The Grail
#49 – 2026 Aug 08 – Ilosaari, Joensuu
How do I even start this post?? I can't spoiler alert the title.
I’m there my usual hour before the gate opens, but I go inside the restaurant to get some coffee while I wait. There was apparently some dinner and show combo thing they had so a lot of the tables there had ”Reserved” signs on them. If you had the dinner service though, you’d miss the warmup act…
After finishing my coffee I went back outside to hover around the gate and soon a young-looking lady approached to ask if I was queuing.
(hovering includes peeking through the fence)
It was nice to have somebody to chat with at the front of the queue who was actually, like, more talkative and also not a rival. She recognized me from a couple of summers ago (when I still did the Viking costumes), and said that she'd only really been in the Facebook group for a year or so. Turns out that she knows Markus from the band because she was also in ornithology. So I guess he's the band's eastern Finland connection then. I told her about my quest and she was like "do you want me to message him about it" and I'm like if you want but I don't think it'll make a difference, I've bothered like half the band about this already and I'm probably 100% annoying by this point.
Sound check must have been super early because I'd missed it completely. The techs finish setting up and just my luck, the soundboard guy I talked to last time (his name is Ilkka, been ages since Senpai credited everyone from the stage so I had to look this up) happened to walk past, out the gate.
He saw me. "Mä muistan," he said. I remember.
Well that's one less thing I needed to do, since I intended to remind him anyway. But what did it mean he would do? I was like omg yes please ask please ask please ask
(More places should be so bold and take a stand)
The supporting band was Janne Suhonen & Surmanajajat and they were alright I guess? Reminded me of when Viikate was trying to sound (more) like Motörhead, tbh. So quite a different vibe.
The lady from the queue was up at the front with me, and had done up a big cloth banner ("Joensuu ♥ Vesterinen Yhtyeineen") that she wanted us to pull out for the last song. I can't tell if she's as crazy of a fan as I am (she goes to a lot of music gigs and has a whole side Insta just for those pictures) but I really do appreciate somebody else displaying this sort of youthful enthusiasm.
She was a little disappointed it didn't end up in the band's recap reel, but I explained that it's just really not their custom to spotlight fans (otherwise you'd think I'd have received a shoutout for my fan art by now). That said, she's a schoolteacher and probably speaking from experience to suggest that they could engage a younger audience if they acknowledged the ways people take part in fandom these days. Apparently iskelmä is becoming hip with the youth (again) (why not, it's fun music).
(what happened to Mikko's pink guitar??)
I previously said I'd take a selfie as a last resort sort of thing so I did. There weren't any groupies I recognized here (except merch guy, who, well, he's also there to work — AND!! I have been to more gigs than he has!!) so I did it myself
When the show was over, I immediately got moving to go to the sound booth as I said I would. But before I could even really move in that direction, I was ambushed by an old university acquaintance (who just ... knew where to find me, I wonder how /s). At the same time, Ilkka appeared as if from nowhere too. "Come with me." ("I have to go, this is really important," I told the other.) He whisked me past the barricade to where Senpai had just dodged behind one of the equipment trucks for a breather. I reflexively bowed with my hands together (maybe this is why sometimes people think I'm Thai, I have no idea where I got the habit from) and thanked him and handed my phone to one of the roadies and, well, here we are.
(friend says I look overwhelmed, I mean yes I was. It's not the perfect picture but it is like 99.9% given the circumstances.)
He needed to run off so that was all. I was backstage for literally at most one minute: consider the following timestamps. It's two and a half minutes between the moment they lined up to bow three times and leave the stage, the exit music to finish playing, and me getting that photo.
It happened so quickly that my brain barely registered it was happening. I'm not the kind of person who screams a lot but when I came back to this side and found my acquaintance again I definitely screamed a lot. (She kept telling her friends about my covers so I started singing a little bit and appear to have turned some nearby heads.)
(this is my barely-containing-my-screaming face)
Coda?
From the moment last summer when I decided to make this outfit, the singular thing that I absolutely wanted to get out of it more than anything else was a side by side photo. I knew it was going to be difficult, but I didn't think it'd be this hard. You have read here of all the tears I've shed praying, begging, shouting, and everything in between, cursing my luck and wondering if I'd spoiled all my chances at good will, for something that he himself would tell me he'd no objection to, and only lacking a way to practically arrange it.
But then you catch the right person's eye and you tell them and they maybe also sense your desperation, and know it is within their ability to do something about it...
I'm not retiring the outfit just yet, I'm just going to be more selective where I wear it to and use the budget version more often, and maybe even wrap it in different styles. I'll also have a new one for the fall (but not so special as to need to go through this all over again)
P.S. Still up for debate: which of my shades of purple is closer? (From the right angle and light either can be.)
Merch (table) update
I don't remember if I've mentioned that there's now a notebook where you can leave messages for the band. This can only be a good thing, so people don't have to feel so disappointed when they have something they want to tell them but can't actually get to speak to them. I wrote a suggestion about meet and greets but somebody remind me to write in about whether they could do a piano songbook.
(Merch guy caught me in the picture of the merch tent after I wrote in the notebook)
Now I have three bracelets, help (But like I get it, offering a narrow version is a smart idea since wide bracelets don't look good on everybody. I'm not sure how often I'd actually wear it: it's currently on my shrine instead of in the accessories corner with the other two.)
Viimeinen
Två on kolme
Pitää sanoo ei
Antaisin kai mitä vaan
Kolme hyvää vinkkiä
Tummilla teillä
Nuoriherra
Paremman puutteessa
Kuinka lotto voitetaan
Rodeo
Kukaan ei koskaan
Muista hengittää (I'm really drawn to this type of very very minimalist song. Like, besides the middle "you've got 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' on your mind again" section which I have yet to learn, this is essentially a melody and a bass line.)
Reppana
Turisti
Pöllöille kyytiä
Kohti sydänpeltoja
// Hetken ikuinen
// Ei voittajaa
// Onnellinen mies
[Concert write-up archive and master calendar]
