During this summer, I’ve been on the road with a different band every weekend, but this weekend it was time for some repeat offenders since I was heading to Simerock in Rovaniemi with Enochian Crescent. Well before Sime they had a gig in Oulu on Friday, so once again we loaded the van on previous night since the trip would take some time. And to be honest, it took a bit longer than I expected, soo many stops… Well we weren’t in too much hurry since we left early enough. They had a special acoustic gig before the main event. The acoustic gig was almost like a religious experience, the band played jamming type of intro while the audience came to the venue and the first people sat on the floor infront of the band, and the place was lit with candles. Cool versions, although without drums, I hope they’ll use drums next time. The Profane Omen guys showed me how cool stuff you can put out acousticly from your electronic songs. After the acoustic set there was a break and around midnight the band returned with a solid set, the place was packed. Good performance. And there was a sauna at the backstage, always a big plus. The sleeping place wasn’t that luxurious… I mean usually I’ve been at hotels when I have been in Oulu, this time we had a “cabin” at the local camping ground. Well a cabin is too good word for it, I call it a box with couple of military style two storied beds. No toilet. Oh well…

The following morning we headed towards Rovaniemi and Simerock. First thing we did was go check out the sleeping place, they were cabins also, but I’ve been couple of times in Simerock and the cabins have always been luxurious, and this time was no different! Awesome. You really feel like royal at Simerock. We had some freetime and once agreed that we would leave to the festival site in like 45minutes, what to do… Hey, the stove of the sauna is a quick stove which is heated the moment you open it, so a sauna time! Yeah, couple of us had a quick sauna before we left to the festival area. Once we got our passes and driving permits a nice worker lady came to show us the way to the regular backstage where we could park our van. Well there was somekind of misinformation since the first two places where she instructed us, some other workers didn’t allow us to park there, but luckily third time was the charm and we got the van parked. Of to get something to eat. The meals at Simerock have always been great, I took some meat with potatoes. Really good meat once again. Soon after the meal it was time to move the van towards the stage, the one weird thing about Simerock, this and last year, is that in order to get to the backstages, you have to drive through the audience, well the surroundigs of the festivals don’t allow different entrances, a small nuisance. Enochian Crescent’s stage was on top of water and there was only small path leading to it and you couldn’t get the van near the stage so we had to carry the stuff quite a way. Just wondering how one drives a bus there since there was this one quite narrow gate and drunken people around you…

The gig went quite well, but since there was only one access point to the stage, I couldn’t get pics from behind the stage since I didn’t want to disrupt the show by going through the stage, heh. Also the security dude guarding the entrance, a small bridge, was bit off his game since he first didn’t want to let the drum tech pass the bridge (NONE SHALL PASS). The band also had pyros on this gig, they were a nice addition to the show, but in my opinnion they could have used them more often. But pyros cost… Still I would have loved to see some long duration fire showers and stuff like that :D

As I said, the stage was built on top of water, so after we packed the van, it was time for swim! Damn cold water at first but when you swam there for a time it didn’t feel that cold anymore. One can truly stage dive at Simerock! Then it was time to head to the luxury cabins for some after party sauna drinking action. The next morning, after we managed to get everyone to the van it was time to head back to Helsinki. I know this really nice eating place at Pihtipudas called Takkatupa. So we stopped there to get something to eat, they have really good food there. So no need to eat at home this evening. Over all the drive back home was quite long, it took me 15 hours from Rovaniemi to my home, I think this is bit too much, one starts to see stuff that isn’t there…

Oh well, I hope the next time I go to Rovaniemi there are atleast on gig on our way and one on the way coming back from there…