Showtime at the Apollo

Saturday night I went to a club in Helsinki called Apollo (this is pronounced similarly to how French people pronounce it, which means that every time I hear the name, I think of the conjunctivitis breakout in Bobo-Dioulasso in 2003 (for some reason, there are a lot of people in the world who refer to pink eye as 'apollo', and Burkinabe are among those people)). Anyway, Apollo is an old theater that has been converted into a club. Like many of the popular clubs in Helsinki, there are a lot of little rooms, each with its own bar and music. At Apollo, however, the room that clearly used to house the movie screen is the main gathering place. It's gorgeous:


When I arrived in the main room, there were lots of people on the dance floor and I was expecting to hear the DJ continue to play current rock all night. Instead, a band came onstage, and began to play 'Living on a Prayer'. The band is apparently called Bad Influence and they are a Swedish cover band. They played 80s rock covers all night! Their performance was high-energy -- I'll give them that. Also, the crowd was totally loving it.

I found this clip on youtube. It's not from Apollo, but you can get the idea. Watch the singer throw up the sign of the goat at 0:26, and you'll see what I saw about a million times that night.