Monday Bar Summer Cruise 2012

Monday Bar... Hmm. In a bar on a Monday, surely it can't be that good? Who even came up with such a name?

Well, let's take brief look at the history of Monday Bar before we begin. The concept was founded by two Swedish geezers already back in 1992 and was originally mainly focused on house and techno, but has since spread to all the genres of electronic music. But in 2002 the shit got real when they shook hands with TallinkSilja and began to organize special clubbing cruises. For you non-Nordic people, TallinkSilja is a company that has a bunch of cruise liners just casually cruising about on the mighty Baltic Sea, and that's really everything there is worth knowing about them. So far Monday Bar has organized 35 cruises (if I have understood correctly) over these ten years, and these spectacular events are apparently known far beyond the Scandinavian borders.

The best thing about these cruises is that the only way you can board the ship is to buy a ticket to the party. So no old people complaining about the noise, no children running around, no rednecks from wherever who are only eager to get even more wasted than they were when boarding the ship and then fight someone. Only party people ready to rave their hearts out. This shows in the way people dress up. I think the only limit there is, is that you cannot be naked, everything else goes. Everything. From bikinis and just boxer shorts to crazy big-headed panda outfits, pirates, weird neon-colored set-ups, Tron-style LED outfits (Yes, someone had built one for himself) and a Ghostbusters -gang with the Marshmallow Man and everything! They also do not have the usual restrictions that forbid playing any loud music in the cabins, and this kind of behavior is actually almost encouraged and some of the stuff people drag on board can only be described as simply ridiculous. People bring sound systems on board that require TROLLEYS... And when the silent hours in the cabins are between 6am and 10am, you can quite easily count the hours you get sleep. Although the DJ's play until 8am, and who needs sleep anyway. Sleep is for the weak.

This is where it gets interesting, because one of our friends who is part of the organizing party gave us a heads up about the upcoming event and even told us that he can hook us up with tickets. Needless to say that we were "quite" excited about this and we gave it four thumbs up before you can say "Tempo Giusto & Jace B2B dj-set". Because Monday Bar hails from our very much beloved western neighbor Sweden, the route in question was Stockholm - Riga - Stockholm. It also included a chance to go and chill about in this former Soviet nation for six hours or so, which is always very intriguing. So, on Thursday we rushed home from work, packed our top-notch party gear and raced to Turku, leaving home three whole hours before the ferry to Stockholm was about to leave (the ferry terminal is 170km or 105 miles away...). Also about to board this ship was our resident DJ from the ORIGINAL Finnish commune, man of many stories and even more ladies, Tempo Giusto. We met this sizzling piece of meat in the Turku ferry terminal and headed towards Silja Europa. We of course had booked a DeLuxe cabin for this journey, while Tempo had to settle for a puny category A-cabin Monday Bar had organized for him. Because that is how we roll, not because we had enough TallinkSilja bonus points to do so. Between arriving to Värtahamnen in Stockholm and boarding M/S Tallink Romantika for the party of our lives, we had few hours to spend in the beautiful capitol of the country mostly known for blonde women, Ikea, snus, their version of the British royal family and ridiculously beautiful men like Fredrik Hellander. Now I shall demonstrate some pictures from the first third of this epic journey, that will be remembered for a lifetime. The whole thing, not necessarily the first third.

Immediately digging in to the complimentary drinks.

Tempo and Sara just chillaxing before dinner in Taunus.

Tempo making sure  in Värtahamnen that the beats are ready for the gigs.

We also met one of the video engineers and his wife. From Tampere!

Weather was delightful.

Lunch.

Eventually I did actually buy something too.

Just when we thought the weather couldn't get better, it did.

