Tales of My Cubawan, IX: Nummirock Midsummer Metal Festival 2022
Hi there! For those who don’t know, this is the continuing story of how I met and lost my adoptive son a few years ago.
Some of these stories involve discussion of drug use and addiction, depression and mental health issues caused by abuse, and death by overdose.
Consider thyselves warned and thanks for hearing his story 💞🐻
Welcome back or welcome if this is your first time reading! This is the story of me and my late adoptive son, if you’re late to the party. In at least one of the past installments of this series, I made reference to the time we went to Nummirock Festival in 2022 together. It was an experience that covered the spectrum, to say the least.
Ahh, sweet, gnarly Nummirock. For those unfamiliar with the ins and outs of the Finnish metal scene, Nummirock is one of the longest-running and best quality metal festivals. It takes place at juhannus [midsummer] every year, and remains one of the trvest of kvlt events of the summer, boasting usually an infallible collection of bizarre acts that you won’t see too many of elsewhere.
Even more, it’s such an established event that it has lore. The campsite is more or less a permanent fixture and could be a museum of Finnish metal culture in its off season. People have been so dedicated to this festival that they’ve essentially built bunkers and permanent fixtures into the campsite, many of which are well-known party sites for consistent regulars. I’m sure I know friends who’ve been there most years for the past 2 decades.
And yet somehow, strangely enough, I have only been twice, as of the event of which I’m about to tell you. Most of my memories of my first time at Nummirock can be found in this collection of anecdotes. I have one good story from there that I have yet to tell, but it’s a juicy one, so I’m saving it.
Anyhoo, I forget exactly how it was that we came to decide that we would go to Nummirock. I think, in part, it was because I knew it would be no issue to bring him with me if I wanted to attend as a journalist, ergo free festival (minus all the work I do writing afterwards) for the two of us. I think there was also a percentage of us doing it as a low-stakes preparation for Kosmos Festival later that summer.
Accompanying us was, funnily enough, one of the fellows that I originally gone to the festival with, along with two friends of a friend who were also looking for a ride.
The first thing I remember was finding our campsite and setting up a protective tarp wall. Clearly very much an indoor kid, Otso stood gaping at us—having no real experience with camping, himself—and said it was like watching a group of engineers set up a campsite. Adorable, and I only wish he had been a wee bit more open to camping in general. I could have taught him the ancient woodsman’s wisdom that was passed down to me by my father.
Now, here’s the funny part about all of this. He and I agreed that we’d rather sleep in the car, in case it was going to rain, because it’s just so much less moist and weird.
Yes, I can sleep twisted into most shapes. Clearly, as I was sharing a car with a behemoth.
No, actually, the funny part was that he needed more room to stretch out, but didn’t say anything. Even though I brought us both tents, in case the car thing was a terrible idea. But he told me after the fact that he never asked me to set up the tent for him because he felt like he was being a burden. I asked him what he thought was more of a pain in the ass for me: the 10 minutes or less it takes me to set up a tent, or the 4ish days of his weird stanky-ass mood? He admitted to feeling like quite the fool.
The next most exciting part about that weekend was the toilets. I mentioned in a previous installment that he had a noteworthy aversion to any sort of foul stenches, particularly relating to bodily functions.
I may have also mentioned in my drunken stories from my first Nummi that the toilets at that festival have a dark reputation.
For me, no beef, I’m a trained woodsman and I can do my business behind any ol’ log deep in the woods. But he wasn’t ready for forest pooping and could not get anywhere near the outhouses. This magical combination led to a very clenched, very pent up, very cranky bear cub. Resourceful as I am, I went and figured out that media representatives had access to the VIP toilets (not always a given, sadly), which are those fancy new container types that actually go flushy-flushy. That, my darlings, is what technology is good for: making festival toilet-going less of a horrifying nightmare.
The magnitude of relief and gratitude I got for that one was memorable. Not in action, just in the sheer change in vibe and massive softening overall. The gratitude was nice too, though.
We certainly had a few fights over that weekend, but for the life of me I can’t recall over what. Probably having a reactive, cranky introvert crammed in a car with a chronically worried mamabear for too long, I’m sure. Sometimes he just needed to take off and get some space. We always talked it out and recovered.
