Virolainen pop-neito Iiris vieraili Suomessa neljän keikan kiertueen verran. Rundin ohessa hän piti kiertueblogia. Miltä Suomi näyttää etelänaapurin vierailijan silmin? Tästä se selviää – lontooksi tosin, mutta sehän ei meitä hidasta.
Teksti: Iiris
Livekuvat Lutakosta: Sami Perälä, muut kuvat: Iiris & yhtye
HUOMIO! Tasokkaita ja korkearesoluutioisia Johanna Eenman ottamia kuvia Iiriksen kiertueelta voi katsoa valokuvaajan blogissa.
The crew:
Iiris: me, little, mildly crazy, idle, dark haired, singer/songwriter/keyboards-playa
Johanna (Pisi): little, sensual, fashionista, back-vocalist
Ago: the slowest crew member, weird, white wig, songwriter/producer/guitarist/bassist/ukulele-playa
Kostja: the wanderer, tall, long brown hair, bassist/keyboards-playa
Mikk: chill, gentle, reasonable as much as a musician can be, short curly hair, the drummer
Kaspar: Neat, work-maniac, looks like a teddy-bear, the sound-guy
Hando: Organizer, bearded, reasonable, cougar-eyes, tour manager/in-ear-monitors mixer
Tom: father-figure of the band, likes denim and classy women, the manager
Day 1, Jyväskylä
The Tallinn-Helsinki ferry left the port at 08.00 in the morning. Me myself and almost all of the band are nocturnal creatures so pillow faces and slower cords than usual were expected at such early hours.
The Iiris slow crew was ready to move, with the heads of Hando (the tour manager/in-ear-monitors guy) and Kaspar (the ultimate sound guy) pulling the slow and idle mass of the rest of the crew on board of the ferry. It wasn’t a hard task though, because we knew we had a meal waiting in buffet and we all love food (especially if it’s pre-paid for us!).
Coming to perform in Finland has always been an expected and exciting trip to take. There are so many cool venues in Finland and we’ve always been treated well. Plus this time the boys took PS2 to shorten bus rides, especially the Oulu-Helsinki one. I’m quite petite though, so sleeping in busses isn’t that hard for me. So after we stuffed ourselves with all we could get from the buffet a dark blankness fell over me and the next thing I knew we were in Jyväskylä!
Lutakko totally lit my little headlights. I really liked the stage from the moment I saw it, plus the atmosphere had an urban twist to it. The boys put up their stuff, Hando was running business, Pisi (Johanna) made a portrait of him, we had soundcheck, we got food again (yay!) and I tried to do this little blogpost, but the interdemon was in a foul mood.
I also usually need to just start mentally preparing for the concert about an hour before, just to do some mental tricks and shove loads of paint onto my face in a playful way. We also had prepared (who am I kidding, Hando is the organizer) some glowing balls on stage and I think they carried out their task well.
The Lutakko gig was awesome! I had a really good time and I hope all the involved peeps got something out of it as well. This time the band and I had a plan to sell the merch ourselves, which also gave me the chance to just come out and speak to people while not worrying too much about appearing to be an attention-whore (which I think every person should be in a healthy way). It became clear, that the folks in the room were just the kind of people I would like to hang out with, which I am happy about!
Got a new mascot, Kitsune, the fox from cool peeps, who called me the Unicorn Queen. Plus I had an insider in the gig, an ex-classmate of mine who is now studying at Jyväskylä.
Day 2
Hando and Kaspar were the first to get up and about, they are the ones who work hardest, because they are the ones in our group with real logic happening in their heads. Tom, our manager has a pretty good relationship with logic and organizing as well, but the band and I, well, what can I say, we’re artists!
Somehow all the stuff we carry around and trade free food and music with got onto the bus (all the gentlemen in our crew deal with it, I’m as sad for them as I am happy for being a tiny woman with ovaries). All of the crew got porridge and sandwiches catered to their bellies and all of us clowns somehow managed to press ourselves into the bus once more. I instantly fell into the dark abyss again, with Pisi by my side.
Kostja and Mikk had furious car races through-out the trip, which ultimately left them sleep-deprived and their senses finding everything they touched to be shaped like a controller. I have no idea what Ago did and I think that Hando and Kaspar were their usual busy and organized selves.
The second venue of our little tour was Special 45 in Oulu. We had preformed there previously at Qstock festival. The order of preparations for the gig were same as the day before, but this time me and Pisi had a chance to check out the nearest H&M ( all estonian girls do that, when they get a chance to in Finland). Got some cheap bling, yo!
We were in a hurry though and when I am in a hurry I get very foggy, which resulted with me unknowingly almost walking out of the shop with a shopping bag consisting of things I didn’t buy. I was quite embarrassed when the security machinery started howling and Pisi face palmed while pointing to the shopping bag I was still carrying.
