We gathered at the office at 4.15 PM to make sure everybody had their passport and visa. Both hands occupied we marched to the railway station where we ran into Arska Rautajoki and Costello Hautamäki from Popeda. They were heading for a concert somewhere and I was thinking to myself we are like 20 years younger and we´re taking our first steps here and those guys have been around for decades and they´re still one of the most successful bands in Finland. Hope we can do the same.


(Photo by Jyrkiwitch)

We arrived in Moscow at 8.25 on Saturday morning and when I stepped out of the train I couldn´t believe my eyes... There was more than a hundred fans running our way and we were treated with roses, gifts, vodka and some food and before we noticed we were sitting in three different cars on our way to our headquarter.


(Photo by Matti Lehtonen)

At 11 AM Alarik and I left for a TV interview (channel A1) with Masa. During the interview I was watching myself on the screen, live and I thought I looked stupid ;o) Anyway, I guess they played our video there and we had a lot of fun. Meanwhile, Aleksi and Paavo were doing interviews elsewhere.


(Photo by Kjusha)

At 2 PM Alarik, Masa and I arrived at the hall where the charity concert for homeless children was being held. Paavo told me they had had some problems. Here´s the thing: We promised to do this charity concert acoustically requiring that they bring two acoustic guitars for us and when Paavo saw those guitars he didn´t know what to say. One was okay but the other one was like a log with strings on it. Eventually they managed to get us a descent guitar and we were ready to go.


(Photo by Kjusha)

It was the first time a Finnish band do such a thing. We (Paavo and I) played four songs and during Wise Men Don´t Cry a little girl, maybe 4 years old walked on stage with a flower in her hand and neither of us knew what to do since we were in the middle of a song. You can actually see the clip on YouTube. She´s so cute.


(Photo by Jyrkiwitch)

Next, we headed for Zig Zag, a record store, to do a signing session and the place was packed. We had some more vodka, some more roses and more gifts and we were just thrilled to see so many people there. There was a funny incident when the owner of the place recognized Jyrki Witch (Two Witches) and started asking him what a fuck are you doing with these guys??? To him, Jyrki was a big star but for us he´s a friend.


(Photo by Matti Lehtonen)

At 9.30 PM Paavo and I arrived at another radio station. We did the craziest show ever! It was so hilarious. I even played Villiksi Syntynyt and Kovan Pojan Blues... songs that were made popular by Popeda.


(Photo by Matti Lehtonen)

Now, it was time to relax so we went to a club somewhere, took a table and started flipping out. Everybody else joined us there and we had so much fun. But to be honest everybody was too tired to get drunk so we drove back to our headquarter. Paavo and I never slept because there was a cat who kept us occupied.

Next day, the show day was absolutely fantastic. We played one hell of a show and the audience was great!!! I heard that one of the supports usually plays our songs among others but for some reason we didn´t hear Bloodpit that night. We had a train to catch so we left almost immediately after the show and when we got to the station, once again, there was tens of girls waiting for us and when we got in the train they started writing messages on our cabin windows and when the train took off they started running with the train. Crazy!!!


(Photo by Jyrkiwitch)


(Photo by Matti Lehtonen)


(Photo by Matti Lehtonen)


(Photo by Matti Lehtonen)

Once again, Moscow gave us a reason to go back.

Yours,
Matthau