Fresh from Finland

Last weekend saw the passing of music festival Provinssirock in the angry and oh so lovely northern town of Seinäjoki, in Finland. We were there and kept it real, like any true mammals would, but unlike our kindred spirits we are such generous souls that we even shared our most precious experiences with you. Keep that in mind when crossing the street.

Festival lovers were probably in shock if they happened to stumble upon any of the six performances by Jaakko & Jay at Provinssi. The duo played half a dozen of shows in three days, of which only one was actually on the festivals stages. For some, the Saturday began with some glorious folk-punk at the festivals camping grounds, in the middle of the sea of tents. One can only imagine the confusion, when being woken up in your tent after a rough night out, by a two man acoustic punk-band starting the days festivities off not three feet away from your pillow.

Jaakko & Jay is likely one of the most energetic and fun to watch live bands that we’ve seen. The drummers line of thought serves as a great distraction, while the singer-guitarist Jaakko is changing the broken strings to his supposedly half-acoustic guitar. The duo is freshly signed to Fullsteam Records and has already played quite a few highly merited performances, such as SXSW and The Great Escape. Being used to a highly active timetable, often playing many shows a week, they probably felt right at home with the six shows they played during the weekend in Provinssi.

Jaakko & Jay at Provinssirock - attitude and presence

We got to witness two of those six performances. The first of these was like the Promised Land, only discovered by a couple of dozen of people and those undoubtedly consisted mostly of friends. Yet the duo played with their hearts on their sleeves and did not hold back one bit. As for the bigger of the shows, the audience felt the band, or felt something in some of the old-school punk-pits in the crowd. In addition to playing their own compositions, the band has been known to throw in some well-chosen cover tracks, even from some of the more cult-like punk-bands as the electronic indie-pop loving artist The Postal Service.

Jaakko & Jay released their first hand-numbered 7-inch a couple weeks ago on Fullsteam Records and it’s quickly becoming a scarce natural resource. If it sparked an interest, it is something that you need to race for, since all of the duos previous releases have long been sold out. Not to worry though, we hear promises of a full-length album in the fall.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/jaakkonjay

The 7-inch is availalbe here: http://www.fullsteamrecords.com/popupik … /index.php