Lumous Gothic Festival 2006

Whilst the famous TUSKA attracts all the Metallers and holidaying tourists, the darker inhabitants of the underground relocate to Tampere for this weekend. LUMOUS is the most northern Gothic festival in Europe and the only one in Finland (so far). Many foreign followers of the subculture mistakenly expect very active Gothic scene in Finland, given how many bands this country produced over the years. Yet it is a fact that Finnish Gothic scene is extremely small and all there is to it is mainly surviving in Tampere, forget Helsinki. And even then, coming from Germany or other countries with more developed and rich Gothic culture, seeing this event in Tampere called LUMOUS has absolutely nothing in common with any other Gothic festival there is.

Unlike most other Finnish music summer events, LUMOUS is not an open air and moreover, takes place only after dark and finishes shortly before sunrise – truly vampiric existence.

This festival is a series of concerts at different dark bars and clubs in the most gothic Finnish city. The size of those venues varies from small to very small, so leave your great expectations at home and I don´t only mean the locations, but the entire event. Coming from Germany, I was honestly surprised to realize how ´narrow´ this festival is, both in the music selection and the visitors. What stroke my eyes the most, were very many Post-Punkers and Cyber-Goths, with almost unidentifiable gender of the person, yet endless creativity and openmindedness! Numerous men in long skirts (gorgeous!) and girls with shaved heads (confusing!) add up to a very diverse audience. Unfortunately to my taste there were very few antique Goths and absolutely no Metallers (clearly because of TUSKA), so the festival obviously has its set audience. <...>

FRIDAY

Now the scene is slowly awakening and gathering, significantly more attendants at the second night and so, change of location to more central city club Tulikamarin, styled as an old-fashioned theatre with a beautiful terrace. Different location – more diversity among the audience, a few more Gothic Lolitas in sight and more extreme cyber creatures. In between bands LUMOUS DJs entertain us with the classics, ranging from the Mission to more unexpected “Voyage, voyage” – good Goth finds a way to dance to anything! <...>

DOPPELGÄNGER (RUS)

In those 3 days of Post-Punk and synthetic sound this one band was the darkest, heaviest and most Gothic, at least for my understanding of the term (or I´ve been infected by Metal too much in this country). Something along the lines of the 69 Eyes in year 2000… Russia´s music scene has been overlooked and that can be understood, dark scene there has a long way to go and it is being born as we speak, yet already a few bands have taken a descent form. Doppelganger on CD and live are quite different, but considering their recent singer change and LUMOUS being their first foreign appearance, they definitely deserve credit for having good dark Goth-Rock feeling, not bad at all and I am sure there will be a soon comeback. <...>

CONCLUSION: After long three days at LUMOUS, I have realized what different perception Finnish have of Gothic subculture than England or Germany, as I have personally experienced. LUMOUS has rather limited music program, but on the other hand, most bands you probably have never heard of, since it is very underground. What was pleasant to see, is general behavior and attitude: unlike most common Finnish ´Metal´ chaos, LUMOUS managed to preserve some elegant Gothic aesthetics, so there are very few hopelessly drunk and lost individuals, thrown around. By the friendly welcome of all attendants we´ve figured out that LUMOUS audience travels to Tampere religiously every summer to hear new bands, meet old friends, have few drinks and on the whole, enjoy being among the similar-minded people. Where are all those people in the daytime I´ll never know, but at LUMOUS all showed up and with a different outfit for each day!... This festival is definitely not for everyone even well familiar with Finnish Goth, but to see LUMOUS is absolutely worth it – I believe it has a lot of Finnish feel to it and this is also something to experience in such unusual settings; only then go to 3rd day, when it´s at its most vivid, alive (unfitting adjective to a Gothic festival, but the most descriptive of the atmosphere) and most diverse unlike more narrow-oriented beginning.

Author Marina Sidyakina, translation Klaudia Weber
Original text
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