02/04/2012

Iiris, underwear and lectures: Tallinn Music Week part 1

You went on in pink boxers! You're doing it right!

Tallinn Music Week went by so fast, but a lot of things happened. It happened despite getting 13 hours of sleep altogether during 3 nights and all the free alcohol we drank. The biggest rock star was president Toomas-Hendrik Ilves who gave a great speech about rock'n'roll at 10 am Friday morning, bubbly was served as well. The later copyright talk got pretty vicious with one of the speakers moping until the end. Before you read on, be awesome, like my page on Facebook.

I love this photo! By Keiu Maasik

The first night started with Iiris presenting her new album in Rock Cafe. It was crowded and it wasn't that easy to see the bands. Iiris did her pop show with cubes created in 3D mapping, it was the first time I heard the album. To be honest I don't remember much of all that. I do remember meeting a load of cool people and discussing music with them.

This masked man was cool to party with.

There were interesting lectures in the following days, even if it took a ton of will power to get up after 4 hours of sleep to get there. All this with a heavy bag full of live equipment and costumes. It was fun and informative despite all that.

Meeting Iiris Vesik after her album presentation. Too many drinks had.

After the lectures on Friday I grabbed a burger and ran to sound check which was an hour late, because of one of the bands. Everything worked and we went to get Paul a double cheeseburger. I spent the night between Hoov and Krahl. Respect to a Finnish act called Jaako and Jay, they're a duo consisting of drums, guitar and vocals. They play a hard folk-punk show with a lot of hitting and jumping and screaming. They remind me of Japanese Destroy2. They are both worth checking out.

Using low quality fuel to keep going.

I tried to sleep a little during Huskey Rescue, but Mimicry played an awesome live at Hoov. I love that they are almost fully electronical again and their sound has evolved somewhere that I really enjoy. I'm going to try to catch the next show they play. A couple of hours and beers later it was almost time to play.

Decent legs.

I was tired as hell from not sleeping and all the seminars and lectures, but I got into a cage, changed my boxers and shirt and pulled on my shiny jacket. Tiger Milk had taken half of the people and oxygen with them.  I just put on an extra set of balls and got on the stage. I took of my jeans and let my feet do the talking. There was a serious looking rock guy standing in the middle of the crowd, who never smiled or danced once. There were also girls dancing and guys throwing their hands in the air. Just as I finished my set, Paul stepped in, disappointed  that he didn't hear more than the last 3 chords he demanded for an encore. So I put on BYONoise. 5 Italians I had seen at Von Krahl stormed in and started rocking out.

Singing "Pick Up Track".
I played one more song just for them and then another. So basically I did three encores and it was the funnest part of the live. The aching neck was a reminder of that the next day.

To be continued...
Barthol