Provinssi Rock Festival PROVINSSI EXPERIENCE However hard it is to get the thought together after the 3 crazy days and 3 sleepless white nights, I still have to do it to tell my story about the Provinssi Rock festival in Seinajoki, Finland. Hopefully you were one of the 60 thousands of happy people who got to see all the stuff life, but if not - here we go… enjoy the trip! I caught myself on a thought that it's actually been my first Finnish rock festival and the first experience of living at the camping area in the woods, and trying to sleep in a tent (thought of course I didn't manage to do that). We planned to arrive as early as Thursday night and we did so just to find out that all the best places have already been taken at the camping area. The crowd there was totally wasted in its most and each meter you could hear different music starting from the Slipknot new album and Turbonegro songs all the way down to some cheep pop to which overloaded with beer teenage girls were attempting to shake their asses. Disgusting! But that was maybe the very worst thing of all, so quite I was quite ok with that. Half of the guys with whom I came didn't wake up on Friday after celebrating successful getting to the festival area, so I was free in choosing what to listen to and where to go. It was quite amusing to walk through to the festival area from the camping, literary stepping over the ‘dead bodies' of gothic like finns. However it was not even close to the amusement that I got from the first couple of performances. The festival area was not big but had 5 stages and many nice places to hang out. Thought there was a huge amount of stands with various food the amount of hungry rock-lovers was still impressive, cuz the lines were there at all times. Alcohol was sold only at 2 special Lapin Kulta areas only to the people over 18, of course. A nice benefit was the Sonera stand with computers connected to the internet and the charges for the mobile phones – everything for free. The first aid tents were also available in case something terrible happened. Before and during the performances every day of the festival there were various side shows all over the area, including the small musical shows and circus performances, drummer workshop where you could bang as loud as you like and beat the hell out of the car parts, pots and different metal things. So, there was always something to do and to see, absolutely no time to be bored at the festival. Poets of the Fall, performing first at the main stage, proved that music can be obligation more than something you are born into. The vocalist was not quite aware that Poets of the Fall are actually supposed to be a rock band – wearing the red adidas sweatshirt and swinging to sides as if he was at hip hop show, he still made quite good impression. The sight of the band was quite unexpected, but the music was nice. The farther we go the better it gets. Next show was real Finnish rap/hip hop at NYT tent. Monsp records seemed to have quite many fans of metal and gothic background, and they were jamming to the beats and rhymes not worse than the true pure rap fans. Amazing! Actually, the line up of Provinssi 2005 was quite impressive: Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Turbonegro, the Mars Volta, Money brother, Nightwish and for the very first time in Finland - Nine Inch Nails plus tons of smaller scale Finnish and international bands. The sound and the lights on all stages were high quality and let everyone enjoy all the performances, whatever music they played. Visually the most impressive was the show by Mew, with the strange images and cartoons projected on a huge screen at the back of the stage. The general atmosphere was so sweet and nice with all the different punks, goths, mentalists and just people who had nothing better to do hanging out together, getting wasted and just being happy that the sun was shining and the rain didn't spoil the fun. I've been dreaming about the rain, though, at one point of Marilyn Manson's show when I was trapped among the screaming and jumping unusually hyper Finns… the only salvation was the artificial rain – the guards were using water to bring down those brave ladies who climbed up at their men's shoulders. Yes, that was nice and just right on time, thought those who were standing even closer to the very front got totally wet and no chance to get away from that. It was quite impossible to move, especially during the shows of Slipknot, MM and NIN. It was still possible to stand the hit of the crowed during the open air shows, but NIN were performing on Sunday evening in the NYT tent (which can fit 10000 people), and that 2 hour long show was definitely hard to survive! I had to get out after 5 songs, cuz it was hard to breath and even dressed in the swim suit and shorts I was soo hot that I thought I will just burn everyone around me. Hopefully organizers will take into account the inconvenience of having the ‘most wanted' artists perform in the closed tents… There is still a lot to tell about but I am running out of time and out of energy, so take a look at the pictures to get the better ides of what am I talking about and write me at ks_avetisova@bk.ru if you want to know something else. LisaGri |