Provinssi Rock in Seinäjoki, the kickoff
3 Days of a festival in the province, it will be the baptizing of your reporter into Finnish festival. One of the bigger festivals is Provinssi Rock, before they had the privilege to host many great bands. For instance, Muse, Rammstein, Volbeat, Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, the Offspring, Madness, and BASTILLE played at the festival that this year is held for the 41st time. All hotels and sleeping places are fully booked and Seinäjoki more than doubles its inhabitants. A total of 19.000 visitors attended the Provinssi Rock festival in the first day.
There are 91 acts performing, 15 from abroad and 76 from the home country on 5 different stages, quite a job to make a report from all of that.
Sadly the Prodigy had to cancel their show because of the death of the singer Keith Flint. They did not search for a new headliner, the festival itself is fine enough for people to show up, not only for the program.
The first day was more about discovering how everything goes down here, as every festival has its own habits. The known ones you kinda know how to get along, where the stages are, how to get quick from on to the other, what the special stages are to find some new music. Over here it was a whole new experience.
The start was with nice pop music complete with flutes, on a stage far away tugged away along the river that crosses the festival terrain. Alma earned the most money with her songs in the world. She has been writing for Miley Cyrus and other big ones, until she sang one song for herself and people found out she could really sing great herself. That’s how her solo career started. She sang ‘Cowboy’, which is one of her own favorites. Alma was a bit lost on the big stage. Musically it was very good though.
A very relaxing sound came from the wood stage where Kingston Wall was playing their music. The band from Helsinki played psychedelic/progressive rock. Just perfect to get into the right mode for more Provinssi rock. Bass player Jukka Jylli and singer Petri Walli were the driving force on the stage, they had fun playing and so did the audience.
In the amphitheater – tugged away in the green – a nice sound called the audience to come and hear and watch. Jonna Tervomaa could make their audience given a smile on their face. The music was Ann Marie over-shrouded herself a bit in her enthusiasm, especially when the songs were more uptempo. Dancing and singing proved to be a difficult combination. The youngsters had a very good rope and sang along with her hits.
In the tent Yungblood made the people go wild together with him. Dominic Harrison came out in a pinky overall (he just doesn’t care what the world might think of him – he goes his one way) and did have the energy of 10. He sang “I don’t want to be a loner”, which he is definitely not tonight. The tent was full of young mainly girls who adored the youngster on stage, even if he had put out his tongue for almost half the concert. His music was fresh and joyful.
Amorphis played one whole album. They were joined by Dutch singer Anneke van Giersbergen, who came much later on stage. The band played a noisy set as you could expect, the audience sang and jumped with them and were quite Amused.
Flogging Molly covered ‘We will rock you’ by Queen. Made the sun go shine on the audience. They danced on the Irish happy songs. Yes, the band always knows how to get a crowd moving.
Converge was something different, but a mush pit is always exciting especially at a festival. A lot of grunting and loud guitars, that’s what it was.
Something completely different as well was Pariisin Kevät, who made that all the people that were at this stage sang along. Looking like Jesus he apparently had many followers.
The Holy, which performed earlier in Pietarsaari some while ago, did not have the audience that was expected. They ware at the showcase festival in the Netherlands Eurosonic Noorderslag, where many new and hot bands try to get into the picture. Though they are quite popular in the Netherlands, more than in their home country Finland, they will manage to grow over here in Finland as well. They started off with a slow song and put the fire up after that. Great well produced and balanced music came from The Holy. Who knows, they’ll be saints soon an adored by many more, we saw them already here at Provinssi rock!
A special singer Rosita Luu, originally from the States, but lives a while in Finland now, she told. The band gave wings to the voice of the singer, to fly out over the crowd.
Bring me the Horizon put up a great show, musically and visually. They brought a big screen, dancers, fire, and smoke to upgrade as part of their Second Base tour. They had as much fun as the audience did, that’s the way it should be! It was a perfect performance of their music. The singer of the band, Oliver Sykes, wore a red suit with all kind of articles on it. He came out to the audience a few times and had fun on stage with his other band members. All big hits came to play like: started off with ‘Mantra’, ‘Mother tongue’, ‘Throne’ and ‘Follow You’.
Macklemore, the last act of the first night at Provinssi, performed his great hit singles, like ‘Can’t Hold Us’ and had a talk about his former work in a fast-food restaurant, which was also to be visited at the festival. He asked for a hat of the fast-food chain and promised them to make some sandwiches after his performance. He had a good feeling about the show and his performance was one of the best.
Photo’s (c) Hans Kreutzer
