Review: Simerock 2007

The Sun Never Sets

1.Tag

From its humble beginnings of a garden party that got a bit out of hand, Simerock (named after its founder) has grown into one of the best summer rock festivals in Finland. This year it was held on a new site not far from Rovaniemi town centre, beside the Arctic Circle and Santa Park. This was also the biggest Simerock to date, with three stages, a dance tent, a market area and a sold out camp site!


After a 10 hour overnight car journey from Tampere, through the odd Lapland summer twilight we arrived in Rovaniemi in time to get a couple of hours sleep before heading to the festival site, located 10 miles outside Rovaniemi town centre. The organization was some of the best I saw all summer. The festival busses ran every ten minutes from the centre of town and back from the festival site, the passes had already been mailed out and the wristbands were very easy to pick up. Running times and festival maps were readily available. The site itself was well set out with the main and second stages separated by a large bar area, the market area and camp site were located near by, but the third stage and backstage areas where a bit of a walk away.


The weather this year was disappointing (but you can't always expect bright sunshine in the Arctic Circle) the wind and the rain proved too much and we ended up wearing all our layers of clothes every day and buying mittens at Santa Park so that our hands didn't freeze while taking photographs!

1st day
Saturday began with BLOODPIT on the main stage. This early in the day it is pretty hard to get the crowd going, especially when the sound is bad for the first two songs. I think the weather had surprised more than just us when Matthau asked the crowd if he could borrow someone's pipo (wooly hat) and spent the rest of the set sporting a cute baby pink one. Despite the weather and lack of crowd Bloodpit put on a good show.


PROFANE OMEN are up next with their own brand of Finnish hardcore metal, but at 2.15 in the afternoon there are not many excited festival goers for this kind of entertainment.


PMMP are usually really full of energy even when they are only playing a couple of songs at a radio show in the park, but today they are lacking in crowd participation and on stage energy. I think again the weather and the early stage time had got the better of the two girls. The sound was off at times and they didn't play the normal crowd pleasers. "Perkele drinki drinki" they shouted and I think that is what everyone did.


Then to one of the definite highlights of the weekend BROTHER FIRETRIBE. Pekka really furthed the 80's rock stereotypy in his velvet jacket and white cowboy boots. The guitarist, Nightwish's Emppu, was full of energy, running all over the stage and throwing out handfulls of guitar picks in to the crowd, which grew through out the entire set. They began as usual with the album opener and fan favorite 'Break Out' and 'Lover Tonight'. Pekka was having so much fun that he forgot the words to a classic Brother Firetribe single 'I'm on fire' declaring "I don't know the fucking words" to the excited crowd. Bass player Jason and his now famous 'shiny bass' were throwing a lot of devil horns back and forth between the crowd. 'I am rock' ended a fantastic set and had the crowd screaming for more. An encore soon followed including the classic song from the Top Gun soundtrack 'Mighty Wings'. Brother Firetribe are defiantly a band not to be missed, full on 80's classic rock that will always put a smile on your face.


We scramble through the Lapland undergrowth to get to the second stage in time for UNIKLUBI as the bar was really starting to fill up. I'm sure there were some terrible hangovers for this show, the Uniklubi boys left Tampere even later than us and continued drinking all the way up to Rovaniemi, this might explain all the dark sun glasses on show in such dull weather. If the boys weren't feeling one hundred percent, you would never tell, the show was fantastic. They played all the crowd pleasers and had the audience all worked up for 'Rakkautta ja Piikkilankaa' and 'Huomenna'. They played two song off the new album, the new single 'Vnus' and 'Älä jää' (Don't Stay) which both went down really well with the excited crowd. Despite the cold, Teemu and Janne came out for the encore with no tops on much to the pleasure of the young female fans on the barriers.


