whole set nailed in a couple of days. The crowd was getting into it, and it felt great to have a very competant, awesome guy on the stage with us, and all in all, it was a rather good show I thought!!!

After the show, some of the locals and ourselves drank into the night… and the morning… and then, without must sleep, we headed off to the airport to make our way to Hungary… but that is a story for another time!