Faces Festival - Gumnas, Finland 7/31/11
From Aural Innovations #43 (October 2011)
I was in Finland visiting some friends with my daughter and we decided to go to this small forest festival. It was the last of 3 days of the festival and very much oriented towards families. We arrived around 13 in the afternoon and stayed until 18. We heard the Zambian Vocal Collection which was ok. Funny to hear one of the guys speak Finnish! We had some food and walked around. There was a drumming thing on one stage and we heard some of the ska-reggae band, the Capital Beat, on the same stage as the Zambian group. We also spent some time sitting down in a cool round house where it was like a battle of the bands with 10 different acts of solo people who all played two short songs and they had a panel of judges and also used the reaction of the crowd as well. That was funny to see some of these groups. We also went into a meditation tent where a guy was playing a wooden flute, and another with some bells and stuff. People were really chilled out in this tepee. Cool. The last act we heard was some of Jukka Pioka, another Finnish reggae artist. It seemed to be a mix of some world music as well. A really fun and kids friendly festival with a lot of Finnish hippies and dreadlock kids.
For more information you can visit the Faces Festival web site at: http://www.faces.fi
Reviewed by Scott Heller