The stage looked like a cage, which Pisi keenly used for her advantage, I had to take some time to get used to it, but eventually I felt very comfortable on it. Had fun at the gig and met some really cool folks afterwards (even kids with blue hair), which reminds me, I want to check out an anime called Mawaru-penguindrum!
Day 3
Left at 8 o’clock in the morning. The guys (not consisting of Hando and Kaspar – the reasonable ones) had played video games all night long and I didn’t get any sleep as well, because I was so excited about the Helsinki gig and the future, and holographic stuff and the awesomeness of the Universe, cats and whatever it is that keeps a young woman solely living for food, sleep and inspiration up in the night. You can guess what I did throughout the drive from Oulu to Helsinki.
Tom had also taken a ride to Helsinki to check us out and give us insight and support on our journey (also he convinced Hando to buy a denim-bouse in Helsinki). We also had Meelis Lusmägi, who is one of the best light/visuals guy from Estonia, to come to Tavastia to help us out with his coloring the atmosphere magic. I put more pressure on him by adding one more slow song to the usual setlist, but the blonde wizard took care of it wonderfully.
Also he made our glowing blue balls shine in every color! This time we had our finnish funky friend Janne to help us sell merch, he is quite funky and he has just finished writing his book about a woman who has made love to the Eiffel Tower and is now in a relationship with the Berlin Wall.
We got to Tavastia, the gentlemen took care of the immanent ever-procreating stuff while me and Pisi checked out some vinyls and neon-hair-colors to kill my hair with. The backstage snacks were glorious and I got to show my new holographic butterfly stickers to illuminate the between space of my eyebrows to Tom!
I also tried to capture him in the glow of a beautiful pair of awesome platforms I found in Finland and thought about investing some artist related money in, but he pointed out that I was already wearing shoes.
I had butterflies in my stomach before the show and felt the good vibes very intensively at it. Some shows just fall to piece perfectly and this one did for me. I felt very thankful during and afterwards. The band said, that they felt the same.
The people were warm and awesome, it all was awesome, awesome, aah-shum!! Pisi even got a picture of two brave young girls who came to shake their tail-feathers with us without any place to stay for the night, Magdalena and Essi, who totally looked like girls from a 90’s-rebel-teenage-girl-movie (which I find awesome).
When i got to the hotel I found that I hadn’t really done my blogging duties and to make it more on time seemed impossible.
Day 4
Kostja and Ago had partied all night and Kostja had lost his wallet. The rest of us went hunting for food while they slept. Hando was a little upset that the guys had been a bit irresponsible and said that their punishment was that they had to find their own food. It wasn’t so bad considering that Eerikah-pippuri was across the street from the hotel. Still we got a better meal for breakfast than them. Ha!..ha!(?)
It’s not a big surprise that I don’t remember anything from the drive from Helsinki to Seinäjoki.
The usual procedure of getting ready for the gig happened, we got some food and I got to see a little bit of Sanna, met the guys from The Flaming Sideburns (their lead- singer looks like Jagger, one of them has been a member of the Estonian band Smilers and they have been together for 18 years, wow!).
Rytmikorjaamu was the biggest place we were to perform on the tour so I got carried away while writing the light-list for the light-guy there. Hando had to deliver it for him and when he saw it, he just said: ”Oh….I’ll try to find the colors then…”. (the picture of it is with the pictures that Hando made)
Kostja seemed to fade out a bit, considering that he had played video games all through the ride and hadn’t really slept for the last two days, but he came through as he always does. Also he was kind enough to lend me his hairband, since I had already lost the one that Pisi lent me earlier. Somwhere out there is a closet full of lost hairbands, that is where all the lost hairbands wanna go. Everybody was getting a bit tired though, I wonder how months of touring would be like.
The gig went well and we gave our all, but I guess a little bit of tiredness came through. The last gig had been so super for us that it seemed almost impossible to out-do. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it fully.
We had to pack our stuff fast after the gig because we had a ferry leaving for home early in the morning, we had to start driving at 05.00 in the morning and everyone was a bit jumpy to get some hours of sleep.
Iiris, the band and meet & greet -guests (from left to right): Iiris, Katja (guest), Ago, Jonne (guest), Juha (guest), Pisi, Mikk ja Kostja.
This blog, which was meant to be kinda online and straight from the scene was doomed, my head had over-heated, but I still couldn’t get any sleep. I had a sence of: ”well, this is it, for the moment” and tried to scribble out some feeling is the silence of the night basking in the strangely dim and yellow light of the bathroom.
I got one hour of sleep before the ride. Since it was the last ride of this tour, I thought it would be a shame not to have some one-on-one car racing with the totally video-game-consumed Mikk. I even beat him the first time, but never again through out the time I could keep my eyes open.
The ferry ride was a blur, I really awoke when we started to tidy up the bus and divide booze and coke (the drink) that we had gathered from the 4 back stages. Once again I felt bad for Kostja and Kaspar who helped to carry my 40 kilo weighing baby-motif who had travelled with us up into my apartment.
Well, that was it!
Lot’s of light and love!