Turku, Finland (June 8, 2025)
“We’re having a slight technical problem, I think, with the keyboards. So, we may have to take a little break”, Jonas said after they had just finished opener Introducing Palace Players. Right in the beginning of the song, it took Nick just about two seconds to examine the problem and that is a sign of a good (key)board certified Doctor. A moment later their crew were on stage trying to find the cure and the complete treatment occurred during the song.
Was it still too fast? We may have missed a fun stage banter, as Jonas continued: “I’m actually kind of happy that this happened, because I always had this secret dream of becoming a stand-up comedian, so here’s my chance… Oh shit, it works now”. No jokes today, apparently.
One could say that it was a lucky accident that these technical issues took place during a guitar/bass/drum heavy song. I mean, the next one was Satellites which has a long keyboard intro. Cameras concentrated on Nick’s playing here and the festival had two huge screens on both sides of the stage. Mew was Kesärauha Festival’s main headliner, for sure. Half an hour before the show there must have been 2000 people waiting in front of the stage already whereas in some other festivals you could just find a good spot ten minutes prior. Mew merchandise were not available at this time (they sold out a week earlier), but many people relied on their older t-shirts. They’ve been coming to these shows for decades now.
Kesärauha in the nearly 800-year old town of Turku, Finland broke their daily record (for a Sunday) and this must have been largely because of Mew having their final Finnish festival show with Jonas in the band. About 7500 people attended that day. The visuals were surprisingly visible throughout the show even when they performed in sunlight (welcome to Finnish Summer). A nice shade was offered by clouds, so that helped. Mew actually played at this very festival four years ago to premiere And the Glass Handed Kites -album in full and it was their first post-COVID show. Jonas mentioned this particular fact on stage as well. Things were different this time and no one was wearing a mask. It was also Nick’s first appearance at this festival, because of travel restrictions Mew had to hire another keyboard player for those few shows in 2021.
The band seemed very relaxed here. In another stage banter Jonas asked the audience if it’s too late for him to start learning Finnish. The crowd agreed that it’s never too late.
After seeing their show in Denmark just about a week prior, it was interesting to see what songs will be dropped from the setlist. Copenhagen on May 31st broke the record as Mew’s longest set ever (at 125 minutes) and in Turku they were scheduled to play 90 minutes, so some notable omissions were bound to happen. For example, Rows – a clear fan favourite – hits very differently with its lyrics these days, but at 11 minutes it was excluded from this festival’s setlist. That was expected.
Rows feels like a perfect song to be played just before encores, but in Turku we had Reprise. It works just as fine. The calm before the storm, as all encore songs are heavy hitters. Slixxin – as expected – was one of the omissions here. It is a new 7-minute instrumental song and only time will tell what shape and form will it take. Slixxin sounds like a working title anyway, doesn’t it?
“See you soon”, Johan said in the end and that must have been confusing for some in the audience. The following day the Helsinki Ice Hall show was announced for December of this year. Oh, and this year – in general – will be very emotional with Mew shows and we are still expecting a few more dates to be added for their 2025 tour.
But hey, Jonas, if your upcoming solo projects miraculously somehow don’t work, you may fulfill your dream and have that career as a stand-up comedian.
Text: Tero Heikkinen
Photos: Kimmo Nurminen
Instagram: @kimmo.nurminen
Setlist: (Intro) / Introducing Palace Players / Satellites / Special / The Zookeeper’s Boy / 156 / Circuitry of the Wolf / Chinaberry Tree / The Wake Of Your Life / Symmetry / Apocalypso / Saviours of Jazz Ballet / She Spider / Reprise / —– / Snow Brigade / I Should Have Been A Tsin-Tsi (For You) / Am I Wry? No / Comforting Sounds