On Stage with Enochian Crescent @ Tuska 2009
If someone had told me 10 years ago that one day I’d be on stage during the biggest metal festival in the Nordic countries, playing theremin with a black metal band, I would have taken the claim with just a bit of skepticism.
Be it as it may, this was the exact situation I found myself in during the last weekend of June 2009. After Älymystö‘s previous gig I heard that Enochian Crescent is looking for someone to play theremin in one song medley and told my contact that I’d be interested. This Monday I got a call from the singer of the band, went to visit their band practice on Wednesday and on Friday I found myself packing my stuff and heading over to Nosturi for the soundcheck.
I wasn’t the only visiting artist Enochian Crescent had – there was actually enough of a crowd for a whole another band. Backstage was nicely eclectic with a mix of styles. There was me in my old suit jacket, white shirt and bow tie, Matt Dirty / DigitalFiend pinning bows on his scalp with hypodermic needles, Hellwind Inferion of Urn in a cape and damn cool makeup, plus of course the EC guys themselves.
The Gig and the Aftermath
Right before the gig I got an unexpected additional assignment. It turned out that I had to play a 2-3 minute interlude with the theremin right in middle of the gig. Performance anxiety isn’t really a big part of my personality, quite the opposite, but I have to admit that upon hearing that and looking at the crowd of drunken metalheads pumping their fists in the air gave me a moment’s pause. Impros are notoriously unreliable, you’ll never know if they’ll live or die, and the crowd was decidedly NOT ambient.
So, did I refuse? Well fuck no!
Like always, the moment’s hesitation turned fast into enthusiasm. After I got the cue (“Come to the stage after the song where I cut myself with scissors”) I headed over to the stage and had a fucking good time. The audience looked rather baffled, but kept chanting and waving their fists. Compared to our usual audiences, it was a leeetle bit different. Well, except for Latvia and the mad fuckers at Depo, maybe.
When I got back to the stage to play on the medley, I almost slipped on a pool of blood when heading for my instrument. Pig hearts had been flying through the air to the audience and back and the stage was looking nice and nasty.
After the gig I went to pick up my equipment, a lot of it splattered with blood, though only lightly. Well, except the cables that were on the floor. The stage smelled of blood and there was a heart lying next to a monitor – and I suddenly realised I was feeling kind of nostalgic about certain movie and other projects I was involved in years ago. Can’t remember the last time I had to wash pigs blood off my hands.
All in all, the night was really fun – thanks to the audience, the guys of Enochian Crescent and all the other artist guests on the stage.
Short Geotrip and a Camera Test Drive
During the midsummer weekend I made the mistake of pointing my trusty Sony Cybershot DSC-W30 directly at Jori’s face, which of course broke the damn camera. This was a crying shame, because I had really liked the camera, which I’ve used on all of my UE-trips and other adventures. It’s been durable, fast, easy to use, low on noise in bad lighting conditions and overall the best impulse buy I’ve ever done on the gadget front.
I replaced the trusty workhorse with a Fuji FinePix F200EXR which Jaana-Mari recommended to me and took it out on a testdrive on a short geocaching trip after work. I went searching for a couple of new caches and revisiting two of my nemesis caches, which I’ve been trying to find 7-12 times so far, with no luck.
The full Flickr photoset, with samples below.
Juhannus 2009
Juhannus is the Finnish midsummer party, when people usually go to the countryside to burn big-ass bonfires, eat themselves silly and get totally plastered. This year Susi and I reserved the cabin for our and our friends’ use. The aim was to simply go in there, make good food, laze around, play board games and generally unwind.
As so often is the case, Juhannus was once again cold, rainy and windy, but this is something we had prepared for. So, enter a weekend of saunaing, playing board games, cooking a lot of food, sleeping and eating far too much and even managing to do a short trip on the lake when weather permitted.
In my Flickr there’s a bunch of photos of our activities, including the incredibly lewd looking sausage making. A few samples below.
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