From Hell to Helsinki, part I

On Wednesday June 27th, we arrived in Helsinki after an unsatisfied stay in Stockholm, Sweden. Since we arrived in the early morning hours and we couldn't check into our hotel (which we were sharing with a friend from France) until 4 PM we mostly just wandered the streets.

Besides the obvious and much needed food break we then made our way to the record stores. The first place we visited was, 'Levykauppa,' which we had also shopped at last year. At this place I picked up three CDs, namely Hexvessel's, 'Dawnbearer', Shape of Despair's, 'Shades of...' since I could never find it anywhere and replaced my once owned, but stupidly sold copy of Barathrum's, 'Legions of Perkele.' I should point out that there were several other albums I could and probably should have picked up, but I was just concerned about spending too much money on CDs. After all I had lots of drinking to be done. A fantastic store though that has quite a huge and diverse selection of metal as well as many other genres of music to be found.

From there we hunted and eventually found the, 'Kvlt Store,' which we missed last year. This small store mostly carried black and death metal and just in general totally underground and, well, cult stuff. I only picked up Behexen's, 'By the Blessing of Satan,' but really should have gotten more since a lot of the stuff I saw I'd only be able to order online anyway, such as Goatmoon, whom at the time I was planning on seeing on Saturday evening. The Kvlt Store also had a lot of vinyl, which was tempting, but I figured I'd never get it back home in one piece and decided to skip looking through it entirely. There were also some t-shirts somewhat hidden behind the door, but not a very diverse selection to choose from. Interestingly these guys also had a lot of demo tapes as well as bootleg gigs. Pretty interesting and again tempting, but I resisted the temptation. I think I also remember there being some VHS and DVDs too. Other than that a pretty cool place and the two guys that worked there were rather nice, but I think my friend made them feel weird since he was just pensively walking back and fourth through the shop not looking at anything, really... he's not much of a fan of the cult stuff.

We also went to, 'The Hellsinki Rock Shop,' which is a small but neat place for shirts and a few other cool things. I picked up an Amorphis, 'Tales from the Thousand Lakes' shirt as well as an Amorphis, 'Black Winter Day' backpatch, which I'll do something with, someday.

Eventually we met up with our French buddy, found our hotel, got some food and hit the bars that afternoon/evening. I remember we went to PRKL at first, but it was quiet for the most part and eventually made our way to Base where I made attempts to hit on the nice bar tender gal, but after a shot of fisu and some other evil shit I was getting drunk and spilled my beer... almost on her. From there we moved on to Praha, which was a little more lively since it was in the evening now, but generally I found this place to be a little dull. I think we eventually got back to PRKL that evening, but, ya know, you drink enough alcohol everything just kind of becomes a blur after a while.

On Thursday we went to Suomenlinna a sea fortress built in 1748, which I enjoyed greatly last year, but our French pal missed it and as such needed to see it. The weather was good on this day and I can't really put it into perspective for you, but really being out there on these island's is like a little piece of paradise for me. I got some great photos and videos and absolutely enjoyed the few hours we were there. It rained for a few minutes, but thankfully we were near shelter and didn't get wet. Otherwise it was perfect the whole time. For more on that feel free to read my writings on Suomenlinna from last year.

I tell ya a good portion of that afternoon has left me now, but eventually we made it to On The Rocks where Barren Earth was playing late that evening, thus making our Thursday remarkably similar to the one we had last year. Before the gig I met with a friend from last year that I was looking forward to seeing as well some Norwegians that seemed to fancy our presence, curiously one of them was Harald Helgeson whom played drums for Enslaved back in '97 as well more recently for Evig Natt and Thundra.

After quite a few drinks outside with friends we made our way downstairs around 11 PM. It was great to see Barren Earth onstage again since I really enjoyed their performance from last year and with their new album being fantastic it made it all the better. The band played new songs like, 'Passing of the Crimson Shadows,' 'Vintage Warlords' and my personal favs, 'The Rains Begin' & 'As it is Written,' which resulted in some serious 'metal moments' for me. Also from the first album, 'Forlorn Waves' & 'Flicker' and much to my delight since they didn't play it last year, 'The Ritual of Dawn.' Such a great song. There were a few others that escape me now as well as an interesting instrumental piece to close their set. The band was spot on, the sound was stunning, the crowd was enthusiastic and all in all just a perfect night.

Sometime during the bands set I noticed a friend from last year and needed to reunite with him. This of course resulted in more drinking at On The Rocks after the gig and all of us got pretty fucking toasted before heading over to PRKL, which was quite lively this time. The rest of that night was filled with booze, booze and more booze and I think we eventually bumbled home around 3AM. Good fucking night. Tuska in a few hours, but will save that for later.