Summer Tour 2002
We are back from our summer tour and it was a great time! We want to thank Raquel and all the crew at JUST FOR FUN for putting us on this years line up at Calella, Spain- Special thanks goes out to David and Santi Lluch from the Hellbilly Club for helping us out at the airport etc. The beach was perfect and there were a lot of great parties in the town.If you want to go to one of the best festivals ever,go to Calella!
Next we were on our way to Finland for 5 shows....
At the airport in Barcelona, Iberian airlines charged us $900 excess baggage charge.We had to pay because they had already sent our bags through the doors.We had our bass and guitar and lots of drum equipment! Plus of course our bags,anyway...we made it to Finland and spent a day in Helsinki checking out the town.Antti Pasanen from the band 9 lives picked us up in the tour bus with his other band Wee Wee Hours who would be supporting us on the tour. The bus was old but it was cool- it had seen many rock n roll tours. All the guys in Wee Wee Hours were great, in fact everywhere you go in Finland the people are extremely friendly,its a great country! During the day we went to visit a Finnish Rock and roll legend, Mr. Rock-Ola- he has a famous barber shop in Helsinki specializing in quiffs! Chris got his hair cut and we hung out there for a while.
The first gig was at a place called “On The Rocks” in Helsinki- it was a real cool place- the way a cool club should look-the gig went real good and the fans were great-the wrecking pit in front kept knocking things over,such as my mic stand ha! ha! The party after the gig was great also.
Next show was in Lahti-also playing that night with us was Thee Apple Thieves who were great. The crowd was very good again and again the mic stand was knocked over several times! We got to meet Pete Salomaa from the band Francine,who was a real cool guy.
Thursday and we played in Kuopio at a place called Joe’s Dog- great club -The way the stage was set up it was hard for people to move in front but it was good.
Some guy came up on stage and was taking his clothes off! (why?)
After the show we hung out till about 6 am I think....
Friday night in Tampare! Another real cool bar, The Raparallaa -set up tex-mex style.This gig was packed-there was no room to move in the place-I met up with my friend Ismo from the band The Stingers there.When the show was over we had to rush out of the club to the hotel to take a shower because we had to leave on a 9 hour drive up north- I think some of the fans might have been pissed we didn't stick around- we came back to the club, but most of the people from the show had gone home.We left at about 5 am and drove north to Kemi.
The show in Kemi was actually 70 km north of there out in the middle of nowhere at a big festival hall.It was a car club fest and there were lots of old American cars on display. We got to see 9 lives perform and they were excellent.They had a great response as they are from that area and they are well liked.
We didn't go on until about 2:30am but you would never know because up there, its light out 24hrs a day in summer It was very bizarre.This show was probably the best for us musically and the crowd had a lot of energy.When the show was over it was sad because we knew that the tour was over and we would all have to go home and go back to work and the real world.
We met so many great fans on this trip that I cant wait to come back. There is no money to be made playing this style of music and so its the fans that make it worth while for us.See you all again next time! Paul