Tag Archives: Arcen

“What I Did On My Trip To Elfia Arcen”
by Niilo Sirola / Greenrose Faire

It’s now one week until Elfia Haarzuilens and it’s time to start putting my gear together, figuring out what to fit in the restricted amount of baggage I can take on the plane, let alone what clothing to pack. Instead, I find myself browsing the photos from Elfia Arcen last September and going through my notes and memories, as I seem to have promised to write a travel journal from the artist’s point of view for CeltCast. So what better way to prepare for what will surely be one more weekend to remember…
I’ll leave the description of the wonderful atmosphere, the sights, sounds and costumes to others, and instead try to give a glimpse into an ordinary – yet extraordinary – day in musician’s life.

Once upon a time, Greenrose Faire was offered a gig in the Elf Fantasy Festival in Arcen, on the strict condition that we bring the travelling harmonium along. This was a big thing for us for a couple of reasons. Firstly it would be the farthest from home we’ve gone as a band, and also what looks like the biggest stage for us yet. Secondly, whatever genre our music might represent, the heart of that scene is undoubtedly in The Netherlands so it’s a great pleasure to play there.

And thirdly, it would be the first gig where we can’t just rent a minibus and bring all our usual gear, starting from the drum set, amps, instruments, backup instruments, backups for the backup instruments (just kidding), the banners, flags, barrels and the green-stuff for the stage, the merchandise tent and tables and chairs to go with it, camping equipment, etc. Instead, we were to travel on one of those flying tubular things, with combined amount of 31 kg of gear per person, so a total of about 250 kg for the lot of us. It looked like a pretty tight squeeze! (Although after this computation I start to wonder how many kilos of stuff our usual load is..) The drum set and bass amp were just impossible and we’d have to ask to borrow them on location, Pete had to leave the other keyboards behind, spare instruments could not be spared, and of course almost all of the decorations was out as well. The backdrop banner with our bonfire artwork we at least managed to squeeze in one of the suitcases. Then there was still the two-hour trip from home to the airport in Helsinki, and again from Düsseldorf airport to Arcen. There was no easy way of renting a van or minibus in Düsseldorf end, so we booked two station wagons from airport car rental instead.

For some reason I left booking the flights a bit late, and come July the direct flights were already so pricey that we had to find an alternate route. To absolutely minimize the risk of our baggage getting lost or delayed, we picked flights with a generous 4 hour changeover time in Oslo.

When the day got closer, there arose a little matter of a general strike in Finland planned for the day we were supposed to fly out. It was in the news for a couple of weeks before, causing us some amount of nail-biting, and planning alternate routes (anyone for a 42-hour ride by minibus through Sweden, Denmark and Germany?). In the end, the strike stopped only the buses, which did not affect us (although we stopped for a coffee on the way at the same time as a bus-load of people on strike on their way to a demonstration in Helsinki), and grounded Finnair’s flight for a couple of hours, which luckily was not our carrier this time.

FRIDAY

So all fair and well, we roll out from Tampere at 6 am with the band reinforced with our sound-man Pauli (who would be mostly focusing on photography this time) and our merchs lady Laura. We find the airport almost deserted, and get through the formalities in a flash (even though Tomi, Hanna and Pauli are picked out for extra inspection) and arrive at the gate almost 2 hours too early. We get to spy through the window as our instrument cases get gently loaded onto the plane, and the flight takes off exactly in time.

On the plane, after the obligatory group photos, I immerse myself again to study Dutch on my phone (with Duolingo) and pretty much master the phrase ”Excuse me, I am an apple”. I suppose a situation may arise where I’ll need that.

The stopover in Oslo is uneventful. We try to find the awfully expensive beer they are supposed to have in Norway, but have to settle for almost reasonably priced pints. Don’t see the baggage get loaded on the plane this time but hope ours was still in tow.


Arrival in Düsseldorf gets bit more exciting about at the moment that it is clear that our instruments are not going to appear on the baggage conveyor belt. So, walk about a kilometre to the inquiries desk, and then walk back about a kilometre to the shady corner where the special baggage is dumped. Luckily all our gear is there, and I tear open by bouzouki case and all the fillings to check that nothing indeed has broken. So far so good.

