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Baltic Tour Volumen 1's Tour Diary (2003)
(Tour:Baltic) - toured with Josh Vanek, Andy Smetanka, Mike "Private Dick, Dirty Finn" Valentine - Toured Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania |
09/04/2003 Helsinki/Porvoo
Day 4 - ENTRY 1
Well... I think we found our new home. Porvoo is heaven on earth. It's a little fishing village about 45 minutes from Helsinki. There is a really cool bohemian vibe here. It seems like a less fruity and stuck up version of Olympia, maybe.
Jocke, the owner of the club we are playing at, is awesome. He has the looks of Andy Warhol and the nervous energy of Woody Allen. The name of the club is Bar Mary. It's a cozy basement bar lit with candles. Good sound, it seems.
The show at Stellastar was good. Due to a booking misunderstandig, there were like 6 bands playing. Miikka was helping us out and smoothed it all over. Miikka is the greatest! He takes care of us and motivates us. We were sorta dickin' around after the show and we probably needed to be getting on to the hostel. Anyway, we asked Miikka if we had gotten paid and he said, "It's not much. Get in the van." Now that's leadership.
Anyway, it was 2 rap bands, a DJ, a "faith no more"-ish band, a "butt rock" band, us and Chainsmoker. The rap bands had tons of people up front, but everyone vanished during the butt rock band. We were following them, so we were a little concerned. In a moment of quick thinking, we started the set with Finlandia. People went nuts! The space in front of was instantly filled. Whew!
People seemed to really dig us. A heshian dude kept yelling at Bob, "Fucking good drumming!" Heh.. afterwards I was told by a local experimental musician that a) we were the best show he'd seen in years, better than Beck and b) he was upset that he was saying that to an American (and not a Finnish) band.
Tons of good will and kind words. Bryan was getting the sunshine show from a handsome Finnish man, who later turned out to be a suitor... tee hee.
Chainsmoker was wicked. Creepy/sexy three piece. Keys, sax, bass and drum machine. Very European.
Anyway, back to Porvoo. It's 9:30 and we go on in an hour. We just ate some pizza and are enjoying a free beer. For the second time, our pizza has come complete with tuna fish. Yay!!!
NEW: Weird... I didn't mention a lot of stuff in this entry. We had decided the night before to meet in the square near the market in Helsinki at noon. Around 12:45 we rustled up Rusty and Miika showed up to check on us. Here's a picture of badass Mike Valentine.
Here's Bacon and Bryan goofing around in the square.
Anyway, once Miika gave us directions, Andy led us to the market and then we planned to hop the ferry to Suomenlinna, a rockin' island fortress. But, before we got on board, I had to eat reindeer. Yes, that's right, reindeer. It came with jelly, relish and mustard. Hmm mmm.
With a bellyfull of Santa's charriot beasts, we hit the ferry. Suomenlinna is exactly what you would expect of an island fortress, built by hobbits. See what I mean.
Boss was pretty sure that Orcs had been sighted, so he took it upon himself to rearrange the armaments.
We later took to the battleship and submarine and took care of business.
Here's three fruitbats on the ferry ride back to Helsinki.
SHEESH! That is all the stuff I forgot before we even left Helsinki. We had a crazy busy day and I think maybe the fatigue might explain Bacon and Doug's swimming later that night. Anyway, here's a cool picture of the gang walking the mean streets of Porvoo.
Here's the pizza place I mentioned above
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