Back in 2007, the first Karjurock was a local festival with a few hundred visitors, held on a farm. Today it's still held on the same farm but the number of visitors is counted in thousands. It's still very much a gathering of the local people, although it draws a lot of guests from all over south-west Finland too. For us, it meant driving around 100 kilometres a day, time- and fuel-consuming bu it was worth it.

Karjurock, like many other mainstream festivals of its' size, relied on domestic artists this year. It's always nice to see some international stars on festivals, but with all the costs increasing I suppose they're harder to book these days. Besides, the domestic artists draw a lot of people, even though the many of the artists appear on all the festivals. Karjurock did have some Finnish artists with an international status though: The 69 Eyes, Michael Monroe and the re-union of two former Nightwish members, Tarja Turunen and Marko Hietala. Their gig was a one-off in Finland as far as I know. Later this year they'll be on tour together in Europe.

The actual Karjurock festival took place on a weekend (19-20.7. 2024), but on previous wednesday there was a family-oriented Pikkukarju pre-show that included some football matches, a tivoli and a show by Käärijä. As you might know, he almost won the Eurovision Song Contest last year. He won the public vote but the jury votes were on Loreen's side. Käärijä's career took off like a rocket, and became a household name in Finland almost overnight. The "green fever" isn't showing any signs of slowing down if the attendance of this gig is anything to go by, the field was packed with kids and their families. Käärijä's shortish set was well planned, almost every song had something special going on: his sidekick Häärijä wore different outfits, the dancers danced, the video screen was in good use... for an old-school guy like me the lack of "live" elements was maybe a bit strange, but at least one of Käärijä's minions did play some guitar on many of the songs. Käärijä himself is a likeable character and a good entertainer. There seems to be room for spontaneity, as for "Ruoskaa" he invited a young boy from the audience to sing it with him. A wonderful memory for the young dude, for sure. A new, unreleased song called "People's Champion" was played, and it sounded like a hit, with cheerfully odd lyrics. The best received songs were "It's Crazy It's Party" and of course the ESC banger "Cha Cha Cha".

On Friday we arrived to the area just in time to see a couple of songs by VIIVI, a young singer who released her first and so far only album in 2022. She has scored a few major hits and we managed to catch two of those, "Mitä Näil Korteil Saa" and "USA". Thumbs up for Viivi for having a full band, and I thought she sounded good live, edgier than on studio recordings.

There were two stages next to each other, and when the music stopped on the big one, another artist started playing on the small stage. RUST'N RAGE, the hard rock band signed to Frontiers Records began their second set of the day right after Viivi's show. Kicking off with my favourite song of theirs, "Prisoner", they played a good set, mostly songs from the "One For The Road" album and a well recieved cover of Guns 'n Roses' "Nightrain". Vocalist Vince did his best to engage the crowd and somewhat succeeded, even though some of the Karjurock crowd was already quite wasted and not in a responsive mood. The 90's disco on the other side of the area appealed more to many people as well. The band had one trick which woke up some of the zombies, a song called "Alcohol", with a chorus of "alcohol! alchohol!" a surefire hit on a festival like this! A special mention must go to the drummer Jezzie, who was a real whirlwind behind his kit, admirable dedication to showmanship!

MICHAEL MONROE is a living legend, a Rock icon. He may have not sold millions of records but his influence on the rock scene cannot be denied. His career has had a lot of ups and downs, but it seems that the last few years have been quite stable. The Michael Monroe band - Steve Conte and Rich Jones on guitars, Karl Rockfist on drums and ex-Hanoi Rocks bassist Sami Yaffa is a world-class rock band that has reached a solid status, and the legacy of Hanoi Rocks keeps on growing. What's more, Michael is 62 years old but still a force of nature. One of those "rock vampires" I've mentioned before, he doesn't seem to age.

"Dead, Jail or Rock'n Roll" was the opening track of the set, a classic (and only) track from the "Not Fakin' It" album. Then the band concentrated on newer Michael Monroe material. Monroe himself was all over the place, on top of the speakers, hanging himself with the microphone cord, climbing the stage structure, shaking hands with the crowd on the barricade, changing headgear for almost every song...

Two songs from the cult classic "Demolition 23" band were also in the set, "Nothing's Alright" and my personal fave "Hammersmith Palais". Of course, a couple of Hanoi songs had to be played, and this time they were "Malibu Beach Nightmare", "Don't You Ever Leave Me" and "Up Around The Bend", which closed the set. Even though it's a CCR cover, most Finns associate it with Hanoi Rocks, the band made it their own.

Next on the second stage was a real blast from the bast, Finnish rock band SKÄDÄM. Their rise to fame took place in 1985, when they won a band competition a got signed to a major label. They released one album, "Mustat Joutsenet" which sold reasonably well and contained a few hits. The broke up in 1987, and only played an occasional gig every now and then until 2018, when they announced their return. A few singles have been released since then.

