Pekka Streng tribute in Helsinki, 4th Feb 2009

  

PEKKA STRENG’s tribute concert was promoted quite much in the Finnish capital area newspapers, and after some consideration I decided to spend my moneys for the evening (18€ entrance + 2,5€ clothe storing). Inside the Tavastia club, I learned that many other people from wide spectrum of age had done so too, so there seems to be much interest towards the music of this Finnish psychedelic folk rock pioneer.

The core group of the evening, OLYMPIA ORKESTERI, has produced an album out of Pekka’s unreleased demos. I have not heard the album yet, but this evening certainly aroused my interest enough to decide buy the album, as I just get some money some day. There were also two film cameras on the stage, and I learned that the Finnish movie director Arto Halonen is doing a document film of Pekka, so there will probably be moments of this night captured to that film, which is planned to be released in the autumn of 2009.

The show started with Pekka’s sincere and playful poems, which were recited during the show during the artist changes on the stage. Performed songs covered both original his albums and also the new posthumous release, thus containing the musical elements from playful folk to oriental mysticism, and from Finnish melancholy to joyful soulful rock with minimalistic but strong emotional approach, shimmering with wisdom and inner peace. There were lot of changes in stage with many different artists performing one to three songs, and all went well though there were few pauses, when nothing happened for a while (a time to meditate). The diversity of the tribute performers made over two hours fly by fast, though all performers weren’t totally pleasing my own taste. I think there was streng(th) in this approach, ensuring that all in the audience got certainly something. All performers also certainly enjoyed the possibility to explore the jamming potential of simple and fine compositions in front of enthusiastic audience.

My own favorites in the night contained song “Gilgamesh”, performed with sitar and some oriental bow instrument by fellows whose names didn’t get. The score reminded me of THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND, which relates to Pekka’s music quite strongly in my opinion with their similar sincerity, spiritual deepness, folk context and aim for goodness. Following "Mimosaneito" continued with the same stylistic line, having strong echoed keyboards sounding little like Mellotrons backing up the acoustic guitar player wailing strongly, leading the willing listeners to a journey into real of the dreams.

The most pleasant numbers in my opinion followed, first by EMMA SALOKOSKI (left pic) who performed three songs, inlcuding “Puutarhassa” and “Luumupuu”. She has recorded a version of “Puutarhassa” before, and these numbers just worked so well. I also like her voice and character, like so many other people do. She is actually a quite close relative of Pekka. The other really great numbers came from 22 PISTEPIRKKO (right pic), who smashed in three songs, from which I recongnized “Ahnehtiva Kud”. The songs escalated to furious stoner rock heights with raw psychedelic guitar sounds and strong professional playing. The evening ended ofcourse with “Sisältäni portin löysin”, describing the consciousness alteration progress in a poetic and beautiful way. The number was sung by famous poprock singer JONNA TERVOMAA. I hoped I would have heard the combined songs “Olen erilainen / Pitkä kieli” from his first album, but it’s understandable that all of his songs couldn’t be included. A special thanks was sent to those who participated the memorial concert of 1975 for Pekka and KALEVALA group among the good night wishes.  

One rhyme of them left to linger in my mind, which might be translated as “If you do not have faith in goodness, you cannot see it”. A simple truth, opening much thoughts and questions in our violent world, which contains islands of goodness too. So, as long as the humanity is still around here listening psychedelic blues among other activities, let’s release officially the rest of Pekka’s unreleased material. Though I have not heard the radio shows he did, I know that they are moving around as fan tapes. I also have to listen more to the "Kesämaa", as I have listened mostly the first album which was recorded with TASAVALLAN PRESIDENTTI as a session band.

In addition of Finnish folk/psych/prog/vintage music listeners, I believe Pekka's music would be a potential target of interest for those interested of global psychedelic folk scene, or anybody who might be interested of Finnish popular music history from the late 60's and early 70's.

Edited by Eetu Pellonpää - February 05 2009 at 13:49

Wish I could have been there. sadly I had some lessons the next day, so I couldn't travel all the way to Helsinki. My girlfriend was there too and she said it was very good. Apparently there weren't a lot of young people there aside of her. I'm sorry I missed Jarkko Martikainen again, but i know Emma Salokoski performs the songs really well.