But we also had a ton of fun. I think we had a jolly good time watching ye olde classic Viking metal Ensiferum, and I remember checking out the (sadly Gaahl-less) Gorgoroth, a black metal band of legend. He was very impressed by the doom and gloom of Kaunis Kuolematon (as was I). And since we had seen Ember Falls and Ikinä together earlier in the year, we naturally saw both of them again when they were playing at this festival.
We didn’t see everything together though. There were some weird old bands that he knew of as a kid that were sort of joke bands that you only understand if you’re a drunken Finnish hilbilly (with all due love—it is mandatory for bands like that to play at Nummirock), so he delighted in that sort of stuff, while the joke is pretty much always lost on me. Meanwhile, I think he was still sleeping when I was up early listening to Mikko Alatalo and Hevisaurus. I remember introducing him to one of the promoters and their discussion about Turmion Kätilöt, heh…
Anyways, if you’re interested in the musical side of that year, you can still find those festival reports over at Tuonela Magazine.
I recall that we went swimming, too, since Nummirock is right on a lake. There are zero rules in that lake and swimming shitfaced is sort of the default. Case in point, my stand-out memory of going swimming was of us just swimming around and some dude drifted past us with a bottle of Gambina, and just casually offered us some.
Gambina, if you aren’t familiar with it, is a vile red alcoholic liquid that is, in Finland, traditionally mainlined by the raving lunatics known as Rytmihäiriö fans. They’re fantastic people, if your goal is to party to death while listening to music about getting drunk.
So, Otso and this dude have a little bottle back ‘n’ forth, and then the dude just drifts on to share his awful alcohol with the next cluster of people he bumps into. Nummirock, truly, is like the Fae, only it’s Heavy Metal Land. You truly know nothing about heavy metal unless you have survived a weekend at Nummirock.
Perhaps my favorite memory of that weekend was of the couple of opportunities we got to fuck around with people re: our age difference. Being a sobered-up drug addict at that point, he knew that if he hung onto his cigarettes, he’d down them all in an afternoon without thinking, so I was in charge of making sure he actually needed one if he was going to have one (and I was grateful to be trusted with this task).
Another part of the reason for this was simply that he couldn’t afford cigarettes and this was to help them last longer, and he knew he couldn’t control himself.
When we were waiting for one of the bands to start on the smaller tent stage, I went off for one reason or another, and while he was waiting for me to come back, he bummed a smoke from a random festival-goer. No rules against that, per our agreement. But the rules of fuckery were always engaged if he was in a good mood…
I remember gazing around the fairly empty tent space and locking eyes on him, and noticing the cigarette, and pointed at him, wide-eyed. He responded by freezing and going, “SHIT! My mom busted me smoking!” The guy from whence he bummed the smoke looked over and saw me: again, only 11 years older and looking young for my age, while he looked fairly haggard for his. We were in it for the look of sheer confusion that was guaranteed to follow, and had a good laugh about it with the guy afterwards.
So, indeed, I remember us fighting. It happened, of course. I’ve heard that it’s common for people to lose bad memories of someone they love when they pass away. I feel like that’s true, but it wasn’t even necessarily a passive choice. When Otso was alive, I collected those fights and bad times as information to use next time, to help make things easier for both of us. Once that information isn’t directly useful anymore, it gets dropped. So I remember that there was fighting and tension between us, but I mostly remember laughing at the sheer, unique unhinged experience that is Nummirock festival, and I’m glad I got to share it with him once.
Thanks again for hearing his story. Stay balanced, my friends 💞🐻
READ MORE: I also wrote a fair bit of fiction inspired by my cub. The Bear Forge was written about our meeting, its sequel, The Broken Anvil, is about our estrangement, and the finale, Everstrong, is a poshumous letter written from him to his mamabear.
Note: the latter two are only available to paid Substack subscribers.
I See You was inspired by a F(r)iction prompt, “unseen.” Elegy for a Lost Soul was written after he doubled-down on the path of destruction for the final time.
