Blog
Orchestrating Hard Drives
Probably the coolest thing musically I have ever experienced was the Wonderland Orchestra tour back in 2016 with Sunrise Avenue. Before that tour we had done the Big Band Theory tour with horns and extra percussions and later we were invited to Luzern Switzerland to perform three nights at the legendary KKL with the 21t Century Orchestra with strings and everything. After these experiences it was obvious that these two concepts needed to be put together and so the Wonderland Orchestra idea was born. I loved everything about it.
The project was massive. We were a total of 40 human beings from Finland on stage every night consisting of 24 strings, 9 horns, percussions and additional Keys by our buddy Lasse with us. Every crew member grew double size with professionality and the jobs they did every night was something not from this planet. The whole process was a musical mega blast and every moment even at the rehearsals was something I could easily live again and again. That show was the first one that took us to the Helsinki IFK home arena and a total of 11 sold out arenas in 4 countries. The two and a half hour concert was enjoyed by more than 100.000 souls. The nights between the shows were like a road movie. Eight night liner busses and trucks driving somewhere in the middle of the night and you could hear a violin or a saxophone playing somewhere every second since the journey started. Day and night... I'll still remember that trip when I'm wearing a diaper someday. Hopefully not soon.
Good news
We recorded every show on that tour and now we're releasing the whole concert mixed and mastered and I must say it sounds just amazing. After not being able to feel and hear a real live audience for a year now, my eyes got a bit wet and my heart melted as I heard the crowd sound on the first final mixed track.
I Can Break Your Heart is the first track out at midnight and the rest of the live album will follow on April 9th. I can't get over Aili's violin solo in the beginning. Her leather pants, your mega love from the crowd, life feeling like an endless adventure and every moment being like Saturday night.
Other kind of news
We also filmed the Frankfurt show and the idea was to release a DVD or to make the video available somehow. I'm super annoyed saying that we can't find the hard drives. Yes.. Nobody knows where the multi camera recording is at the moment and we have looked every-goddamn-where for a really long time. There might be this one basement left where it can be, but we haven't been able to access the place due to the world situation at the moment. First you invest a fortune in filming the show, then a crew works their asses off with their cameras and stuff and then someone loses the hard drive. I know many of you have hoped for this one for years, but there's not much more we can do. If someone finds the disc, please send it home...
A few weeks ago mixing engineer Jesse Vainio sent me the first mix for approval. I was in my car in the middle of Helsinki driving back from my workout and after the first 60 seconds I realized I was driving 74 km/h on a 40 zone. Banging my head like crazy. Luckily I didn't hit anyone and there were no cops around. So be careful with this one. But bang your heads, it feels great...;) I can't wait to hear the rest of the finalized tracks soon.
It's Heartbreak Century. And times are strange. So maybe a little bit of Wonderland sounds is good for us all right now <3
Enjoy & Hugs to you all,
Samu