Unikissa's blog

Going to see these guys in an hour or two. This picture was taken in (the spring of?) 2001, so it’ll soon be the 10th anniversary of my fandom!

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Arrived to Cardiff today and met up with Martyn in the city. Came over to his place, had a couple of glasses of red wine & hamburgers, then lazied around until the afternoon. Took a nice walk in the park (I LOVE the park!), had a nice cup of Nero coffee while Mart had a leaking cup of banana-something juice, which he actually couldn’t drink after all. So it ended up on the table, chairs and finally, some of it into Jo’s mouth.

Yes I think these details concerning our beverages were very interesting and relevant.

After that the two of them abandoned me in front of CIA to queue to John Mayer’s gig. Seemed hopeless, but when the line started moving, in only took 5 minutes to get in. And I got close to the stage too!

Hilights of the gig: Belief, absolutely. Stop This Train. John’s fooling around looking goofy, speeches & jokes, the fun backup singer ladies and well, most of the evening. Just awesome. Oh! And Ellie Goulding, the warm-up act. I listened to some of her songs before leaving home and didn’t like them much but dammit! I just couldn’t help loving her. Amazing singer, fun personality, good live show.

But Mayer, oh. I still can’t believe I got to see him play live OR that the gig is now actually over and I’m not sure if I’m ever gonna see him play again.. as I updated my Twitter account:

I feel it coming. I can sense it. It’ll hit me like a ton of bricks floating on a hurricane. The post-gig depression.

OH, forgot to blog about THIS.

See, he’s looking at me. Looking at me! It’s love (which means he thinks I’m a guy). Some of the photos can be found in a gallery shaped page here. I saved some on my computer and will never give them away.

There was also a photo article on Kaista. In Finnish.

Went to see Happoradio on Saturday. Came home yesterday around six pm. How is it that seeing these guys causes a longer journey than just the concert night? I have no idea. Yet it keeps happening time after time. Not that I mind, usually these trips are so much fun there’s plenty to laugh about for weeks and months afterwards. Singing a karaoke version of a song to someone who wrote & performed it, for example, is fun.

So, home now, spending some quality time with Einari. Tarja finally made it home (she was stuck in Thailand for a bit longer than she planned, the volcanic ash thingy) and is now at Harakka. I should be doing other work stuff at home right now, but not getting much done.. a pile of videos, photos, writing waiting for my attention.

Better eat something and maybe watch some Smallville. Catching up to do. After that.. well, at least I’ll try to do things I should be doing.

Oh, and I might get to take photos of Adam Lambert!!!! Huzzah! A friend of mine needs photos for their site, and promised to try & get me to what he calls the “ass-pinching range”.

..got ~1000 photos of the bands we went to see. And still missed a couple of happenings taking place on stage.

What an awesome trip, once again. I love my girls. I love my boys. I love sitting in the car, singing out loud; sleeping in Omppu, spending a hangover day at a spa, dodging drunken people who are about to push me over with my camera. I love life on weekends like this.

Tomorrow, Tavastia. And while waiting for the live photos of Phoenix Effect and Poets of the Fall, I give you a hooded crow. What an awesome character.

Added a few tags. This needed them all!

What’s this? I suddenly feel like writing about my life! So, stuff follows.

Today is the first day of the tour. We’re gonna be driving like mad(wo)men on the Finnish highways and smaller roads just to see our boys (Poets of the Fall, Phoenix Effect) play for – how many-eth year? We used to have our own blog for the journeys and experiences, but we got lazy with it, and then totally forgot it ever was. Maybe we could do SOMETHING about that this year, huh, girls?

Some crappy cellphone photos can be found in my MMS blog. It’s kinda like watching our trips live, except the frame rate is really slow. And if I’m having too much fun (read: too much alcohol) I just might forget I even have a cellphone. Or a camera. Or fingers with which to operate those two.

Hey, awesome. Satu just called, she’s bought us 3 liters of quality red wine. This trip is going to be so LEGEN- …wait for it…. -DARY!!!

If you’ve never heard of Poets of the Fall and hence, have no idea why we’ve been spending thousands and thousands and thousands of kilometers in Satu’s Morphmobile (as we call it), flying to other countries, taking shady trains and routes and subways, spending dozens of nights in dozens of crappy hotels, then please. Feel free to experience some of that love here.

Better get packing. I’m the one who’s always late, but I’ve made a decision to be more careful with that. Too bad I made that decision five years ago and nothing’s changed. Oh well. They’re used to it.

Tah tah for now.

For some reason, I have this annoying person living inside of me. I call her the “promotional bitch”, and here’s her story.

She adores, loves and almost lives for music and music alone, loving several artists and bands at the same time. Some more than others, some forever, some for a short period of time. A lot the bands stay in her heart for years and years, altho the big love for them might tune down a bit along with the passing of time and the discoverings of new artists. A few of them have been with her since she was 16, creating a lifelong soundtrack for everything that’s happened to me. Good and bad.

