17:55 Pierce yourself

A poet dresses himself with moonlight, a journalist with a watch and a rock fan...well, tattoos and piercings. So that you don't have to wander around the festival site naked, Ilosaari has many booths where you can purchase various trinkets and pictures. Angel Tattoo & Piercing from Kuopio are doing only piercings though as keeping new tattoos in the festival enviroment is not easy and not a good idea.

Marianne from Angel says the trends in piercings have changed.

"Tongue and lip piercings are the most popular", she says and ads that that was the case in Provinssirock (another big Finnish festival) as well.

She's been doing piercings at music festivals for ten years and mentions that naval, eye brow and other kind of "retro" piercings used to be much more popular.

And no wonder lip piercings are the most wanted, they're relatively easy to keep clean. Marinne will cover the fresh piercing with a kind of shield though if the customer wants.

It's busy at the booth. Apart from the hasty ones who wanted piercings as soon as the day broke people wonder in and buy new jewellery for their old piercings as well.

One thing they won't do is pierce a drunken person. That's why the guys who have had a drink and think "Oh, I know..." and want the more, um, sensitive parts pierced can still walk properly after the festival.

Teppo Koskinen
Translation: Lärwi xxx

Back