After some hours, we made it back to the terminal somewhat dry and because we could, we took a taxi from Värtahamnen to Frihamnen. Which was approximately half a mile away. There we met up with our man Jace who presented us with envelopes containing all kinds of information and whatnot. To say the least we were a bit surprised when we received VIP -passes and bracelets to the cruise, because we were living in the belief that we were only going to board the ship with him and get "traditional" boarding passes like the rest of the hard rocking party people. I am only wondering if Sara's good looks had something to do with this... Anyhow, this made the start of this trip even better than it already was and if possible, our excitement grew even higher. Even though we were excited, we managed to contain a certain level of common sense and decided to catch some extra Z's, because we knew that the party was not going to stop until the night turns in to a dawn of a new day. When I woke up after few hours, I thought that it was time to get some light beverages to get the party started and headed out of the cabin. As I walked out of the door, it turned out that the guys next door had a sound system, not an outrageous one, but a decent one. But what really hit me was their lighting: they had proper lasers and everything fitted in to their cabin and the party was already at full swing before the boat had even left the harbor. With a huge smile on my face I made my way to the Tax Free -shop and the only thing I could think of was: "Yes, this shit is going to be better than we even thought". There was a decent offer on Absolut vodka too, so I grabbed a bottle accompanied by some Sprite. And Battery, obviously.

Because the night was all about hitting the dance floor and listening to great music, I opted NOT to take the SLR with me, which was probably a pretty smart choice. It soon turned out that the policy with drinks was not really that strict either: people were going back and forth between the two floors as well as in and out of the "clubs" with their own drinks in their hands and no one even gave you a second look. We also found some pretty awesome parties just by walking through the corridors and funnily enough, the guy living next to us was half-Finnish and half-German and spoke Finnish too! They also had some massive flickering glow sticks taped to their roof and of course, being veterans on this cruise, they had a sound system of their own. Here, some of the few pictures I managed to capture before things got really out of hand.

Let's get it on!

Checking out NFL on the TV.

Jace having dinner like a Sir.

Yes, I had some wine. It was sort of a thing with me and Jace. Don't ask.

That was some good shit.

And the dessert wasn't crap either.

We eagerly waited (aka partied) until Tempo Giusto stepped behind the decks, which was around very humane 6am or so. But he made sure that no one was able to stay on their seats or even think of being tired with some outrageous sick tracks and to be honest, I have no idea when we actually eventually went to bed. The next day we woke up in the beautiful former Soviet nation of Latvia and decided to head to check out some of the old town of Riga and hopefully find something to buy also. There is not much to say apart from the pictures, so I will let you guys observe what the dealio was.

The breakfast of the Champions.

The night obviously took it's toll on Tempo.

...and Jace.

Some might think that these guys are celebrities of some sort. I guess in a way, they are. 

"It's like having a can of bad speed. We all have had some bad speed, right?" - Frankie Wilde

These two were obviously quite excited about being in Latvia.

In Soviet Latvia, car showers. Not you.

Some park.

Some bridge.

Party was already pumping at the Sun Deck when we got back, awww yeah.

Souvenirs. For meeeee.

After coming back from Latvia and the beautiful city of Riga, the drill was usual. Back to the cabin, change of clothes and whatnot, mix some drinks and hit the boat. Our boys Tempo & Jace were playing a B2B set at the Sun Deck, which was obviously going to be a thing to behold. So we headed to the fresh nuclear powered (everything in former Soviet countries is nuclear powered) air of Soviet Latvia as the boat was slowly cruising back towards the country of Swedenia. Despite the not so sunny weather and sub-20 degrees temperatures people were ready start the second day of mad partying with a bang, and some had already done just that. There isn't really that much to say about this, just look at the pictures. Now you will also get the first glimpse of some of the outrageous, cool and very creative outfits people were wearing.

PARTY HARD

One of the neighbors was already out too!

These two geezers were hammered off their face for two days and just went around the boat high-fiving everyone.

DO YOU LIKE IT HARD?

Tempo mixing...

While Jace gets some more beverages.

Feeling it, with my new Soviet Latvian nuclear powered Transformers t-shirt on.
And that is NOT an urine sample in the bottle.

...what

Atte was clearly one of the most excited people out there.

