Club For Five has had a busy and interesting year so far. We started in January with a few nice concerts in Southern Finland warming up with Jutta Annala on soprano, as Maija is on maternity leave until November. Jutta has been doing great – it’s always interesting to work with a new, fresh sound and hear different views on making music.
However, we didn’t have too much time to just feel about the new group as in the beginning of March we would launch the IHMISET (transl. people) -tour according to our latest album. You might remember the cover of the album – different kind of shoes reflecting different paths that people go through in their lives. So we decided to have shoes as an important part of the setup in the concerts too. We got a lot of shoes from different places and we spent a few nice hours painting them to match the scenery. On March we were mainly on the road – with the shoes, albums, t-shirts and everything – going around Finland singing songs from the IHMISET -album, meeting new people, having fun, getting sometimes tired, sometimes fond of each other, learning a lot, trying to fight the winter flues and once again ensuring ourselves on the importance of the work we’re doing and the joy of sharing the music with the audiences.
After the tour we had a short time to relax until it was time for another little tour with UMO Jazz Orchestra, which is a very meritorious Big Band in Finland. With UMO we’re singing old Finnish tangos arranged in many fantastic ways from for example bebop jazz to heavy metal. It’s always a pleasure to do concerts with UMO and to sing with a Big Band accompanying you!
Then in May we got an invitation from China!! We were invited as a guest star in a TV show called “The Generation Show” broadcasted for hundreds of millions in China. So we couldn’t really say no, could we?! So we flew to Hong Kong and travelled to the city of Shenzhen where the program would be recorded. The crew of the show was absolutely fantastic and very professional and we felt very wellcome. Of course we had some challenges due to language problems but we solved them out with our wonderful hosts and in the end everything worked out better than fine. One of the greatest moments in China was to sing with “Mini Five” which was a total surprise for us. Mini Five was a group of five kids – two girls and three boys as in CFF – dressed exactly like us. We had the pleasure of singing the song “Twinkle twinkle little star” with Mini Five. Can’t wait to hear and see the show as it comes out in China in the end of June. They were so cute!
We also had a chance to eat some really good and really really spicy food in Shenzhen. Yes! All together it was an amazing, though short, trip. It’s always good to see completely different cultures an work with local people, and Mini Five of course… Hopefully we get a chance to go back to China pretty soon. And please check out the China album on our Facebook photos.
Now it’s time for some nice summer festivals here in Finland. We’ll be doing some shows with UMO and the tango again and on our own on stages all over. Waiting to see some crazy Finnish summer people in the audiences!
HAVE A GREAT SUMMERTIME EVERYBODY!!
