Maryland is one of the festival bands that hail from Joensuu, but don't think for a moment that this is just another average local band that was booked in mainly because they've got some friend of a friend in the festival organisation. In fact, among serious pop fans Maryland has long been known to be one of the most promising bands in Finland. Although the members had no previous band experience when Maryland was born in 2000, they only needed to play two gigs in order to get their first Ilosaarirock show as well as a record deal. Their first album Rob and Jones Classic (2002) was selected by Finland's largest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat as one of the six best pop/rock/jazz albums released that year, and another critically acclaimed album Almond of Life saw the light of the day in 2004.
It is very fashionable indeed these days to mix disco with guitar pop. But Maryland was there already long before Franz Ferdinard had learned to spell their own name correctly. Maryland throws in Morricone-style soundtrack music, some Spaghetti Western guitars and 70's style handbag disco and, despite the occasional tearjerker piece, spices it all up with an unashamedly vivacious attitude. Especially worth mentioning is the singer Ville Härkönen, whose voice is simply spectacular, and who has also played numerous solo gigs where cover versions selected with care and taste find their place among compositions from Maryland's set list.
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