I had the privilege to follow the solo-tour of Erki Pärnoja new album "LEVA".
What made this tour special was the fact that not a single concert was held in major cities. Instead, "LEVA" travelled around the remote cities and villages of Estonia visiting places many musician usually overlook when planning a concert tour.
Because of that, "LEVA" had the opportunity to get to know the people of Vana-Vigala, Konguta, Kunda, Kärla and many other small cities and villages. In some of these places, where the population is barely a few hundred, almost half of the people from the village would come to the concert. That perfectly illustrates why many more musicians and bands should visit the rural parts of the country during their concert tours.
During the tour, we also recorded two live session videos for songs "Fatigue" and "Eha". Since Erki is alone on the stage with his instruments during the tour, we wanted to also keep the video as simplistic and minimal as possible – hence the one-shot video with one spotlight and some christmas lights.
The picture above captures perfectly the moment of unexpected. During the latter part of the concert, there was an electrical error and the whole pedalboard stopped working. Erki took a minute to think about the situation and then took his acoustic guitar and jumped into the crowd.
What happened next was by far the most beautiful part of the tour I experienced. Erki played his guitar so gently and quietly, you could hear your breath. And the song was so beautiful.
When he stopped playing, there was just silence. Everyone took a second to appreciate what they had just experienced.
Picture below is taken 30 seconds later in the backstage. And as you can see, the backstage doesn't look like one you would see in big cities or concert halls. When touring, we were like visitors in peoples homes and living rooms.
Actually the tour wasn't suppose to end at this point – there were three other places still to visit. But because of the corona virus, the tour had to take a break.
#stayhome and enjoy some music.
Photos captured with Sony a7iii, Zenitar 50mm f1.7, Sigma 24mm f1.4 ART, Sigma 35mm f1.4 ART, Canon 85mm f1.8.
