BOOM!!!

Sometimes it's not the greatest thing to live in Finland. The winter starts early and lasts almost half a year(we had the first snow mid October and now we have snow and ice for about a week already, and we live in the south!) and not many foreign bands get booked to play shows here. But now us northern folks are in for a treat. The Sonics are going to play Helsinki at the end of the month. It seems as if this will be my only chance to see them as I've read somewhere that this Euro-Tour would be their last gigs. I'm excited and at the same time worried that I maybe will have a 'Roky Erickson' experience again. About 2 years ago he played Finland and it was a disaster. At least for me. I was a HUGE fan since my friend John Battles from Chicago played me some bad quality b/w video tapes of him. He was sitting on a cemetery playing a couple of songs on his guitar and it was awesome! The voice, sound, atmosphere. But that time in Helsinki he played a huge club with his band the Explosions and they sounded like Rock-Veterans. No great atmosphere, no goosebumps. The fact that the place was sold out and drunk long-haired Finns were constantly bumping into me or stepping on my shoes didn't help me enjoying it either. The Sonics will play at another club but it's not small either and I bet there will be tons of drunk long-haired Finns again. But this time I will be prepared. I will be drunk, too. Even if they take 6,- Euros for a beer. And even if I won't remember much of the gig. Who knows, maybe that will be good. I should have done the same at the Erickson show. Judging from the videos the Sonics have on their MySpace site they are still able to kick some serious ass. Just on one clip they sound like some Oldies-Band, so let's hope for the best. If you want to come by, they play Sunday the 29th at Nosturi and it seems that it isn't sold out yet.