Even if slightly tired after sleeping mainly one hour slots in cabs, hotels and airplanes I was super excited about last Saturday’s 3,5 hour set at Hallmark’s 9th birthday event. Not only because the club plays a significant role in Helsinki club land and finnish trance scene but because they had a promising new venue at least for this one-off. This was also my first long proper trance set in Helsinki since Unity last summer so musically I was excited to get to play full trance set again.
When walking to Restaurant Bank I felt instantly good. As Super8 put it: the club looks more like a club scene from C.S.I. than your average finnish club. Especially the toilets were veeery very nice. The promoters had requested a dress code of “smart clubwear” which resulted in a slightly more stylish crowd, yet still without any “I’m-so-fancy-and-too-cool-to-have-good-time” attitude with overall very positive vibe going on. The production was spot on as always with Hallmark possé and it was pretty clear it would be packed too. I feel truly priviledged to play this kind of gigs and two on the same weekend was quite a treat!
Dancefloor filled quickly and at 2300 it was already fully happening with melodic prog house sounds of ie. Jerome Isma-ae, 16 Lolitas and Sebastien Leger getting the groove on. By midnight the dancefloor was fully packed with Andy Moor’s Love Story remix, Gustavo remix of Andain’s Beautiful Things, Haris C remix of Thrillseekers’ Synesthesia and Gareth Emery’s Metaverse remix being some of the highlights. To celebrate the 9th anniversary I had taken some classics with me and Tiesto’s Flight 643 and BT’s Mercury & Solace sounded still fresh to my ears.
Super8 & Tab finished the night with their trademark Anjuna sound with especially their own classics productions like Helsinki Scorchin’ and the new Delusion taking the roof off big time. It’s also so nice and entertaining to see the guys play and fully enjoy themselves on stage.
Sure there were some hick-ups (cloak room filling too early, bars running out of boose…) but most of that was from the venue’s side. It’s been seen so many times that the venues don’t take promoters concerns of enough cloak room space and bar capacity seriously. I really hope Hallmark will continue at this venue as I’m sure it would be a big success and would only build up during time. BIG thank you to Joonas, Haba, Lauri & rest of the Hallmark crew for amazing nine years hopefully many more to come! Some photos already at Klubitus.org gallery.