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Ohessa Goldenscanin kirjoittama matkaraportti Suomen reissusta 11-12.11 ja keikoista:
11.11 Vaasa, Illumination
12.11 Oulu, Paradise
MOOSE-LESS
To say the flight was turbulent is an understatement and a deep gasp is heard as the plane stumbles onto the runway, yet once again we are down safe so things are looking up. Predictably, Tampere is already dark but this is Finland and wintertime after all so no surprise there. Nothing to declare and Im in the back of a car on the short drive to the city. If there is one thing Ozzi (Ozzi Jarvinen, subtrax/Iglu) has remembered this weekend, its picking me up!
After dropping off the bags we head straight into the city for a much needed drink, feed and chat and its not long till we are back on track. Any intentions of an early night seem a distant memory as bar after bar pass us by. As we stumble into the next bar we are greeted by a familiar face. Here we meet up with Kimik (one half off Finnish progressive producers U+K). Before Ozzi has even taken off his coat he is ushered on stage to take part in an orgasm contest (you have to see it to believe it) in front of a sell out crowd of about 12 people .Its time to leave!
We start to head towards home but fall foul of a sign advertising 1E beers so we head inside and dont make it home till way past 4am.
Friday
An early start (well 10am) sees us heading into town for some last minute shopping. Ozzi has remembered at this stage to tell me that Saturdays party is a water party and I will need my swimming shorts! Did I bring any to Finland in November? What do you think! Luckily a kind girl at H&M routes through some boxes of old stock in the back and bingo we are back on track and fully kitted out ..half price too!
Time flies when you are having fun and by now its 3.30pm and its time to head out of town, stopping only to pick up my records, Juri and a couple of CDJ 1000s which are like gold dust in Tampere. 300 km or so later and after several toilet, drink and porn stops, we arrive in the Swedish speaking Finnish town of Vaasa. All the way here I didnt see one single moose but with well over 1000km of driving to be done through the Finnish countryside, Im assured I will do.
On arrival straight to the hotels bar, time for a quick freshen up and then down to the club. I head straight to the DJ box to take over from a popular DJ named Poliisi where the stage has been set with some progressive trance. Taking over and maintain the mood before pushing things forward with some peak time trance and the crowd react aptly. As the mood is pushed harder the dancefloor ignites and bubbles away nicely before Poliisi takes to the turntables for his second set of the night and proceeds to screw the crowd to the floor with some 145bpm psy-trance madness. To finish off a local hard house DJ closes the night and we head off to an after party before retiring back to the hotel to grab some breakfast and much needed sleep.
Saturday
A few hours later after sampling the delights of Hesburger and a few moments of sheer madness and we are back on the road for our 6 or so hour drive to Oulu for the main event of the weekend, the Deep Space pool party! With Poliisi at the wheel and darkness already looming we are well on our way North bound with only time to stop for petrol, toilets and once again for Ozzi to pick up porn (this time he says it is for research purposes at work, sure it is Oz!!!). More long dark roads and still no moose later we pull up outside the impressive Spa Hotel complex which houses the vast pool area where the fun for tonight is planned. Already people are turning up by the car load so we head off to our cabin where we rendezvous with a well known Finnish trance producer Sami Saari aka Faraway Project and then get changed and head off to the main stage to catch some of the action. Already on the decks is DJ Orion who is well into warming the crowd up nicely leaving things ready for me to take over. I start things off with some dirty progressive house before swiftly moving towards the more familiar sounding melodic tracks that people are used to hearing from me. The atmosphere is electric and the scantily clad clubbers from one of the most northern cities in Finland appear to be loving it and so am I. The set seems to fly by Im having that much fun and before I know it up steps Elliot Ness who takes over with some big techy tracks before handing over for The Dallas Superstars (Hessu and Jarkko) to do their bit.
Time Flies
As ever with all the good nights, time seems to fly by and its not long before the cries for one more are heard at the end. The party is finished off with some old school KLF track and we head back to the cabin to see where the night will take us! Its not long before the drinks are again flowing and with the after party in full swing, some people are a little worse for wear! Sami tries his hand at stage diving, one problem, there is no stage and certainly nobody to catch him. (what actually happens is he falls off a ladder whilst very drunk, then proceeds to pass out in the bathroom and falls asleep for 5 hours on the tiled floor, snoring like you would expect from a moose and after falling and breaking the toilet seat, then ripping the shower curtain down!)