After the gig we headed out for a nice long dinner which involved a sufficient amount of wine, but when we got to the open sea, the party mood took a turn for the worse. Sara who is suffering heavily of motion sickness even in a car, didn't really cope well with the rough weather at the Baltic sea. She was pretty much forced to stay in bed, but I went to party for a bit, listen to some music for a while while checking on Sara from time to time. Later on I fetched the camera to capture some of the action and people from the dance floors. You really do not have to be a master photographer to capture some sick frames of this place, whoever designed and decorated the ship has done one hell of a job. Not to mention the guys responsible of the lighting and video, hats off to you guys. Here's what I managed to capture.

Jace is clearly impressed by Tempo's joke.

Jace observing and Sara hiding under my hoody.

Not sure what's going on.

But this was the result.

The main floor aka. Meira Records (or Monday Bar Black on Day1)

DJ Aladdin.

 

The smaller dance floor, aka IHDS - International Hard Dance Sessions (or Monday Bar White on Day1).

Fausto behind the turntables.

Mr Panda decided to join the party!

This fella was one of the favorites of the photographers. I wonder why.

The morning after was somewhat wistful as this wonderful event, an incredible experience and superb party was coming to an end. The breakfast was good as usual and we even managed to have a little chat with one of the founders who by the way is an extremely nice fella, and he very much welcomed us to the upcoming cruises as well. Music was still banging and the last party monkeys were still trying to find their way back to their respective cabins as we made our way out of the ship. The sight outside the terminal was something to behold with all the artists leaving to the airport and the amount of hangover hanging over some poor people was simply tangible. It was funny to observe the amount of stuff some people had with them and one was only able to simply respect the amount of dedication to HARDCORE PARTYING it takes to power through the way home with all that after two days of Monday Bar Summer Cruise 2012.

We teamed up with three guys from Turku and made sure that Atte's Block Rocker was blasting out some banging music all the way to Värtahamnen. It is probably needless to say that our little convoy received some pretty amused looks from people passing by or watching us from the side of the road who for some reason happened to overhear our hardstyle tunes. Some people at Värtahamnen were actually quite eager to join the party and we welcomed everyone with open arms. After putting our stuff in to the deposit boxes, we visited central Stockholm again, and also met up with a Dragon! Vincent Garcia is nowadays living in Stockholm with his wife Anna and he was kind enough to join us for a lunch at some place that allegedly has awesome american style waffles. Which I of course didn't order. Regardless of a pretty good lunch, energy levels were hanging quite low and on top of that it seemed that the whole of Stockholm was weaving from side to side. Kinda like a boat. This was somewhat disturbing, so we headed back to the terminal where we once again teamed up with the Turku Boys and the video engineer Juha and his wife Tiia. This was after I took a little nap, with my face resting comfortably on a table of the cafeteria. Few hours before boarding simply flew by with the help of a relentless and quite restless banter, which usually is the case at this point of any journey.

Once we made it to the boat, I went to grab some dinner with Tempo, we visited Tax Free and tried to get some drinks but no one was really on the mood for anything as the atmosphere on the boat was...a bit lame. Ish. The surprise of the trip was running in to one of our friends from Kangasala in the "nightclub", who was on a journey with his girlfriend. After a little chat we decided to make our way back to the cabin, as the 7am arrival and the drive back home after that seemed everything but appealing at that point. Pictures will probably enlighten this more, and mark my words true. The last leg, the journey back to reality from the Party Heaven.

Tempo had his game face on already at breakfast.

Moving some pictures around.

Sara and the Turku Boys.

Lounging at the Piano Bar.

The people attending this party appeared rather different...

These guys were giving it their all, but that wasn't enough really.

And even two Elvis didn't save the situation.

The drive home was indeed sad, because the reality hit us in the face with a large trout at latest when we got stuck in the middle of the Circus Finlandia -convoy, just outside the Turku motorway. The continuous takeovers was the only thing that kept me awake, and of course the thought of the upcoming cruise. Monday Bar Lucia Cruise is only little over three months away and we are finding it hard to stay put meanwhile. This is going to be the longest three months ever! Make a note of the dates December 15-16 to your calendar people, that's when it is once again time to party hard or stay home knitting socks or something. M/S Galaxy is going to explode...


Awesome party, awesome people, awesome music. Absolutely everything was just pure awesomeness. Until next time.