Obscene Extreme and Ilosaarirock

Last week it was time for one of the highlights of the tour - Obscene Extreme in Trutnov, Czech. This was one of the first shows booked and it was really great that Nasum finally could come to this long-lasting grind festival. OEF General Curby asked us back in the day, but we never came to the festival for reasons I can't remember now, but I guess it was worth the wait.

We landed in Prague around midday, this time a slightly smaller Nasum party as Keijo and Hannes were already at the festival using the time between Roskilde and OEF for some vacation dates. At the airport we hooked up with Vomitory and we were picked up by an elderly gentleman who understood very few words in English. We wanted to eat and expected to get out of Prague and stop at the first possible place, but the gentleman drove around in Prague for an hour before he stopped at a place where we could have some fried cheese. An hour later we continued the trip towards Trutnov and because of small roads and numerous traffic jams the trip took forever.

But eventually we came to the festival site and were greeted by Curby. He had went all-in for Nasum using our Obscene Extreme logo on everything from wrist bands and key bands to the charity shirt that sold out quickly. Very flattering, of course. Due to tragic circumstances Exhumed had to cancel in the last minute so there were a huge hole in the scheduled that was filled with extra playing time for Discharge, Nasum and Exhumed, so we had to figure out a longer set. To make it a little more exciting for ourselves and the many visitors that already had seen Nasum on the farewell tour we rearranged the set a little bit more than usual and it worked fine.


Wrist band and a setlist stomped to death by muddy OEF feet…

What can we say? OEF was a highlight before the show, and after the show it will remain one of the most memorable shows on the entire tour. This was one crazy show for sure. We did however start with the live action Mr and Mrs Gasmask thing, and believe it or not (well, believe it because it's the truth) behind the masks were nobody else than Mr and Mrs OEF - Curby and his girlfriend! I said that he went all-in… Again, it was a great show with great support from the crowd. Lot's of stage diving and moshing madness. It was one of those shows where you had a smile on your face through out the whole time. Amazing!


Nasum and more or less the entire OEF. Photo by Simona ("Mrs Gasmask at Hellfest") Bezdekova - metalpictures.net.

After cooling down for a little bit and talking to grinders from Sweden, Norway, Saudi Arabia and more or less all over the world, we unfortunately had to leave and go back to Prague in the night. We had an early flight that eventually would get us to Joensuu in the far, far east of Finland. We had rooms at an airport hotel but our driver took us to the wrong hotel and by the time we finally got to the right one, we had approximately 90 minutes before we had to be at the terminal. So we had an hour of sleep, then flew for another hour to Munich and then for two and a half hours to Helsinki and then another hour to Joensuu - all in all about 12 hours from festival to festival with just moments of sleep in vans, hotel rooms and on flights. A hellish trip for sure.

Anyway - Ilosaarirock is a great Finnish festival. It's similar to Peace & Love and Roskilde due to their wide array of different bands. The Finns in the party talked well about it and some of us Swedes had already been here back in 2004, which incidentally was the first time some of us met Janne. And it was a top notch festival. We had a nice dressing room, filled to the brink with everything on our rider, even the "strange" stuff as cigarettes, socks and duct tape! Very nice, and we could really relax before the show.

It was evident that Keijo was on his home soil (although he doesn't live in this particular part of Finland) and he even got so excited that he ended up in the crowd by the end of the show. Following the utterly cathartic OEF show, Ilosaarirock felt a little bit more mellow, but as always it was a good and fun show.


Keijo in the crowd.

A fun weekend with two great shows and one hellish trip - that's how this last festival weekend in July could be summed up. We've had a lot of fun during June and July, but it's also been very exhausting with all the insane traveling we've done back and forth and across Europe. Now we have a few weeks off before the last European festival weekend and then the very exciting trip to Asia and Oceania.

Before that we'll post some more in this blog. Stay tuned!