Raskasta Joulua @ Vaakuna, Mikkeli 11.12.2009

We saw the Raskasta Joulua (Heavy Christmas) tour in Mikkeli on our way to the Winner and Nordic Winner dog shows in Helsinki. I’m just now getting around to publishing the pictures since I originally promised the promoter to wait for band approval to publishing the shots. Since I haven’t heard anything from the band in over two months, I’m going ahead and publishing them.

The concept was created by one of the guitarists (Erkka Korhonen) and started by recording an album with slightly heavier versions of many well known Christmas songs. The vocalists were collected from various bands, with Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot) being the most famous.

Two albums have come out (which find their way onto our CD player and MP3 rotation around Christmas) and they’ve since toured several times. The vocalist line-up changes from gig to gig depending on prior commitments etc. The night we saw them the vocalists were Marco Hietala, Tommi Salmela (Tarot), Ari Koivunen (Idols-winner, Amoral), Antony Parviainen (Machine Men), and Ilja Jalkanen (Kiuas).

The band itself isn’t exactly composed of newcomers either. Most of the musicians are seasoned studio musicians if they aren’t in fairly known bands – the drummer is in Thunderstone. A long instrumental and two guitarists gave several chances for shots of the musicians and guitar hero poses.

All in all the gig was really good even if some of the vocalists weren’t exactly in the best possible condition :)

Of course, we got to hear Ilja Jalkanen perform Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer… And as always, more pictures in our gallery.

P.S. At one point the banister between the stage and me (which prevented more than one good shot) was Marco’s stoop. The following picture was shot straight up from where I was standing…