After this excitement I feel it is time to escape the room for a while. Accompanied by Juri, who was the wrong side of drunk by this point we head out into the -15 cold to another cabin where he knows some people from even further North than where we are now ( I believe it is near the Finland/Lapland border). More drinks on show we party the rest of the night away with some lashings of psy trance and communicate as best we can, considering the obvious language barrier that hasnt been helped by excessive alcohol. Sooner or later its time to head off back to our cabin to find somewhere ..no, anywhere to sleep!
Sunday
After a few hours of broken sleep (mainly due to Samis excessive snoring) we sit around almost daring each other to make the 1st move towards our 8 or so hour drive home. Again the sunlight has long gone so we say our goodbyes and head off into the darkness once more, destination Tampere. Antti (Poliisi) had already gone by this point and taken a train so in his place for the journey home is Tumpsi, our new recruit.
With Juri at the wheel, then Ozzi, then Juuso, we make good time as we head out across the Finnish countryside once more stopping only for petrol, toilets and you guessed it porn. A few hundred kilometres away from Tampere the snow begins to fall like Ive never seen it before. It was like something out of a fairytale and managed to reduce visibility to zero. We stop for a snowball fight at the side of the road and Ozzi declares this the 1st day of winter, god bless winter tires!
Monday
A few random conversations later (in particular, one where Tumpsi tries to explain what we later find out to be a wolverine is) we eventually we make it back to Tampere at around 3am Monday and head straight to bed. Any intention of making it up early have been long forgotten, we lazily sleep in late only to be woken by a knock at the door at 2pm. There are so many things I would have liked to have done this weekend, mainly seeing a moose or at least some reindeer, but I didnt so after 30 minutes wasted unsuccessfully trying to change my flight times we give up and head out for a quick coffee before rushing off to the airport for my journey back home, well at least as far as London for tonight.
All in all a truly fantastic experience was had and I made many new friends along the way.
Kiitos
Massive thanks have to go to my dear friend Ozzi who made this trip possible and also thanks to Juuso, Juri (Im not forgetting the socks! ), Antti Poliisi (madman), Tapsa (Orkidea), Miika Kuisma, Marko, Jaakko and Hessu (Dallas Superstars), Sami Saari (haha), Ben Lost and Janna, Mixu, Kimik, Tapio, Elliot Ness, Enni, Juska, Tumpsi, all the guys I met from way up north (Sir, Riika and the rest of the gang to which I cant remember everyones names!) and also thanks to anyone else I have missed out who I met along the way!
11.11 Vaasa, Illumination
12.11 Oulu, Paradise
MOOSE-LESS
To say the flight was turbulent is an understatement and a deep gasp is heard as the plane stumbles onto the runway, yet once again we are down safe so things are looking up. Predictably, Tampere is already dark but this is Finland and wintertime after all so no surprise there. Nothing to declare and Im in the back of a car on the short drive to the city. If there is one thing Ozzi (Ozzi Jarvinen, subtrax/Iglu) has remembered this weekend, its picking me up!
After dropping off the bags we head straight into the city for a much needed drink, feed and chat and its not long till we are back on track. Any intentions of an early night seem a distant memory as bar after bar pass us by. As we stumble into the next bar we are greeted by a familiar face. Here we meet up with Kimik (one half off Finnish progressive producers U+K). Before Ozzi has even taken off his coat he is ushered on stage to take part in an orgasm contest (you have to see it to believe it) in front of a sell out crowd of about 12 people .Its time to leave!
We start to head towards home but fall foul of a sign advertising 1E beers so we head inside and dont make it home till way past 4am.
Friday
An early start (well 10am) sees us heading into town for some last minute shopping. Ozzi has remembered at this stage to tell me that Saturdays party is a water party and I will need my swimming shorts! Did I bring any to Finland in November? What do you think! Luckily a kind girl at H&M routes through some boxes of old stock in the back and bingo we are back on track and fully kitted out ..half price too!
Time flies when you are having fun and by now its 3.30pm and its time to head out of town, stopping only to pick up my records, Juri and a couple of CDJ 1000s which are like gold dust in Tampere. 300 km or so later and after several toilet, drink and porn stops, we arrive in the Swedish speaking Finnish town of Vaasa. All the way here I didnt see one single moose but with well over 1000km of driving to be done through the Finnish countryside, Im assured I will do.
On arrival straight to the hotels bar, time for a quick freshen up and then down to the club. I head straight to the DJ box to take over from a popular DJ named Poliisi where the stage has been set with some progressive trance. Taking over and maintain the mood before pushing things forward with some peak time trance and the crowd react aptly. As the mood is pushed harder the dancefloor ignites and bubbles away nicely before Poliisi takes to the turntables for his second set of the night and proceeds to screw the crowd to the floor with some 145bpm psy-trance madness. To finish off a local hard house DJ closes the night and we head off to an after party before retiring back to the hotel to grab some breakfast and much needed sleep.
