Acclaimed Music Forums

Woo hoo!! Here's a report from Helsinki, where three adult men had plain fun for a whole incredible weekend!


Moonbeam, Henrik and Petri.


Moonbeam and Petri had already met a few times before I joined them on Friday evening, quickly establishing themselves as the Helsinki music quiz champions! Therefore we made not one but two album covers, with and without me.

On Saturday, we took a boat to Suomenlinna sea fortress, where Moonbeam and Petri had a bath. The air was warm but the water was cold, as I was told...




On Sunday, we went to Linnanmäki, Helsinki's amusement park. So much fun!!!



Our favorite rollercoaster was Ukko, which we had to ride two times.



After a long day of thrilling rides, we made the second album cover...




Still, the highlight of the meetup was probably Saturday night's karaoke, with extremely impressive performances of Moonbeam. The last minute of the Moonbeam 2 video ("The Beautiful Ones") is just wow!!! Also, well..., less impressive performances by myself. But hey, I'm proud that I even went on stage. Beat me if you like, because this is just the first in what could hopefully be an Acclaimed Karaoke series!
Finally, I just want to say that I was truly having a blast. I'm very lucky to have met Moonbeam and Petri, as well as Rob the week before, in real life. Such wonderful friends!!!

That Spiderland re-creation is AMAZING! It looks and sounds like a fantastic time was had by all!

Wow, that's fantastic! Great cover arts and great performances (Moonbeam, you are born for the stage!). It's obvious that you had a splendid time together. I'm so glad that the "real life meetings tradition" that Henrik and me ignited is continuing in such a wonderful way!

That Don't You Want Me video is for the ages !!!
And for those who didn't know yet, Moonbeam's got the moves.

Moonbeam's got great moves. Hell yeah!

That's awesome! I am so jealous of you all. You seem so worldly, all you AMers. I just wish a few of you would hang out in America from time to time.

Thank you both for one of the most joyous weekends of my life! These meetings remind me of how much of a family AM is.

Petri, thank you so much for your warm hospitality. Aside from the triple meetup this weekend, we have had great fun at the music quizzes (Petri literally wrote the book on them: he is a published author of a music quiz book!), playing frisbee golf, dominating in an impromptu pickup basketball game, attending a cherry blossom festival, and browsing through local flea markets for goodies! And when Henrik came, you were the perfect host, suggesting great places to visit for this amazing weekend adventure. You are such a genuine person and I have met very few people with your kindness.

Henrik, thank you so much for visiting Helsinki. It was amazing meeting the man, the myth, the legend after coming to this website for 15 years! Thank you as well for designing our album covers with such detail and launching AM YouTube. I have also gotten some wonderful music recommendations from you which are sure to become enduring favorites. And of course, thank you for your awesome karaoke performances! That last minute of "Don't You Want Me" in particular is such unbridled joy. You are such a special person.

Sorry for the public gushing, but it's hard to hold back when I have made what I feel are lifelong friends and have had such a great time.

Oh fuck yesssss. I even sense some serious Seekers Melbourne 1993 reunion vibes in these pictures. Very cool!

Great job with the karaoke, gentlemen. That's some inspired performance of "The Beautiful Ones," Moonbeam. The only thing that would've been better is a reprise of your "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" performance. And Henrik dropping a little Leonard Cohen! "Don't You Want Me" was a perfect choice for a closing collaboration. (It would've been nice to see Petri up there, too.)

I couldn't get up on stage like that after a hundred beers, so I tip my cap to you guys. Can't wait to see what the next AM meeting brings!

That’s so cool!

AM forum... the hope for the..... "mankindness" (the kindness of mankind)

So much fun can be seen in these photos/videos.... and Henrik, what a smile

Thanks for sharing this.

The weekend was so awesome! Thank you guys. Moonbeam and Henrik were so nice and approachable people. When I first met Moonbeam two years ago in Helsinki it was the first time we met in real life but it felt like we were old friends (which we of course kind of were through the AM Forum). The exactly same happened with Henrik.

I didn’t have guts to sing in karaoke (I don’t sing by myself either) but maybe someday (I actually sang in karaoke in Berlin (Film Festivals) in 2010 but it went really bad ).

I love those album covers. Especially Spiderland is so close the original. Thanks Henrik! (The water was really pretty cold. Afterwards Moonbeam checked out the temperature and it said +9 C (it didn’t feel that cold but still)).

Like Moonbeam said we have been at the music quizzes. Tonight is the season final and we have still a chance to win the whole season (we are six points behind the leader and over 40 points ahead of #3) .

As it turns out, I went out for karaoke with some work friends last night and did "You Dropped a Bomb on Me", among others. I don't think there is any video, though there are apparently videos of some other songs I sang.

I have done a bit of a world karaoke tour the past 18 months, and I have to say that Helsinki is way up there! Lots of places and lots of song choices (over 57,000) at the place we went. I think I am over 30 songs deep in Helsinki alone during this visit.

jamieW wrote:I couldn't get up on stage like that after a hundred beers, so I tip my cap to you guys. Can't wait to see what the next AM meeting brings!

To be fair, I don't think any of us could get up on stage after a hundred beers. But this is great - cool to see you guys meeting up and having a good time.

That looks so fun, glad you all had a good time!! Goes to show what an amazing community this is

Looks like you had a great time. Makes me sad that I could only meet up Henrik for only two hours recently

Wonderful to see how three people's affection for this web-based forum resulted in a real-life meeting of such warmth (and clever album cover reproductions, and take-me-as-I-am-crazy-world dance moves, and karaoke singing that came from someplace deep within). Thanks for this. I hope to see you at the next Helsinki meet-up.

What a meet-up by 2 legendary and 1 God-tier AMFers ! The karaoke portion is dope. I would love to join a Helsinki weekend meet-up for the Acclaimed Karaoke/Music Quiz series if planned very way ahead of time (visa, money, leave approval reasons).

Yeah, a big meetup planned well in advance would be amazing!