Culture Shocks and Ramming Teenagers

The Date: 24.02.2007
The Place: Hotelli Kantri, Kauhava
The Album: Carnival of Rust

Jariq picked me up from the railway station of Seinäjoki at 7.30 pm and we left for Kauhava. Jariq had been informed that the venue would start selling tickets at 8.00 pm. When we arrived to this so called town, I was a bit shocked, cause the place was so small! It had one fairly long street and a u-shaped street that connected to it and that was it (excluding the streets that were covered with peoples' homes).
I have lived 18 years in a place even smaller than that but still it surprised me. We drove around the place two times before I spotted the venue. The place was the only one that resembled a bar from the outside, but it was very difficult to spot, no decent signs or name plates or anything. And it was supposed to be the town's only hotel.

When we entered the place, we had to show our Id's but the ticket sales hadn't started yet. So we went and got us seats. The place was an experience of it's own, in a bad way. The upstairs where the gig was held was still closed and all we had was a small pub-like place with few tables, chairs and sofas, a bar counter and a jukebox. There was some teenagers and drunken loudly cursing old men and the music was Finnish 'hits'. There were two non-smoking areas: first one was a corridor leading to the bathrooms and to the hotel rooms, the other was few tables at the back of the room, neither one had nothing tangible between the smoking area and non-smoking area. I wonder if the idea was that the smoke could read signs and stay away from those areas.

Half an hour later, after we had sit, complained about the music, asked about the tickets several times, greeted Satu and seen Jari and someone I don't remember anymore going to upstairs closed to the public, we decided to go to a local hamburger place and grab some food. When we came back about ninish, we finally got our “tickets”, meaning we payed and got an ink stamp to our hands.

Then we waited. And waited. And waited. We sat like 5 minutes in a table, but when seats next to us were conquered by the loud, obnoxious, swearing drunken men, we decided to move and stand around near the bathrooms. There when we talked, one nice lady started talking to us. She was Eija, this was about to be her first Poets-gig and she had come there alone. Brave woman! So she hang out with us the rest of the evening. During that waiting period Jani and Kiffe went to upstairs, then few minutes later Petri and Captain. The downstairs, called “The Pit” was opened and we listened few quite bad karaoke-performances there. When the clock was nearing ten, I went to check would the upstairs be opened soon. Then I spotted Carpe Diem and hugged her and talked to her a bit. I went back to the pit to get Jariq and Eija and we started to line up in order to go to upstairs. The crowd was tight and anxious and a bouncer was still holding the line at the bottom of the stairs. When he finally took off the rope, those who were the first just started running up the stairs laughing. I just commented dryly: “teens” and some guy behind me laughed and said: “teenage ryntäys” (surge).

When we finally got rid of our coats and arrived at the upstairs-place, we were somewhat surprised. I had supposed, that those running kids were headed to the front row. But no, they had ran to the bar counter and to tables. Only Carpe Diem and her husband were lounging around the stage and we joined them. So, once again we waited. 2 hours and 20 minutes. And most of that time no-one threatened our positions. Until the gig was supposed to start.

First of all, the stage was really really small. It didn't have any barriers of it's own, but a couple of tipped down tables were trying really hard to imitate it. They reached me about the knees. Then the audience started to gather next to us and behind us and everywhere. And boy, they were restless. Only Kouvola's audience can compete with that kind of behavior. They were ramming us from behind and from the sides, we had to fight to keep our standing grounds. Carpe Diem was harassed by some guy behind her and I just clutched to the table legs in front of me. At some point during the gig Mark said to the audience that we all could take one step backwards, so that the front row wouldn't be in such a pressure. Nice thought, but the effect lasted only couple of minutes and then it was back to mayhem. Little later on Mark asked the front row, if we could breathe. I could breathe just fine, I was just afraid being crushed. But I can't thank Mark enough for the fact that he asked us and was worried because of us, it was really sweet. Once again some people didn't respect Mark's and Ollie's physical space; they grabbed Mark by the legs when he was singing close enough and while Ollie was playing a solo near the edge, some woman started tapping the back of his hand rapidly. While he was playing!

But despite of all that, it was a great and fun gig. Mark was throwing matchboxes to the audience and said that those would equal one free drink when taken to the bar counter. He even claimed that he was pulling those boxes out of his ass, but somehow I didn't believe that. The list of songs was written on a round laced paper, the kind of that are underneath cakes. When the gig was closing it's end, some of the boys found a placard that was placed to the table in front of Captain's laptop. It said: No service at this part of the counter. And the ending solos, especially Jari's, were extra long. Otherwise it was pretty standard gig song wise, no surprises or treats and it lasted about an hour. After it was over, me and Jariq stayed there a while, danced and goofed around. I made Jariq laugh by doing funny faces during Justin Timberlake's Sexy back. All in all it was a good night and a strange experience. I just hope that the Kantri in Laihia will be a bit less exotic place.