So me and Anton have been in Finland for the past few days visiting Sam and for a few gigs and jams and stuff with some Helsinki musicians. Its been great so far, but pretty cold…
We arrived on Sunday night/Monday morning around midnight when it was minus 12… But its all snowy and nice, which is loads better than it being in Manchester where its just cold and frankly a bit shit. Gig 1 was at the Arkadia Bookshop, a great little place just over the road from Sam’s flat in Toolo, featuring HAQ but with a continental twist – Anton and Sam were there (obviously) but on bass was Eero Tikkanen from Finland and drums was David Meier from Switzerland, both guys that Sam’s been studying with at the Sibelius Academy. Nice audience there which was lovely to see, even though it was still minus 12. Hardy folks, these Finnish jazz fans…
[Anton: felt really good to play these tunes again, and the crowd was really receptive and quite a mixed age range. It's also been great to play with David again, we met about a year ago on a SIM course and by some amazing coincidence he and Sam are on the NOMAZZ course together for a couple of years.]
Earlier in the day we had a rehearsal for Beats & Pieces Finland, which is performing tomorrow night (Thursday 17th) at Cafe Mascot. This is a band comprised of a crack team of local musicians that Sam’s come into contact with, performing selections from the Beats & Pieces repertoire on very limited rehearsal. Sounded good on Monday though, so we’re excited about tomorrow! Even though it’ll probably be cold again…
Other exciting things we’ve done include going to the sauna with lots of big naked hairy Finnish men, and then standing outside in the snowy evening wearing only a towel (surprisingly not as cold as you’d expect it to be!) [Anton: it was exactly as cold as you'd expect it to be, my feet feel like they've blistered]. And we spent lots of euros in this amazing jazz record shop called Digelius (excited about my Earthworks vinyl…), as well as going for continental pastries at this little cafe by the (frozen) sea. We’re currently in Sam’s flat before going to watch a gig tonight, eating our way through a ‘Megapussi’ bag of crisps.
[Anton: other less-exciting things we've done include finding the Finnish equivalent of the Arndale centre and spending far too much time in there because it was warmer than outside. Sam had left us on our own so we didn't know where the cool places were anymore...]
There’s some random photos below, which hopefully will convey how fun (and cold) Helsinki is! Keep an eye out for part 2, to follow soon…