Saturday
A few hours later after sampling the delights of Hesburger and a few moments of sheer madness and we are back on the road for our 6 or so hour drive to Oulu for the main event of the weekend, the Deep Space pool party! With Poliisi at the wheel and darkness already looming we are well on our way North bound with only time to stop for petrol, toilets and once again for Ozzi to pick up porn (this time he says it is for research purposes at work, sure it is Oz!!!). More long dark roads and still no moose later we pull up outside the impressive Spa Hotel complex which houses the vast pool area where the fun for tonight is planned. Already people are turning up by the car load so we head off to our cabin where we rendezvous with a well known Finnish trance producer Sami Saari aka Faraway Project and then get changed and head off to the main stage to catch some of the action. Already on the decks is DJ Orion who is well into warming the crowd up nicely leaving things ready for me to take over. I start things off with some dirty progressive house before swiftly moving towards the more familiar sounding melodic tracks that people are used to hearing from me. The atmosphere is electric and the scantily clad clubbers from one of the most northern cities in Finland appear to be loving it and so am I. The set seems to fly by Im having that much fun and before I know it up steps Elliot Ness who takes over with some big techy tracks before handing over for The Dallas Superstars (Hessu and Jarkko) to do their bit.
Time Flies
As ever with all the good nights, time seems to fly by and its not long before the cries for one more are heard at the end. The party is finished off with some old school KLF track and we head back to the cabin to see where the night will take us! Its not long before the drinks are again flowing and with the after party in full swing, some people are a little worse for wear! Sami tries his hand at stage diving, one problem, there is no stage and certainly nobody to catch him. (what actually happens is he falls off a ladder whilst very drunk, then proceeds to pass out in the bathroom and falls asleep for 5 hours on the tiled floor, snoring like you would expect from a moose and after falling and breaking the toilet seat, then ripping the shower curtain down!)
After this excitement I feel it is time to escape the room for a while. Accompanied by Juri, who was the wrong side of drunk by this point we head out into the -15 cold to another cabin where he knows some people from even further North than where we are now ( I believe it is near the Finland/Lapland border). More drinks on show we party the rest of the night away with some lashings of psy trance and communicate as best we can, considering the obvious language barrier that hasnt been helped by excessive alcohol. Sooner or later its time to head off back to our cabin to find somewhere ..no, anywhere to sleep!
Sunday
After a few hours of broken sleep (mainly due to Samis excessive snoring) we sit around almost daring each other to make the 1st move towards our 8 or so hour drive home. Again the sunlight has long gone so we say our goodbyes and head off into the darkness once more, destination Tampere. Antti (Poliisi) had already gone by this point and taken a train so in his place for the journey home is Tumpsi, our new recruit.
With Juri at the wheel, then Ozzi, then Juuso, we make good time as we head out across the Finnish countryside once more stopping only for petrol, toilets and you guessed it porn. A few hundred kilometres away from Tampere the snow begins to fall like Ive never seen it before. It was like something out of a fairytale and managed to reduce visibility to zero. We stop for a snowball fight at the side of the road and Ozzi declares this the 1st day of winter, god bless winter tires!
Monday
A few random conversations later (in particular, one where Tumpsi tries to explain what we later find out to be a wolverine is) we eventually we make it back to Tampere at around 3am Monday and head straight to bed. Any intention of making it up early have been long forgotten, we lazily sleep in late only to be woken by a knock at the door at 2pm. There are so many things I would have liked to have done this weekend, mainly seeing a moose or at least some reindeer, but I didnt so after 30 minutes wasted unsuccessfully trying to change my flight times we give up and head out for a quick coffee before rushing off to the airport for my journey back home, well at least as far as London for tonight.
All in all a truly fantastic experience was had and I made many new friends along the way.
Kiitos
Massive thanks have to go to my dear friend Ozzi who made this trip possible and also thanks to Juuso, Juri (Im not forgetting the socks! ), Antti Poliisi (madman), Tapsa (Orkidea), Miika Kuisma, Marko, Jaakko and Hessu (Dallas Superstars), Sami Saari (haha), Ben Lost and Janna, Mixu, Kimik, Tapio, Elliot Ness, Enni, Juska, Tumpsi, all the guys I met from way up north (Sir, Riika and the rest of the gang to which I cant remember everyones names!) and also thanks to anyone else I have missed out who I met along the way!
:DD