Anyway. Very often this person makes me think & do things I shouldn’t be wasting my time on, really. She makes me obsess about a group or a solo artist so much, that if my friends or the rest of the world don’t love them (yet), I can’t help but trying to spread the love. Make them like these artists too. I know it’s really annoying. I’ve been called a groupie, a fangirl, a teenager, and in a way I take these names as an insult.

So, what I have to live with, is the urge to promote carefully picked musicians no matter what. I don’t (usually) get paid to do it, nor have I been asked to do it. I just feel good doing it. And it takes up my time, sometimes money, and most of the time it’s pretty useless since I’m only one person. It annoys me, but at the same time it makes me very happy.

I’m on the edge of starting a campaign of my own again, and it seems I can’t stop myself from doing it. I’m thinking about how to make the world to see them, I’m wondering about that nonstop, making plans, throwing them aside as bad ones.

And I haven’t even asked them if they want me to do it. What is wrong with me, doctor? How can I get rid of this need to be the promotional bitch?

Sometimes sad music can bring you down, sometimes it can cheer you up, make you cry out of happiness. Even if you just did something stupid, were really ashamed and felt like no-one likes you anymore.

That, in a small scale, happened to me within the last hour, sitting here in the darkness wearing my dear tiny Sennheisers. I was hysterical, did something rather silly, hated myself for doing it – until I randomly started listening to Jason Mraz’s songs on Spotify (Man gave name to all the animals! Hilarious lyrics!). After that, I surfed to YouTube to watch this.

I still feel a bit bad about how I sometimes can’t control my enthusiasm, but I’m also happy about the fact I am, even after this tiny emotional storm, alive and breathing. Yes, Mr. Mraz – life is sometimes very wonderful.

(At least when you find the right music for the moment.)

So. I flew home from Sweden/Denmark tonight, but it actually took two take-offs from the Copenhagen airport to finally get to Helsinki. They had problems with something electrical equipment the pilots use to do their job (no idea what, “nothing serious”), and we had to turn back after 30 mins of flying. At the Copenhagen airport they even had firetrucks waiting for us – normal procedure, said the captain. Still, pretty exciting!

The funniest moment was when, after telling us something is wrong, the captain’s announcement started bzzz’ing and breaking off. The Finns burst into loud laughter and I couldn’t help but giggle too – says something about this nation. We’re not afraid to die as long as it’s funny!!

The week in Lund was peaceful, lovely, relaxing, fun – I also got to see Grand Avenue twice, which was a huge cherry on top of everything! On Thursday night me and Miikka (aka CK) met the band and some fun people backstage and continued to a small pub nearby. We got hammered, played at least 20 Beatles songs from the jukebox and some MC Hammer.. I also have a video clip on my cellphone with a lot of darkness, laughter, loud rattling noises and a few flashing streetlights. The video includes a shopping cart and some pain, too. Might not make it public anytime soon, although it is hilarious.

On Friday night I hopped on a train to go to Copenhagen (again! I crossed the border 6 times within the week) to see the band play in Albertslund. CK went home that morning, so I had to make it a solo adventure. And what an adventure it was, indeed. I got lost in the damn suburbian hellhole of a mall and missed several songs. Oh well, at least I got a few photos and a chance to say hi and bye to the guys afterwards. Totally worth the trouble. They are such amazing people, polite and fun, making sure a random foreign girl doesn’t get lost in the city and whatnot. I wish they get the attention and good things they deserve.

Again, makes me want to believe in karma and people getting what they deserve.

It was so nice to spend time with Aija. Really really nice. We haven’t been able to spend a lot of time together lately (her moving to Sweden might have something to do about it) and now we got a whole week – minus my fangirl action – and although we didn’t do anything that special, it was the best week. Watched a lot of good movies & series, made some christmas decorations and amigurumi for their home, took Siru the dog to long walks to a nearby pond, ate good veggie food and enjoyed life.

Aija might’ve not enjoyed ALL the time with me, since I was pretty violent during nights while sharing the double bed with her. One night I had a dream someone was trying to stab & kill me, so I kicked the killer real hard in the stomach. Well, it worked, I didn’t get stabbed since I woke up to Aija’s whining and cursing. I’d kicked her instead. I would’ve laughed at the situation, but I realized instantly it wasn’t a light touch of a foot that hit her.. embarrasing but, you have to admit, a bit funny.

Well, it’s almost 4am and I’m starting to feel a bit cross-eyed (as we say in Finnish, isn’t it the same in English too huh?).. might have to leave the photo editing until tomorrow.

If you have Spotify, please listen to my current favourite track from Grand Avenue: These Days. I love the whole album “Place to Fall“, but this song’s been playing in my head since yesterday.

And a couple of photos – Grand music and flying Einari. Hope you like ‘em.