Tampere. I love that city. I really do. It’s been 16 years since I played my first gig there at DJ Coma’s Feel event at an empty warehouse. Since then I think I’ve played some 40+ gigs there with Prodigy at Tullikamari, Miau!, liQuid, Taika, Metaverse & A Place Called Happiness tours and Trancexperience just some of the highlights. And it’s great that the recent ONE and Romance gigs have been equally great as the event back in the 90s.

Last Saturday’s Romance was no exception. It’s a house club promoted by the resident DJ Flight who is one of the definite highlights in the nu breed of DJs (and promoters too) in Finland during the recent years. Flight played the first and last sets and did a great job with deep and funky 126 bpm stuff in the early evening and some super groovy filter house during the last hour. The house was full, decorations adorable (rosebuds, red velvet and candles!), lights supa (thanks Uzu!) and people happy. Of course every great night seems to need it’s share of bad luck which this time came in form of fire alarm at 22:30 and some cutting bass amps but those didn’t seem to bother that much.

Musical highlights (to crowd at least) from my set included Pete Tong remix of ‘Two Months Off’, Dekay remix of Ladyhawke’s ‘Paris Is Burning’, Joris Voorn’s ‘We’re All Clean’ and as closing classic the still-oh-so-uplifting Klatsch’s ‘God Save The Queer. Thanks to all the old and new friends for the good vibes and talks and hope to see you next time in Tampere.

PS. If you are not aware of this nice city some 200 km from Helsinki feel free to check out this informative four minute piece in Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZCQvg0keRQ :)