DUFF MCKAGAN's Finnish Beginning To Summer

June 11, 2009

VELVET REVOLVER/ex-GUNS N' ROSES bassist Duff McKagan has penned the latest installment of his weeky column, which appears every Thursday on Reverb at SeattleWeekly.com. An excerpt follows below.

"Late spring in Europe and the U.K. means only one thing for the music lover over here: FESTIVAL SEASON! Of course, these festivals are good for both the fans AND the bands that play in front of them, as festivals will usually put an act in front of more people than they could otherwise garner by simply doing a club tour. This season for LOADED has thus far been, well, . . . colorful, let's say.

"It's always great to mix some club or theater gigs into your tour schedule if you are out doing the festivals. The beginning of June can be (and usually is) cold and wet in northern Europe. For whatever reason, whether with VELVET REVOLVER or LOADED, we've started the season more often up north, instead of, say, Spain. LOADED took it to the extreme this past week by starting things off in Finland, with two club shows in Helsinki and Oulu and an outdoor festival in Tampere.

"Geographically, Tampere, Finland, sits at about the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. If you know anything about Alaska, you know that it is not shocking to find freezing rain or even snow at the beginning of June. These were the conditions we found ourselves in as we hit the stage at this outdoor rock festival. Fuck, it was cold! For us in bands, it is only semi-miserable, as we will at least be warm later at night in our bus whilst rolling off to some other destination. But for most attending the weekend-long rock and pop festivals over here in Europe and the U.K., the night will end in a soggy, freezing tent. Drunk, wet, cold, and muddy . . . nothing goes better with 'rock' (except maybe the beginnings of the infection that sets in on that not-too-thought-out tattoo or piercing you got at the festival . . . after waiting in line for five hours. But I digress)."

Read McKagan's entire column at SeattleWeekly.com.

Former HANOI ROCKS frontman Michael Monroe joined DUFF MCKAGAN'S LOADED on stage at the Sauna Open Air festival on Friday, June 5 at Eteläpuisto in Tampere, Finland to perform three songs — "It's So Easy" (GUNS N' ROSES),"Attitude" (MISFITS) and "New Rose" (THE DAMNED). Watch fan-filmed video footage of the performance below.

Find more on

Prev More News Next

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).