Since we were in Rovaniemi we thought we should go for dinner at Lordi's rocktaurant, which opened not long after their Eurovision success. The restaurant is decorated like a medieval castle with Lordi memorabilia all over the walls, there is even a life size 'Mr. Lordi's' wax work in the corner. We sat at a huge long table with large throne like seats, just like a medieval banquet. The food was really good and reasonably priced, with such fun as 'Awa's Headless Chicken' and 'Rudolf's last stand' on the menu, how could we go wrong? This was a welcome break form the weather as we got ready to head back to festival area for Disco Ensemble.


DISCO ENSEMBLE are amazing. They are so tight, you can tell they rehearse all the time. Their energy is second to none, Miikka the lead singer is one of the most energetic people I've ever seen on stage, even when he is playing his cute mini keyboard and singing at the same time. The crowd were really into it and appreciated them playing most of their hit album 'First Aid Kit' with a few great new tracks thrown in. Defiantly one of the bands of the weekend.


APULANTA close Saturday's festivities on the main stage, playing to an absolutely massive crowd. It was really difficult for us to get down to the photographers pit to get some shots. Complete with trade mark mic stand they take to the stage and impress the crowd with their stage presence and hit singles such as 'Koneeseen Kadonnut' and 'Hiekka'. The crowd loved it.

2nd day
We were up bright and early to catch JANN WILDE AND ROSE AVENUE with their Tampere brand of glitz and glam. They played to a relatively small crowd, it was 12pm and they were opening the second stage, but the audience that was there were really enjoying the show. The cold weather had even gotten to Jann, opting for a denim jacket instead of his usual spandex cat suit. Hair cut of the weekend defiantly goes to drummer Tender Rexx (as happens at any festival they play) with his bright blonde tri-hawk that just seams to be getting bigger and bigger! The early hour and screaming wind couldn't dampen their spirits and their first ever out door gig was a huge success.



More Tampere action from the lovely NEGATIVE boys followed. They were a usual vision of miss matched bright colours in spots and stripes. Jay came on stage wearing a huge bright yellow fluffy coat and Jonne tried to coordinate in this weather with black and white, the problem was that he wore a black and white spotty jacket with a black and white striped wooly hat :) they began very well and we all thought we were going to see the Negative of old, putting on an amazing show. This may have been the case if they hadn't have lost both guitars at the same time! The rest of the boys trooped on with only drums, bass and keyboards, Christus ran around manically trying to get everything to work while Larry (cool as always) had a smoke. The problem took quite a while to fix and the band never really regained their initial spark. Jonne's football chanting really didn't help and the set ended disappointingly.


For the first time this weekend I made it to the third stage for DEAD BY GUN. They really surprised me, they are so full of energy live and had the small crowd jumping around in no time. As with a lot of punk bands, their on stage performance is much better than the recorded tracks. Defiantly well worth the walk from the main stage.


Recently we have been challenged by Chris from Renoise to get photographs of a famous people holding one of his bass picks. The 'pick of destiny' has been going back and forth between us all summer and we had it for Simerock. We thought about getting a member of Hanoi Rocks, they're very famous, but because we were in the Arctic Circle, who more famous than Santa Claus himself?? After a quick stop at Santa Park and a chat with Santa we had our picture and at a discount price for festival pass holders!!


Back to the festival for SUNRISE AVENUE. Their catchy blend of pop and rock appeals too many as the huge crowd proved. They are very confided on stage, a band that you can tell are becoming big all over Europe and their hit single 'Fairytale Gone Bad' had the whole festival up and dancing. A really great performance.


Then to the headliners, the always amazing HANOI ROCKS take to the stage and as usual they do not disappoint, blowing away a lot of the younger bands on the bill this weekend. Mike Monroe skips around the stage with more energy than any 20year old, scaling the scaffolding the doing the splits in between his legendary saxophone solos. They really do give it 110% from there old classics such as 'Don't You Ever Leave' ,'Tragedy' and 'A Day Late, A Dollar Short' right up to the brand new single 'fashion' which was fabulous! They still put on a really vibrant and entertaining show, perfect headliners to any international rock festival.


A big thank you to the Simerock team, Sime, Toni and Tuukka for all there help and hospitality over the weekend. Simerock was defiantly one of the best festivals I was at all summer, even with the bad weather!

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