Kingston Wall: Petri Wallin saaga

Psychedelic rock trio Kingston Wall were pretty much my favourite band in the early 19990s. Unfortunately I never got to see them live as they mostly played in bars and I was too young to get in. Their drummer Sami Kuoppamäki is a world class talent who really inspired me as a drummer when I started playing and still doesn't fail to make me astonished about his skills. Drummer Kuoppamäki, bass player Jukka Jylli and the guitarist-singer Petri Walli were all very talented musicians who created some great music that still lives on.

The main character in the band was Petri Walli, the force and the mastermind behind everything. This book is not just about Kingston Wall but Petri Walli and his journey in life and the astral planes of the spiritual worlds where Indian hash smells sweet and psytrance plays on the Himalayan mountains. He died too young, just like many rock stars unfortunately do, and the chapter telling about his last year until his suicide gets quite hard to read without getting emotional.

Although the book gives an impression of a determined and even stubborn personality who worked hard to reach his goals, in the end I get the feeling that he got very much lost and suffered of severe depression. Had ne not followed the false prophets on an LSD trip in Goa, he might still be with us today. Or maybe not, who knows. I guess he also wanted to live and die as a rock star.