The rental cars turn out to be brand new, shiny black, with darkened windows, cockpits like those of a space shuttle, and with less than 50km on the odometer between them. And apparently all the stuff that had no problem fitting into our own two car’s trunks on the way to the airport in Finland has somehow grown in size during the trip and does not agree at all with the dimensions of these space shuttles. After a bit of Tetris with large and bulky blocks, everyone and everything is finally fully inside the vehicles – although not exactly comfortable – and then it is 5 floors down the spiralling driveway from the parking house, honorary laps around Düsseldorf central while the in-car GPS tries to decide where it wants us to go, until finally we are on the autobahn leading towards The Netherlands.


At this point we notice the world has started to drift towards the medieval times already, as our cell phones all lost reception on the road. We can’t get calls through from one car to another and even text messages don’t go through. Without homing pigeons on hand, it’s down to driving in close convoy, but fortunately Pauli’s lead car has pretty fancy shaped tail lights so it is easy to pick out in the traffic.

The crossing over from Germany to The Netherlands is marked only by a welcome sign on the roadside, and as the night gets darker, the roads gets smaller, until we arrive at our assigned lodging. Upon entering we are promptly offered free beer by a jovial gentleman we later learn is “The Professor” who apparently has been involved in Elfia since the dawn of times. A more pressing matter however is finding something to eat and perhaps doing some advance scouting of the festival and stage area.

There is no food to be had in the hostel at this hour and we are directed to an alehouse along the road. Arriving there, they too have already closed their kitchen, but give directions to the village (”go that way and you can’t miss it”). We don’t – no thanks to the received directions but rather to Google maps – and enter the first establishment that looks like there could be hot food in it. Again no luck there, and new set of directions to a restaurant they guess should be open. Eventually we do not find that one either, but instead there is a Turkish 24/7 fast food place wherein I use my new-found Dutch skills to point at a food on the menu. I’m not sure if most of the conversation actually was in English, Dutch, German or some other language, but it does the trick and gets me probably the best Turkish food ever in my memory. When we are about to leave, they learn we are from Finland so they promptly wish us good night – in Swedish. Well close enough.

The walk back to the hostel takes us past the gates of Elfia. In the darkness beyond the gates, a sound check of sorts is going on, with a lonesome electric guitarist having a go at Slayer’s Reign in Blood.

…to be continued tomorrow…

“What I Did On My Trip To Elfia Arcen”
by Niilo Sirola / Greenrose Faire

It’s now one week until Elfia Haarzuilens and it’s time to start putting my gear together, figuring out what to fit in the restricted amount of baggage I can take on the plane, let alone what clothing to pack. Instead, I find myself browsing the photos from Elfia Arcen last September and going through my notes and memories, as I seem to have promised to write a travel journal from the artist’s point of view for CeltCast. So what better way to prepare for what will surely be one more weekend to remember…
I’ll leave the description of the wonderful atmosphere, the sights, sounds and costumes to others, and instead try to give a glimpse into an ordinary – yet extraordinary – day in musician’s life.

SATURDAY

After a trying night (there is no cell coverage within the rooms either so one has to go into the lobby to get some), we are up at 7 AM to catch a quick breakfast before heading to the castle grounds. As we are the first band of the day, we are allowed a proper sound check first thing in the morning before the gates officially open, so we’re in a hurry to make the most out of it.

We get in through the side gate and back way to the backstage area, which is somewhat bigger and better organised than what we’re used to. The stage manager Steef takes us in his office for a quick run-down of the day’s schedule. Then we have the main stage to ourselves for a while. It turns out not to be quite as large as in the specifications because the sides are taken up by the massive stacks of loudspeakers hidden behind curtains with big steam-punk machinery painter on, complete with ambient machine noises and a puff of smoke now and then. Just as well, and even if there’s lots of room on the stage, I like to set up at about similar distances as we have at our practice room. I have a theory about that involving the speed of sound across the mutual distances (but let’s leave it to another time).

