The northern Finnish town of Oulu has been described as ”˜Just like Geelong, but colder and with more fish.’ It is home to, among other things, the World Air Guitar Championship.
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It is also the birthplace of the Shouting Men’s Choir: thirty men in black suits, yelling.
Finns, by and large, are quiet people. Silence doesn’t have the awkward associations that it does in much of the Western world – if Finns are quiet, it’s because they’re comfortable that way. This choir was, in part, as a reaction against that tradition of silence.
The initial advert simply asked for men who wanted to scream. Hundreds of men have “sung” since then, including a lot of national anthems. This includes the Shouting Men’s Choir version of Marseillaise.
Oulu is like a lot of isolated northern towns the world over: infused with an anarchist spirit and an odd sense of humour. The choir once hopped on a bus, drove seven hundred kilometers to the ice sea between Norway and Finland, and yelled into the barren, empty wind. They then got back on the bus, and drove home.