Saturday afternoon by the Rento Stage

It is Saturday afternoon and festival goers bask in the sun near the Rento Stage with groovy rhythms providing the background. On the grassy field I meet Suvi and Tara who have arrived all the way from Tampere for their first Ilosaarirock experience. The girls dig into their festival dishes and tell me between bites that they go to a festival about once a summer. This year they chose Ilosaarirock, because they wanted to get a taste of what a larger festival has to offer.

Ilosaarirock’s relaxed reputation had also weighed heavily in their decision. The girls had already experienced this chillaxedness first-hand in the camping area, where much fun is always had. When asked about the acts they anticipate the most these two single out Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät and Rytmihäiriö. Tara’s best festival memory involves an incident at Madrid’s Sonisphere where two of their friends went missing. Luckily, after only a moment’s search the missing buddies were found among the crowd as Tara got the idea to jump on a Spanish gentleman’s shoulders to survey the masses from higher up.

Eelis, Aki, Jussi and Jopi all hail from Helsinki and they are spending their afternoon by the Rento Stage waiting for Loost Koos to come on. This is the group’s second trip to Ilosaarirock and the reasons they’re here include joyous atmosphere, great festival arrangements, and the fact that “everybody’s here”, for people from all over head to Joensuu come Ilosaarirock-time. The boys from Helsinki also name Pertti Kurikan nimipäivät as one of their top picks, together with Loost Koos and Finntroll. Finntroll is a special favourite of theirs, and the guys expect the band to put on a tremendous show. When I asked them about their most memorable festival experience, I was told with a laugh that there aren’t enough pages in my puny notepad to capture it. They continue to chuckle and agree to give me a second most memorable experience, a story about how, during last summer’s Ilosaarirock, they painted a guy blue with spray paint.

Text: Tiia Heikkinen
Photos: Lauri Hämäläinen
Translation: Jyrki Laitinen