Old Town School – On The Road

Dispatches from the road from our wayfaring travelers.

A Finnish Update

Thursday June 4th 2009

Flew through the non existent night and after transferring in Stockholm finally arrived in Helsinki around 11 am local time.
Hano met us at the airport and we cabbed it to the gallery where we have tonights gig. Our host Juha is tremendous..plying us with coffee and Finnish brandy.
We finally got about 2 hrs of sleep in the venue this afternoon, woke up rehearsed a bit had some more coffee and brandy and in about 30min the show will begin.
A summation of the day to come later:
A beautiful gig…2 sets, about 40 people attending…the transformation from photography studio to concert hall was amazing.
After the gig we packed our bags and took a long taxi ride to Ruotsinpyhtaa and some sleep.
We were met at our hotel ( a 2 unit bed and breakfast) by Wasel Arar. He seems almost singlehandedly responsible for the Bluegrass scene in Finland…a fine banjo player, guitarist and singer.

Friday June 5
We all finally got a good nights sleep. The town we’re in is tiny (even by Finnish standards) and gorgeous and right on a lake.
After a casual day Wasel took us to have a Fin style sauna….sweating in 90 degree C then jumping into the ice cold lake…back to the heat…back to the lake…and repeat….aahhh.
Immediately after we were at the only bar/restaurant in town for an all night jam session.
So many great players here, totally entrenched in the Old Time and Bluegrass syles.
We all had a blast playing song after song with about 10 other musicians…Colby and Paul were especially on fire.
More to follow soon.
JA

Filed under: DMT in Finland, Finland 2009, Notes from John by John | June 6, 2009 | Comments (0)


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