trashfest trashfest 3 - helsinki

04 March

This year’s Trashfest, normally held at Helsinki’s Gloria club, was to be held at Nosturi instead. Gloria, however, still played host to the kick-off party that had been organized on the Thursday evening. Several line-up changes must have caused a few temporary headaches for the organisers, but it all got sorted in the end and this year’s trashy proceedings got started with a DJ set from Erotic Juliet, along with Darin from Dope Stars Inc, followed by the first band, hometown Helsinki’s Crystal Rain. Sadly our flight didn’t get us here in time to see the goth rockers open up Trashfest 2010.

We were, however, there for the rather splendid Midnight Cowboys, who had come from Sweden to play the pre-party in place of the missing Sexydeath. Favourite live songs such as Lost Again and Misery sat side by side with several new songs such as N.M.E. and My Generation as the dirty rough and ready Swedes with rock star names, low slung guitars, leathers, eyeliner, tattoos and bandanas sleazed their way through the set, along with a little help from Sexydeath’s Goran, into the hearts of the expectant audience.

Spiritraiser from Finland were up next, with the girlies immediately swooning over singer Jaakko who’s your classic Finnish rock star singer; very Valo-esque. Musically a little too dreamy and mesmerizing for me in paces. I prefer my bands rocking and sleazy, not prog rock stoner anthems, but that’s just my preference. Jaako’s voice soared along with the heady pounding bass and the audience loved it.

Back to the more sleaze punk genre next with more Swedes, the Göteborg-based Baby Jane who remind me of the older Vains of Jenna in style and sound. They don’t always have the strongest of songs if you compare them with the likes of Hardcore Superstar, but definitely have the sleaze rock image off to a fine art. And they delivered an intense catchy-ish set with passion that couldn’t be faulted for effort and enthusiasm. Bass player Manx, baseball hat worn to the side, was particularly bouncing off the walls throughout the set. Their enthusiasm was infectious but sometimes bordered on slightly comical. The crowd loved them though.

All in all a great start for Trashfest III. We paced ourselves though and headed off home, saving ourselves for the rather exciting line-up which was to follow on the Friday.

05 March

Night by Night from the UK opened up the Saturday night. Not quite as sleazy and trashy as most of Mama Trash’s artists, they nonetheless kicked off what was to be a great night with their catchy rock riffs. Vocalist Ben Christo has an almost eerie Michael Hutchence thing going on in both looks and style. As both a singer and guitarist he oozes confidence and front man charisma. But I always feel he’s slightly wasted in Night by Night at the moment. They’re a perfectly solid classic rock band, but just not exciting enough, or with strong enough songs, to show off his genius yet. An absolute talent of our generation, and very underrated. The whole band were well received despite there not being a massively huge crowd early on though as their musical talent was obvious.

The reason I was desperate to go to Trashfest this year more than any was up next, Germany’s Lord of the Lost, with one of their first shows outside of their home country, and the first time I’d see them. And they didn’t disappoint. Fronted by The Pleasures / Unterart’s Chris ‘The Lord’ Harms, Lord of the Lost are the most exciting thing to come out of the ‘goth’ scene for some time. They mixed deep goth with the beats of Rammstein and some catchy melodies not out of place in love-metal mad Finland. Chris’s always impeccable dress sense and style, and dramatic mix of deep vocals and blood curdling screams make Lord of the Lost innovative and exciting. The beautiful Any, playing drums in her corset, rocked our world and doesn’t let the girls down. One of the highlights of the set / whole night was their wonderful gothed up version of Lady GaGa’s Bad Romance. Perfect choice. Band of the weekend.

Iconcrash were another band to step in at the last minute, filling in for missing Germans Lacrimas Profundere, and the stylish Finns took the opportunity to impress the happy crowd with their well crafted electro rock songs which build up to climatic endings.

Ahhh, the lovely Private Line next. One of my favourite bands of all time. And for the first time in the history of mankind, I was drunker than them. Anyone that knows Private Line will know that this is no mean feat. Practically impossible infact. Unfortunately this also means that my meticulously neat notes for the review *cough* consisted of illegible scrawl all covered in spilt booze. They did a few newer songs including Deathbedtime Stories and Down Came the Rain (complete with Sammy playing acoustic guitar throughout), and Evel Knievel Factor at some point in the set, and I danced so hard in Gods of Rewind, one of my favourite songs ever, I spilt my drink all over myself. I love Private Line because the drunker they get, somehow, the better they get. Sadly the same cannot be said of this reviewer. I can never get that hour back. Oh well, that’s Suomiboozing for you.

