#also if you feel like watching a fun music event my friends in the käärijä discord server are organising an alternative event

[jaarijani]

Is it weird that I still want to watch Eurovision tonight? It's only to see how everyone handles Joost being disqualified, Israel in general and the whole voting section (and for Norway, Croatia and Estonia, I love their entries).

Trust me, I understand why people will boycott it (and rightfully so), yet I still want to see how it all will go down (I won't vote, never have anyway).

It's not weird, it's like this giant blazing dumpsterfire: hard to look away.

For me it was very hard to decide to boycott because Eurovision has been such an important staple event for me for years, and this year for the first (and last) time ever I've been following every Eurovision development very closely from the very beginning. But watching the first semi filled me with so much guilt and shame, and watching the second wasn't enjoyable at all for me. So I finally decided not to watch the final, to boycott for real.

AND THEN the whole Joost ship came crashing down. And now I'm so very glad I don't have to watch this shit show anymore.

I understand wanting to watch the drama unfold and wanting to see how your faves do in the final, but I can assure you that it will not be a fair competition, and after the loss of so many viewers who have left because of Joost the results are very highly stacked in Israels favor. If you can I do want to urge you not to watch the final, don't give these people your money, and definitely do not vote.

You can read about all the drama later and I know of at least one person who will be streaming the final illegally tomorrow so you could watch that if you truly want to see. I can't stop you, but at this point it's just not worth it to watch.

[eteisvalssi]

ruisrock report 7.7.2024

i'm now back home from turku and what a weekend it was! here are some of my thoughts:

i was a volunteer at ruisrock. i did two 7,5 hour shifts checking other volunteers in and out of their shifts and it was so much fun! an easy job, i got to enjoy one full day and two partial days of the festival, i got free food on the two days i had a shift and would've gotten free accommodation too if i hadn't had one already. all worth it :)

i did go see artists other than joker out. my favorites were definitely fröbelin palikat and robin! fröbelin palikat is something the main target audience of ruisrock grew up listening to so it was very nostalgic and there were so many people and literally everyone dancing and singing along to children's music. and robin is just robin, an amazing performer and literally everyone knows his songs

even on our day off we could use the volunteer bus and the crew entrance, so we did, and went to teltta straight away to check the situation. my friend wanted to stay there to secure barricade, but i gave my spot to a girl who wanted to only see the first two acts there

we had the joblr meetup! i loved meeting you all, it was so much fun, and i hope to see you all soon <3 next meetup in slovenia during the balkan tour? 👀

the others went to see käärijä but i felt bad for my friend for disappearing for three hours so i went to the tent after pehmoaino and the girl who i mentioned earlier gave me the spot back!

we could hear käärijä a bit from the tent and it was nice to hear how loud the audience was when erika vikman and joost came on stage

next up in the tent was ege zulu, i only knew like two songs but oh my god his performance was so good! he's a rapper and he had like a show with a proper band and dancers. at one point he just started improvising and singing/talking directly to the audience members and giving compliments and he truly knew what part of the audience he had to win over bc yours truly got complimented on 😂

after ege zulu the first rows started filling up from joker out fans

next up was alok and speaking as a person who does study event management i feel like there might have been some misjudgement from ruisrock's part on the timetables, because the two front rows were really not feeling it and it was very awkward. it would've worked better with joker out having performed before, but of course i know nothing about what their reasoning was

the 1,5 hour wait for joker out went by so fast. we were listening to pmmp from the niitty stage and during their most-well-known songs everyone who knew them was singing along. because of that the vibe in the audience was so good even before the gig started

katri norrlin and this other guy from ylex came to introduce them and even at that people were screaming so fucking loud. i read from jodel that one security person went to get second earmuffs bc it was so loud

after they came on stage nace looked me straight in the eyes and waved at me even though i didn't wave at him like ok??

i don't feel like i've ever been at a more high-energy joker out concert than this. the audience was so loud through the whole concert, the tent was full of people and you could see they got so excited by it and went completely crazy themselves

this one was truly for the shippers of the fandom with just everything that happened on that day

i didn't even realize jere and the others were on the side watching the gig before vse kar vem and i only heard about joost also being there after the concert

seagulls had somehow found their way into the tent and one of them got really scared during šta bih ja and flew around for a while before flying backstage

didn't expect sunny side of london or bele sanje to be on the setlist, but i'm definitely not complaining. ssol was just perfect for this gig

i've taken a video of novi val from every single gig and i was kinda sad that they didn't do it this time, but i do also get why they ended with carpe diem

after the gig we went back to the centre of turku and had an afterparty with some mutuals at a grill kiosk <3

i feel like i've forgotten something but idk i'll add some stuff if i do remember what i had in mind. thanks for reading <3