08-08-2007 Uniklubi

Date: 08-08-2007, Tulisuudelma, Vantaa (Finland)
By: Nina Mende

Tulisuudelma in Vantaa…. sounds like something big, but it’s only one bar of many in the Sokos Hotel in Vantaa with a little stage (about the size of  Nachtleben/Frankfurt, Kuudes Linja/Helsinki or Wild at Heart/Berlin) but a cool venue. Many different places to sit on the sides of the dancefloor which is right in front of the stage, a bar centered in the whole venue and it’s all held in an English Pub like style. Really nice venue in my opinion.   The light seemed perfect, the sound was great, only the smoke was going to annoy every once in a while but that was bearable.

The band playing there tonight was Uniklubi, a Finnish quintet from Tampere singing in Finnish. The first great moment of Uniklubi’s career was the signing of a recording contract at the end of 2003. The following spring another dream of theirs was fulfilled, as the first single, Rakkautta ja  piikkilankaa, started playing on the radio. Uniklubi started summer 2004 at Provinssirock festival where they’d been wishing to play since the very first rehearsal sessions. They have two albums released so far, the third will be released next week. And I’ll be there when it happens.

  The gig was supposed to start at 22:30 local time, until then they played 80s
  and 90s pop like David Hasselhoff, Dr. Alban and so on with some Linkin Park
  or Anastacia in between. Quite ok to pass the time I guess…… After a while
  the first girls started moving their bodies to the music.
  Then the DJ announced that Uniklubi will start about half an hour later than
  planned, and that was when he started to play the Finnish pop stuff such as
  Oi beibi, or any other Finnish long time dance floor hit. Really funny how now
  everybody jumped up to dance, didn’t matter which age.

  At 23:00 Uniklubi came up to the stage (guarded by a Security man, which is
  needed for a band who has so many teenage fans like Uniklubi) and started their
  one hour performance. The last people who weren’t at the dancefloor already
  hussled over to the stage to see Uniklubi real close. That is a quite uncommon
  thing in Finland, usually you have an imaginary pit in front of the stage and
  get through the crowd of people quite easily. Well, not at Uniklubi shows. So
  I really had to squish myself through the audience to take pictures from all
  views there were, some fans were — luckily — quite cooperative and traded
  places with me until I moved on to another spot to take pictures.
  Jussi (the singer) and Teemu (the lead guitar player) did not even have to animate
  the audience to sing along or clap or anything, they did it from the first second
  Uniklubi came on stage, which was really nice to see. The audience could sing
  along every song, every phrase, every word Jussi was singing. As Teemu took
  over the mic for one or the other time to sing either White Wedding or some
  song that came into his mind the girls went crazy. Teemu responded to that with
  a smile or a wink to the girls who where happy then and will have nice dreams
  tonight. They played songs from every album including their hits Rakkautta ja
  Piikkilankaa, Kehä, and Huomenna, and closed with Vnus from the new album.

  After an hour the magic of Uniklubi (which is Finnish for Dreamclub) putting
  everybody into their spell was over. What a pity. This is a band that could
  play forever and would never get boring

Uniklubi official
Uniklubi Myspace