Karjurock got a shortened set from the band, probably because of vocalist Frogley's flu. He soldiered on through the songs bravely and although somewhat struggling, sounded pretty good. The band's set was also plagued by some technical issues, non-working monitors and almost inaudible keyboards , but they handled them quite well.

Half of the band are original members, while the three others are newer additions to the line-up. On guitar the band has Daffy Terävä, formely of Yö. Bassist Miikka Salonen is a younger guy with a rock star look and poses, while the keyboard player Juha Kinnunen is "the only capable musician in the band", according to the sarcastic Frogley.

The band played only songs from the aforementioned album, including their biggest hit, a ballad called "Katujen Kuningatar". Over the years, the song has been covered by a couple of other artists and it has reached a new level of popularity, one could call it a classic these days. Sure enough, it drew more people towards the stage. A very uptempo version of their another hit "Älä Lähde Pois" closed the set. Yeah, this was a trip down the memory lane and a good one!

A really impressive looking stage set had been built to the main stage for YÖ and JP Leppäluoto. This requires a short history lesson for our international readers: since the eighties, YÖ has been one of the biggest bands in Finland with their melancholic, melodic rock songs sung in Finnish. The band has gone through a lot, highs and lows, series of line-up changes and ultimately, the death of the band leader, vocalist Olli Lindholm which almost put an end to their story a few years ago. Many people do think that it should have ended there and then, calling this current formation a cash-in.

The lead singer in this version of YÖ is JP Leppäluoto, who's known as a metal singer. He's sung in Charon, The Northern Kings and Raskasta Joulua project among others. The rest of the band consists of the 2017-2019 line-up. Former band members, bassist/singer Jay Lewis and guitarist Daffy Terävä (who's in Skädäm these days) were special guests. Lewis sang lead on two songs and shared vocals with JP on one song.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this formation, but I was positively surprised. The band sounded tight and as majestic as their massive stage structure demanded. Apart from Leppäluoto and rhythm guitarist Jari Latomaa the band was kind of statue-like, but strangely that matched the majestic vibe! I've liked YÖ since I was a kid, I think they were the first band I ever saw live actually, and not for a second I thought this was a "cash-in" or a "karaoke version". Naturally the current members want to make a living playing music, it's understandable, but they're also doing something that the people obviously want - playing these modern-day evergreens for them. Are they a tribute band? Maybe, but they are playing these songs very well, the arrangements are powerful and both JP and Jay Lewis are more than cabable to sing these songs. I enjoyed this set a lot!

There was one artist left for the Friday evening, a pop singer called ABREU, but we had to head back home because of other obligations. Apparenty her show was a good one, I've seen some photos and it looked like a spectacle.

Thanks to the aforementioned obligations, our visit on saturday was a fairly short one. We made it to the site just in time to see VAASA PALAA play their final song of the set. They call themselves as "the lightest heavy metal band in Finland" or something like that. I don't know, they were pretty heavy, and packed all kinds of styles to that last 4 four minutes of theirs. A lot of energy, rehearsed stage moves and matching pink t-shirts (!) , clean vocals, growling, rap... interesting, to say the least.

The re-union of two NIGHTWISH members, original lead singer TARJA TURUNEN and bassist/singer MARKO HIETALA was one of the biggest draws of the festival. Backed by Tarja's live band, this was more like a TARJA gig with Marko as special guest, although he was on stage for about half of the set. The first three songs were Tarja's solo material, fairly well recieved but when Marko joined her and they kicked off Nightwish classic "Dead To The World", there was magic in the air.

The new duet "Left On Mars" was also played and Marko share vocals on a couple of Tarja originals, "Dark Star" and "Dead Promises". It was the double shot of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom Of The Opera" and "I Wish I Had An Angel" which really got the crowd going and singing along though, both major Nightwish numbers from the "Once" album.

After a few more Tarja's solo songs, Marko returned to the stage for "Over The Hills And Far Away", the Gary Moore-cover which was one of the first mainstream hits for Nightwish.

Just like the previous night, we had to miss the last band HALOO HELSINKI as real life called. What I've heard, their gig was a good one, at least one friend who wasn't a fan before was fairly impressed. I wonder whether that could have happened to me as well, I've never been into them...

Karjurock has definitely a vibe of its' own, it's as much a local get-together as it is a music festival. There were a lot of people outside the gates just hanging around, even in the parking lots a few hundred metres away. I can't tell how many of these people actually had tickets to the festival, some of them were probably just enjoying the athmosphere. Then again, thanks to the wristbands people were able to come and go as they pleased, and I'm sure many had stocked their cars with drinks, so they didn't have to pay the festival prices. Compared to some other festivals, the number of very drunk people was probably a bit higher, but we didn't see any fights or other nasty situations. Despite some signs, the "no smoking" policy wasn't really enforced, people were smoking where ever they wanted. Despite its' size, the festival feels kind of "home-grown", laid-back. Nothing wrong with that.

Review by Kimmo Toivonen
Photos by Mira Suutari-Toivonen

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