Gig reports

Napa 2003

With a successful first show under our belts, our heads bloated with confidence to the size of beanbag chairs, we committed ourselves to our second gig at the Napa 2003 festival in Hietasaari, Oulu, just a couple of weeks after our debut at Assembly 2003. The Napa tradition had been initiated in September 2002 under characteristically chilly conditions, featuring Skyfix (the progenitor of Axes Denied) as one of the acts. This
time the festival was organized in August for increased probability of nice weather, and Axes Denied was granted the honor of kick-starting the show.

Having had no time to rehearse new material we played a reprise of our Assembly set with one additional number that we knew by heart, having played it on Skyfix gigs a dozen times before the thought of forming AD even crossed our minds. The crowd was obviously far from ignorant in game music matters, and there were numerous requests for Commando that we sadly could not fulfill. We concluded our set with the theme from MacGyver, a surefire way to attract the attention of even those few poor buggers who've never played Bubble Bobble.

Afterwards we were presented with a bottle of cheap Italian sparkling wine (the standard fee for a Napa performance), which helped us plunge further into the festival spirit. Later in the evening we were joined by Markus and Sussu and returned to the stage as Skyfix, for which we were awarded another bottle of wine. All in all the festival was a riot, with DJs
seeing to it that the partying didn't cease at midnight when the last of the bands came off. The Napa 2003 gig was the last appearance of our original bass player Jukkis, but fortunately we found a worthy replacement in Hane and lived to rock another day.

(The official backstage picture. We can't remember what's happening in the pic.)