Jimi Tenor's gig at Koneisto (=Machinery) in Turku was one of the most popular ones of the festival. And it actually featured some real machinery, Jimi Tenor's and Matti Knaapi's instruments; Sirkka the impressive mechanical drum machine, Vera the automatic trombone and the Noisebox.

With the stage situated between two swimming pools, the venue was somewhat unusual. In such beautiful weather it was quite convenient though, giving the audience a chance to chill out.

Matti Knaapi was seen rushing through the festival area just moments before the show, carrying an object of vast importance, an oil drum. Having solved the mystery of the missing part of the mechanical drum machine, all was ready for the show.

Sirkka's hammer banging on the drum was joined by beats from Maurice Fulton's turntables and the melody line from the beginning of 'A night in Loimaa' making up a majestic fanfare for Jimi with his sax to enter the stage wearing a blue glittery robe and his extravagant piece of headwear. With Ilkka Mattila on guitar and Jimi's wife Nicole Willis operating the vacuum cleaner-powered trombone 'Vera', the band was all set for the show.

Not many songs were played from his new album. For obvious reasons though - it would prove quite impossible to achieve satisfactory arrangements of the orchestral material for a four piece band. The ones heard now - 'Spell', 'Backbone of Night' and 'Call of the Wild' - however, were well done. Well, to be precise, 'Call of the Wild', was never done with the orchestra in the first place.

'Total Devastation' got the main set going followed by 'Spell'. Nicole picked up the noisebox for a brilliant version of 'Call of the Wild'. The vocal part started off with Jimi on lead vocals, joined by Nicole later on. Ilkka Mattila contributed some tasty guitar licks. 'Take me Baby' was nicely spiced up with 'Vera' the trombone, after which the going was slightly calmed down for a while by 'Backbone of Night' and the beautiful 'My Mind'.

Maurice Fulton getting rather wild

Then came 'Sugardaddy' thumping along which, with Maurice wildly elbowing and socking the turntables, Ilkka throwing in some cool twangy guitar stuff and Nicole cranking out sounds from the Noisebox, brought the show towards its end.

It was quite evident that everyone on stage enjoyed what they were doing. Jimi supplied some outstanding sax solos, and put in a strong vocal performance, backed up by his wife Nicole whose great voice added a certain something to the whole throughout the show. The audience, dancing around and in the pools, liked what they heard too, and were rewarded with 'Year of the Apocalypse' as an encore.

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