Television review Tavastia’s history documentary celebrates the 50th anniversary of the legendary rock club as the story of the Merimaa dynasty

Culture|Television review

J. Karjalainen opened the door to the Tavastia Club for the first time in 1975 as he celebrated his 18th birthday. A blues legend happened to take the stage Professor Longhair directly from New Orleans.

That gig determined the direction of the future musician’s career, and according to Karjalainen, it was descriptive that the Lord was called a professor. “Tavastia kind of became my university,” he says.

Would everyone else be as merciful storytellers as J. Karjalainen. It would give a completely different kick to a documentary about the history of the Tavastia Club.

Helsinki and perhaps the venue that grew to be at the heart of the nation’s music scene turned 50 in 2020, and the documentary was set to become a traditional celebration.

But Korona struck in between, and the story took a nasty turn, which is also reflected in the title of the documentary Then times changed.

The mere thought of a documentary makes everyone recall their own experiences with Tavastia. I myself went through the door to the limo disco for the first time in 1975, when a new rising star was introduced to young people from Helsinki. Juice Leskinen.

An endless sequence of these rising stars has been seen on the benches, and it is actually the only or at least the main narrative on which the documentary is built. Tavastia has been a springboard for Finnish rock cream from one decade to the next and, as the documentary wants to convince, and it still is, even after the corona pandemic.

This however, it is a pretty boring story when it is repeated over and over again. It’s predictable, and everyone says it the same way, even in the same words. The main focus of the documentary is on named trolling and anecdotes, which have been told countless times in the tavern parties in the Guarantee.

The documentary also leaves time for professionals other than musicians, especially the DJ community and one porter. Tavastia has indeed also been an oasis of record music. Points by the way dj Juhani Kannellewho has arrived for interview holding a plastic bag on the Tunnel plate.

Problematic the document has inbreeding. Founder of Tavastia and protagonist of the documentary Juhani Merimaa is an instructor Antti Kuivalainen the appetizer, and the current program manager Mikko Merimaa is the director ‘s own son. It is a celebratory documentary, but one can still only imagine how someone from outside the Maritime Dynasty would have approached the subject.

And what is missing from the documentary? The audience and with it a large number of women. The history of Finnish rock can still be seen in such a way that women seem to be remembered at some point and always as representatives of their gender.

In the documentary, the proportion of women is growing to the present day, but there were us there even before, albeit less frequently.

Then times changed, Theme at 9pm and Yle Arena.