LIVE REPORT: Smalltime Players
Rekolan Kino, Vantaa; October 16th, 2024
Smalltime Players may very well be a completely unknown name for you, since this band just released their self-titled debut earlier this fall. If you’ve never heard their name, this is a grass-roots country-folk rock group (North American folk, to be clear) from Finland, comprised of some well-known names: Johanna and Mikko Iivanainen, Edu Kettunen, and Mika Kuokkanen. Their new album was a breath of fresh air and positivity in the rather gloomy and dank Finnish music scene, so the moment their tour was announced, I scoured the dates to see which show I could get to. Alas, Helsinki, Hyvinkää, and a few of the others nearest to me were all impossible due to other arrangements, but the show in Vantaa’s Rekolan Kino was still a possibility, luckily for me! So, I gathered a small gang of friends and we found our way to town in time to check out this completely new show at this unfamiliar venue.
So of course, I’m a bit new to this scene, in Finland at least, but in the last year (gosh, has it only been 10 months!?) I’ve become a really big fan of the Iivanaiset, thanks to the Altamullan Road tour, of which I attended five shows. Johanna Iivanainen has the loveliest voice and the music in her solo albums is easy to fall in love with regardless of whether you understand the lyrics, while Mikko is a really accomplished guitarist who has some fabulous instrumental solo albums as well. Obviously, I really wanted to hear this new album live and was delighted that it took me back to my country roots growing up in Canada. I was also pleasantly surprised by how uplifting it is. Maybe the doom and gloom is only hyper-present in the metal scene, but whenever any Finns want to throw a little more light and positivity out there, I’m going to be the first one on board. Edu Kettunen and Mika Kuokkanen were new names for me, but my partner immediately recognized Edu’s name as a well-known singer when I mentioned it, while Mika seems to be best known for a Finnish grass-roots band called Hoedown, who I clearly need to check out sometime.
Images by Joanna Orchide (IG @joannaorchidephoto)
Gosh, how do I even begin to explain how much of a fantastic time I had at this show? Okay, the fast down-low on me is that I’ve been to well over 1100 shows in my day and frankly, I’m pretty sick of heavy metal gigs. However, I grew up on country, folk, grass-roots, and blues music, because that’s the sort of thing that my parents love, yet I haven’t seen much of that sort of music live. So for someone who happens to be really burnt out on my old favorites, this show was exactly what I needed.
It’s worth mentioning that I’d never even heard of Rekolan Kino before. The venue is an old Finnish barn (I would wager, based on the design) that’s been converted into a small theater in one of the nicer suburbs of Vantaa. Considering that most Finnish venues where I see metal shows are in buildings that were not designed to be venues (and thus have very questionable acoustics), this quaint little place was an absolute delight to see a show in and I was extremely pleased with how balanced the sound quality was. The seats were a bit tight, but I really have no complaints on the whole, it was a great location.
The foursome came out on stage, perfectly punctual at 19.00. Edu introduced them and they got right to it with a bunch of the songs from their debut, starting with the first track, “A Matter of Time.” If there was anything about this show that disappointed me, it was that, apparently, sometimes they play a longer set with an intermission and sometimes they play a shorter set without, and this was the latter. I missed out! The first half of the longer set is the “Smalltime Players” album in its entirety, so I was sad to have missed hearing “Free Fallen Man” and “Skylarks in the Breeze,” both of which were cut for time… “Free Fallen Man” was actually one of my favorites from the album too, dangit!
It was great to get to hear a little bit of background on the songs as well. After the first song ended, Edu had to scamper off to grab his water bottle, so Johanna talked a bit about how “Didn’t Mean to Make You Cry” was a big sister song. Now, take me with a grain of salt, because my Finnish is pretty mediocre at best, so I might be a little bit off with these, but I understood that“Decent Shades of Grey” was a song about meeting a childhood bully some 30 years later and seeing where life had taken them. “Easy if You Try” was associated with the difficulty of apologizing, while “Philadelphia Jones” was about a journalist—I hoped to catch some more context on that one from the lyrics, but it seems they were sadly not included in the CD.
I had wondered if they would only be playing songs from the album, which would have made for a pretty short show, so I was delighted that—much like those Altamullan Road shows from earlier this year—the rest of the event was padded out with solo material from their respective careers. I didn’t recognize a single one of them, but I thoroughly enjoyed them all! There was some really funky material and really bouncy songs, as well as some emotional pieces. However, looking at the setlist for the full set, damnit all again, there would have been one song I knew, “Overall I’m Fine” (one of Johanna’s solo songs), but it was also one of the ones that was cut. Curses! Well, I admit that I’ve been having one hell of a time trying to figure out whose songs these all were, but I can say that “Kaunis,” “Tiny House,” and“Three Wishes” were some of my personal favorites.
Another one of the coolest parts of this show was seeing how talented everyone was at different aspects of music. Johanna, Edu, and Mika all shared vocal duties, while the gentlemen all played guitar on and off. Mikko was on guitars the whole night, but this was a range of acoustic, electric, banjo, or steel guitars, so it was really fun to see the vast array that he’s proficient with. Mika was mostly on guitars and a few percussive instruments (one of them seemed to be a wooden drum that he played with a white cotton glove on a stick—that was interesting!), though he also had some time on the keyboards and a harmonica. We already know that Johanna is an amazing keyboardist, but she took some time to play with some of the percussive instruments as well—she even played a small set of bongos during “Queen of Green Island.” And Edu, of course, was also mainly on acoustic guitar, but he also played a bigger drum and some percussion as well throughout the night. What a novelty! I’ve never seen a group like this that’s so casually talented, changing instruments every song.
They did leave the stage, but not for long as we clapped them back. The show wrapped up with a few more songs, including one of Edu’s solo tracks, “Perseenlämmitin,” which translates to “ass warmer” but I understood was a song about complaining for the sake of complaining. This was an absolute banger, a really fun song, and a great way to wrap up the night. It left me absolutely dying for more!
Images by Joanna Orchide (IG @joannaorchidephoto)
So yes, I had an absolutely amazing time at the Smalltime Players show and I’m really bummed out that I hadn’t been to more of them. Even more so, I’m sad that this tour is almost over! I live in the middle of nowhere and my partner is taking the car out east this weekend… thank goodness that my photographer’s partner is willing to drive, so we can go out to the Espoo show as well! So if you’re around and you like this sort of music, this is absolutely something you don’t want to miss out on! Perhaps I’ll see you on Saturday!
Setlist
A Matter of Time
Didn’t Mean to Make You Cry
Back for More
Dreams
Decent Shades of Grey
Easy if You Try
Queen of Green Island
In the Middle of Nowhere
Philadelphia Jones
Piilopaikka (Mika Kuokkanen song)
Erilainen Taivas (Edu Kettunen song)
Kaunis
Tiny House (Johanna Iivanainen song)
Three Wishes
Itämainen rakkaus
Autioilla rannoilla
Kiitän sinua
Ihminen
Perseenlämmitin (Edu Kettunen song)
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