Saturday, 29th June
At 22 Main Stage
Esko Järvelä Epic Male Band is an exuberant, crispy and powerful Folk Rock line-up based in Helsinki Finland. The band is formed and led by Esko Järvelä, an innovative fiddler and composer from Kaustinen, which is often considered as the home of Finnish folk music. Esko grew up surrounded by several top-class folk musicians and has developed a powerful and unique fiddle style of his own breaking the boundaries of sometimes clumsy image of folk fiddling.
In addition to Esko’s fat fiddle the band consists of an edgy and multifaceted guitar team by Anssi Salminen and Jani Kivelä, delicately groovy bass lines are delivered by Juho Kivivuori and all this is framed with punchy and sparkly drumming by Janne Mathlin.
The band has released two albums (2013 and 2015) that both have climbed high on European World Music Charts and received a bunch of praising reviews in the international world music media. Epic Male Band’s explosive and cold-blooded live shows rapidly became a phenomenon among the audiences of folk festivals in Finland and around Europe. They want to entertain, they want to shake and move people, they want the music to drill right down to the bone. Every time they climb on stage they refuse to give no less than 110% to make the audience to return and experience the power and superfluous joy of Epic Folk Rock Twister again and again!
