Happy New Year! We thought we will pay a little attention to what has happened and to what will happen next. 2009 was for us a great year. We had the pleasure to do many new things and to name just one highlight is too difficult..
We started the year with a really great tour of Denmark, Germany, Holland and Belgium and this time we made it finally to play the great Banana Peel club.. , we played in Sveaborg-Suomenlinna for the first time, went up to Lapland ( where unfortunately Niko was in a skiing accident, definitely not a highlight but..), we did the first Oulu Bluesfestival with Sven Zetterberg.. a great night.., we played Norway which does not happen often.. , Downhome Kivi in Tampere.. , San Castel in ITALY ( great festival and good food..! ) Kaustinen ( I hope we will get paid!), The HighVoltage-party with Barence Whitfield and our friends Bon´s Balls .. what a show.., The festival in the oldest Bullfighting Arena of Spain in Bejar, Haapsalu-blues in Estonia and Malmöfestivalen – a great ending of the summer! ,our tour of Spain, Luxembourg, France and Belgium in November, Thanks to Daniel Ainasoja for a great article about it in ÖT.. see some more about it here:
http://www.ot.fi/story.aspx?linkID=96721&storyID=53610
Finally we ended the year with doing two really wellattended shows with LOUISE HOFFSTEN and ERIC BIBB. The shows were simply magic.. we have to do it again!
( photo above from Vasa, Ritz taken by Johan Hagström )
What is coming up 2010 ? Well, let´s see.. First of all Niko is releasing his own solo-CD “Flying Circus” in January and Robban will join him for a couple of releaseshows, also Robban will be out playing bass with Linda Gail Lewis and the Rockarounds which will feature members from Rockpile, Dave Edmunds, Refreshments and others, Pekka will do some shows with Finnish superstars Vesa-Matti Loiri and Eero Raittinen.. After that the Wentus will go on tour with Eddie Kirkland ( turning 87 this year! ). In March a CD will be released under the name GARY, INDIANA which is a tribute to the late great Gary Primich. The CD will be released by Bluelight Records and consist of livematerial that finnish bands Honey B & T – Bones and Wentus Blues Band recorded with Gary when he was overhere.. The CD-release will happen at HELSINKI BLUES FESTIVAL at Virgin Oil on March 20th. After that Wentus will go to Spain and the Canary Islands for a couple of shows! Meanwhile we will be writing new material for an upcoming new album!
Take care and see you out there somewhere!
