Kuukauden kuvat // Pictures of the Month

It's that time of the month again and this time in English! We seem to be having a bit of a, well, Swedish theme going on...

Katy Perry @ Nalen, Stockholm, Sweden 22.2.2009

After coincidentally watching a random band playing Katy Perry cover the other night in Dublin, en route to home I teamed up with juoksepoistytto in Stockholm for some Kity Purry action. Seeing now where Katy Perry plays these days, including her Finland debut just last year at the sold out 13,000 capacity Hartwall Arena, it's quite crazy we got to witness her in a utsolgt club with 598 other people.
A giant maneki-neko cat and giant inflatable strawberries were used as stage props so one would without a doubt know they are in for a pop concert. But she rocked! I really dig Perry's voice and she does know how to sing. During the set you'd catch her playing guitar along with the band, switching to acoustic for some of the songs and then finally just with the mic going around engaging with and surprisingly even amongst the crowd. I'd guess it was during the encore when miss Perry herself handled a giant inflatable lipstick which she poked the crowd with or something. Her quirky lyrics translate well into the music she makes, but the mid set speeches of similar lines felt a bit too childish, even when the crowd was quite young that evening. Last year we toyed around attending that said Hartwall Arena gig to get the total opposite experience of this night in Stockholm. Buuut after coming to a conclusion how we don't even know Perry's new material or listen to her much anyway -and most importantly when just alone the ticket money could get us to see many local faves, had to give it a pass this time. Never say never though...

-kilu

H.E.A.T. (SWE) @ South Park Festival, Tampere 7.6.2014

The musical genre this festival represents has never really been my cup of tea, but this time Reckless Love was in the lineup and my friend also got us free tickets. Both of us had some other engagements later that evening so we thought we would just briefly pop in, watch RL and get out. However, we still had some spare time after RL so we decided to give "that next band whatever they were called" a chance and I'm so glad we did. Pardon my Swedish, but jävla helvete!! Seriously.
I have never before been so instantly and almost violently charmed by a band whose whole existence was a complete mystery to me until they hit the stage. All of the songs had awesome catchy melodies and their performance was so electrifying. We couldn't stop dancing and jumping around despite the fact that we naturally didn't know any of the songs, hah. I will always remember this gig as one of the most powerful live music experiences of my life, it was pure love from the start.

- juoksepoistytto