#a little bit less mixed with the experiences comparred to backas and allas

[mitamicah]

Gig Report: Ruisrock Festival July 7 2024

Sunday July 7 2024:

Here follows my experiences with Käärijä and Joker Out at Ruisrock Festival, Roussalo Turku on July 7 2024.

To make a long story short me and @jaarijani had decided to camp at Rossallo camping (the officially camping site of the festival) which gave us a lot of grievances so we'd only put our tents up a bit after midnight the day before. None of us had good quality tents and it was said to rain early morning sunday.

I had had a few drops of rain pierce the tent when it began raining at 5 am while poor Cass had had her tent soaked! Safe to say we were not happy campers when security and police went around asking us to put our tents down or fasten it closer to the ground since the weather had warned against strong winds.

We went searching for a charger and I saw a helicopter take off at one point (that I later learned very possibly was the very same helicopter that had Käärijä, Häärijä and Joost in it!!!).

We went to the festival grounds with one of the earliest busses at 12 to meet up with @teal-skull, our saviour, that had brought us breakfast (not the last time they’d save our behinds). When entering the festival grounds, we quickly went to queue for Käärijä that’ll be the second act on the mainstage after Blind Channel (flashback to my birthday concert!). We got to meet whole new sets of people that I haven’t seen in ages (hi @i-wasnt-ready-for-this! Hi @korre!) or never interacted with in public before such as my fellow Bojere QPR shipper @flananjan and – I am still sort of awestruck about this one – @lemon-h4!! I had not made stickers today, so I drew quick doodles for everybody on post it notes. @carpblu had made me Häärijä-Hojan-Hoost bracelets and @formulalakana a Denmark Guy one (for context I recommend checking out my gig repport for Backas) and I honestly treasure these so much!!!

I was pleasantly (with capital P) surprised and relieved with how well the queueing went for Käärijä – the security respected our number system and let us into the limbo space first. Here we watched Jesse while screaming along to HHH and Rouska played from a little speaker. Then the security would follow us using tape (so nobody could run) to the barricade in groups of 40-50 people at a time. Having number 34 I managed to get barricade at one of Finland’s biggest festivals(pictured) next to Skull, Aniina, Cass, Caro and Bendo.

Käärijä made another homerun show especially lifted by having Erika Vikman join for Rouska and later Joost join for the first ever performance of Trafik! (me and Bendo had been wondering why Häärijä wear a blue suit out loud and only conclude that maybe we’d see Joost a second before the backtrack began playing). I filmed the whole chaos yet given I was just behind the photographer I didn’t get all the best angles but it was still so much fun!! (Only soured by an entitled teenager ripping the setlist out of the hands of the person that had actually been handing the setlist and then the teenager’s mother shouting at Caro for calling her daughter out).

After that amazing experience we went to join the already assembling Joker Out crowd in the tent and unfortunately that meant being present at this horrible DJ set (I tried to make a joke at one point asking if this was the music straight people were into) the insulted my insights. After that and because I may not have eaten enough during the day I hit the wall and my blood sugar drained drastically, so I had to sit down. Cass went to ask for some water by who ended up being Vita (Cass didn’t realise not even when she was interviewed about ŠBJ which made them way calmer than they’d been otherwise). I tried my best to drink the water (it was sparkling, and I hate sparkling water with a passion) and got some glucose from Cass yet I still feared I may pass out. But as soon Joker Out went on, I felt instantly better (probably the dopamine) and enjoyed the rest of the concert just fine.

I had surprisingly a lot of voice left, and I am 80% sure I caught Bojan’s eyes at a few points. What I otherwise remember the best was the poor bird flying terrified around in the tent like a moth to a window and Bojan talking to the bird with a heartbreakingly tender voice (before jokingly saying he just pretended to talk to the bird to catch his breath). The setlist was great although in retrospect I missed Novi Val and of course Bluza, my beloved. I later learned that had I been more center or placed on the right side of the stage I could’ve witnessed Bojan hugging Jere at one point (all I saw was Häärijä’s yellow hoodie walking across backstage just before SSOL).

 I will say with both Joker Out and Käärijä I enjoyed their festival performances but missed the connection that you find at the smaller shows, so I am not sure I will go to many more festival gigs with them in the future.

Just before Joker Out had begun their set, I’d incidentally become keeper of @pianist-chan ’s book of memories so I’d had it in my back during the show. I didn’t realize at first why my bag was so light all of a sudden until it struck me, I’d missed the book (still feel horrible about that). This would turn out not to be the only bit of unluck we had this evening since Cass and I was ditched by the busses again, almost scammed by scammy taxies, had to walk down to the truck area to even find a yellow vest to ask for help before going to the camp site, packing our stuff and throwing out our tents in rage. Luckily for us we were able to find a solution making it so we didnt have to sleeping at the camp another night.

Trinkets from Ruisrock v

Camping bracelet

Baby Boo bracelet (not sure who gave me this so please let me know if it was you or you know who it was <3)

Demoni Scream bracelet from @glossykris

Bluza and Slaypose bracelets from @formulalakana

Häärijä-Hojan-Hoost bracelets from @carpblu

Denmark Guy and Are You bracelets (also) from @formulalakana

Clown Bojan and Clown Jere stickers from @i-wasnt-ready-for-this

Bojan drawing from @jaarijani

Jere drawing from @lemon-h4

Bojan drawing from @arachn11da

Khäärijä sticker and Bojere drawing from @flananjan

Bojan (in Malmö :3) card from Elmi (not sure if you are on tumblr)

Joker Out Ruisrock sticker from @korre