The entire venue headed down to Loose Bar for aftershow drinks. Our collective memories of this are, however, sketchy to say the least. (The photos and videos were quite enlightening when we watched them back some days later.) It wasn’t long before every single one of us had no money left at all, resulting in Ben from Night by Night trying to sell Cat from Deathstars for various sex acts, in order to be able to get more drinks. Sadly due to the fact we all had stupidly empty purses too, no-one took him up on the offer. The rest of the night passed by in a blur and ended with a huge Bon Jovi sing-a-long in our trashed hotel room until 8am. Key change heaven. I’m sure the people in the rooms next to us loved it.

06 March

Saturday dawned and the hangover from hell kicked in. Krapula, as the Finns call it. The broken tv, the room full of spilled port, clothes of people we’d never met before… oh Finland, how we love you so terribly clichéd rock n roll debauchery. But for Trashfest what else could be done? I literally crawled from the carnage to the venue to do some interviews and then curled up on the floor to die.

By the time the night started with Cold Cold Ground I had reached the horrified conclusion I couldn’t even face hair of the dog, and it was going to be soft drinks all night. Most people seemed to sympathise with me, commenting on how they weren’t surprised considering the state of me the night before. Poor old Cold Cold Ground were gonna have to be something special to lift my hungover spirits. They gave it a good go, to be fair. One of them wears a rabbit’s head all set. Don’t ask me why. I become fixated on it and it takes my mind off my head / stomach / inability to keep alcohol down.

Thankfully the Brits then totally came to the rescue. New Generation Superstars put in the best performance I’ve ever seen by them, rocking their East Midlands sleaze punk rock arses off with a passion I’ve not seen in them before; it was like watching a different band to the one I’ve seen on some pretty crap stages in dives in the UK. They rose to the occasion at Trashfest III and blitzed it.

On a good day I would probably enjoy Neon Synthesis, the rather good techno doomy goth Italians. I became fixated on the singer’s very huge goth boots, and couldn’t quite get past these. I preferred the rabbit’s head, it was pinker and fluffier. With the hangover I had, I wasn’t too happy after a few songs. Although great in small doses, they were just too much of a muchness for me longer term this evening.

Due to the pulling out of Gemini Five at the last minute, Spiritraiser, who’d played the kick off party, were added to the bill and got a chance to impress more people from the main stage, winning over many new fans, and frontman Jaakko collecting a few more squealing fangirls along the way.

Headliners of the night were the Italian Dope Stars Inc. I was lucky enough to tour with Dope Stars when Entwine did shows in Germany with them a couple of years back. Despite loving loads of their songs, live they just didn’t hack it back then, with numerous sound issues on stage making it all very messy and very disappointing. How things have changed. This again was a different band, one not lacking in confidence and blasting Trashfest with their now powerful industrial beats.

The 2010 Mama Trash All Star Band then took to the stage to close proceedings featuring members of Iconcrash, Deathstars, Private Line, Night by Night, Stereo Junks, Spiritraiser, Lord of the Lost, Violent Divine, and New Generation Superstars amongst others. Sammy and Jack Private Line lead on a rousing version of I Believe In Miracles by The Ramones. Spiritraiser’s Jaakko sang Monkey Business by Skid Row, ably aided and abetted by Chris (Lord of the Lost) and Ben (Night by Night).

My favourite, of course for all those that know me, was the finale, a version of Rebel Yell, with Ben (Night by Night) on guitar, Cat (Deathstars) on guitar, and Anzi (Stereo Junks) on vocals culminating in everyone and their dog on stage by the end, certain egos trying to get in on the act and grabbing the mic. A fantastic fun end to a really great weekend.

Thanks to all involved again this year, especially Mama Trash. It had the most lovely family feel to it more so than ever this year, many friendships were forged, and we saw a whole raft of fantrashtically amazing bands. Can’t wait to do it all again next year.

by Lynn Wyeth