As ordered, there is a drum kit for us, but it is in a box, disassembled to the last nut and bolt, so Tomi has some quality time putting it back together. Pete and Tomi set their respective shops up on risers that can be wheeled on and off the stage as whole, so that certainly speeds the entrances and exists. After plugging in about the three hundred required cables and making sure everything is plugged where it ought to, it’s nice to have time for a proper sound check, that is to play bit of different songs and make sure everyone hears themselves and the others in right proportions, and that everything sounds good on the stage monitors.

I’m still mystified how the sound of my bouzouki seems to acquire an unpleasant klang after going through the PA, and how it’s possible that it is different sort of ringing each time, so there’s a bit of fiddling with knobs and levers to tame that out for the day’s needs. While sound check is essential to getting the sound we like and to being comfortable on the stage, this is probably not very entertaining to watch so we are glad to be able to do this before the gates opened and the people are in. This time at least on the stage everything ended up sounding brilliant, and we finish about 10 minutes past the opening of the gates but well in time to get off the stage before the official program began. Then it’s fingers crossed that each cable and knob and fader stays about at the same place until it’s time for us to start our show…

There is a couple of hours of spare time which goes by quickly while strolling around looking at things, and shopping for a spare shirt I could use on stage. Tomi found a flashy buckle for his cloak and had the merchant sew it on for the same price. As more and more people are strolling through the grounds in most elaborate fantasy and sci-fi costumes, it is very strange to feel even under-dressed in my stage clothes. Usually it’s the other way around. The day’s weather is turning out to be a bit damp and the ground muddy and my pointy shoes don’t appear to be exactly waterproof, so I’m happy to know I have a change of shoes in the back.

Wandering back to the backstage area through a well-hidden crack in the surrounding fence (and trying not to wake up the dog who lay sleeping across the opening), I find that our first set is to be a full hour long instead of the 45 minutes we have prepared for, so Tomi and Salla are at work revising the song list. It was of course already carefully clocked to exactly 45 minutes, down to the detail of shortening the intros of some songs here and there, but never mind about that.


We have the use of a booth next to the stage for selling our CDs from one hour before our show to one hour after it, so it has to be set up as well. We had dedicated only one piece of luggage for merchandise, so it is a bit reduced selection today, and of course lot less decoration than what we’d like. I notice there’s a bit of language confusion if I greet people with “Hi” because they think I said “Hoi” in Dutch and the next few lines after that involve negotiation on the language in which to conduct the rest of the conversation. Pauli is setting up one of his cameras on a stand to video the wide shot of the gig and gave me a GoPro camera to set somewhere on the stage. I set up a separate recording device for audio next to the camera. I like to record as many of the gigs as I remember, and even most of our rehearsals.


Finally, the time comes to jump on the stage for our first gig. Our usual 2-minute intro tape has marks for us to enter the stage just at the right time so that there isn’t too much standing around and fiddling before the first song starts. However, our coordination with the announcer wasn’t too clear, so he announces us on the stage before the intro rolls, so of course we have to walk in and then stand around for the duration of the intro tape. At about this point I remember that I’ve forgotten all about the GoPro. Also right from the start there is some strange constant feedback on stage that wasn’t there during the sound check and I try to convey this fact to the monitor mixer by pantomime with my head and eyes. On top of that, there’s the little fact that I’m still on antibiotics riding down a pneumonia so I have to push my act up to about 110% to compensate. I end up playing the full intro for The Tavern that was supposed to be shortened. But at least the rain lets down a bit and the sun even makes an appearance during the gig. Also, there is remarkable amount of photographers pointing their tubes our way through the whole show.

After the last song and the customary quick bow to the audience, I turn back to find my pedals and all have disappeared from the stage. The breakdown of our set-up is really efficient by the stage crew, and for once I feel I’m just in the way. After rediscovering my gear behind the stage and a quick pow-wow agreeing to use the shorter version of the intro tape for the rest of the shows, it is again a couple of hours’ break before the second show of the day.

…to be continued tomorrow…