Looking behind Finnish scenes …

Considering our usual sleeping pattern having to get up at 4am actually means hardly going to bed at all. And that’s how our Finland adventure started, continued and ended: sleep deprived and excited. Trying to catch some rest on the plane, on the bus and between aftershow parties and breakfast. But hey, that’s the reason why adrenaline and make-up got invented. Who needs to sleep when you can have a weekend full of Beatles music, meeting fans and bands from all over the world, working with caring, professional on- and off-stage staff, when you can play two huge stages for all the fans who went out of their way to get you to play “their” festival? And when there is, available around the clock, plenty of delicious food! So here we are, the whole band goofing around on a frozen lake near Tampere Hall, for our parents to do some behind-the-scenes video filming that naturally involves our drone whenever possible. We might not know birds that well, but sometimes we do cheat a little bit and pretend, just to get that uplifting feeling 😉

Having landed again, we took a little stroll through Tampere, Finland’s second largest urban area, also being nicknamed “Manse” or “Manchester of the North” because of the various industries they once had. And indeed, some red brick factory buildings reminded us a lot of England.

Not very English though was the weather. It was even snowing at some point. The feeling and sounds of walking on all that grit on the streets reminded us of the Austrian Winters. And while we don’t miss the cold and dirt all that much we would have loved to put on our skates to go for a spin on that icy lake.

But we had better things to do, and it’s time to tell you about the actual “Tampere Beatles Happening”!

In the afternoon, right before our first sound-check, we got a little tour through what is the largest concert and congress centre in the Nordic countries: Tampere Hall. Walking through an endless labyrinth of corridors and some hundred doors we got a good impression of the size of the venue, its auditoriums, stages and backstage areas, but see for yourself!

To the left in blue you can see the smaller concert hall, shot from the light engineer’s desk on the top floor. This was the stage for our Friday night show and also for the Saturday midnight jam with the Italian “Brothel Creepers” and all the other great bands who joined in for the Grande Finale.

Down below, in bright yellow, you can see us having sound-check for the Saturday night show in the main auditorium. See that great stage, the 1800 seats’ auditorium and that wonderful acoustic roof of the hall? We needed binoculars to see the sound engineer up there. Thankfully we had microphones, and we had to make full use of the camera zooms to get close-ups from the stage.

For us and our boys (James Rookyard on bass and Jake Brown on drums) it has been an absolute pleasure to sing and play for all the friends we had made the previous year at Beatle Week in Liverpool and for so many new fans who came to see us. The atmosphere was cheerful and everyone was in high spirits, singing and dancing along.

Thanks to everyone who came to chat and take photos with us after the shows, and also for taking our CDs and shirts home as souvenirs.

Those four days had been so full of action and great experiences. It felt like we’d been away for two weeks.

We want to thank all the organisers, the artistic director of the festival, their staff and helpers for their perfect preparations and on-site help. This couldn’t have been more enjoyable for us.

It was a delight to work with all the bands there, too. Apart from them being great musicians themselves, everyone was kind, helpful and humorous. No airs and graces, just one big family indulging in peace and love.

Through this festival we made lots of new friends and fans. We consider ourselves very lucky to have been a part of the whole event. We felt very honored as well, considering how the thing came about for us. In summer 2014 a big group of Finnish people (81) had visited International Beatle Week in Liverpool where they had seen us play many times. Apparently they had enjoyed our shows so much that they had asked the Tampere Beatles Happening organisers to book us the following year.

There’s nothing more to say other than thanks again and “kiitos paljon”!

Yours,Mona & Lisa