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Expensive Awesomeness

Finland. Rovaniemi. Ounaspaviljonki. Simerock. Lordi.

Yes. This was the 10th year anniversary gig of Lordi. When the other performers had shows of 45 min or an hour, Lordi had 90 minutes. An hour and a half. They had promised we can see some pyros and Rock ’n’ Rollo choir. This would also be the last gig of our dear Lady Awa, they keyboardist of Lordi.

My day started with a car-drive to Rovaniemi. I’m living somewhere in the middle of nowhere so Rovaniemi wasn’t very far, actually. I visited a photography shop to take some passport phography for my driving license and then bought eight packs of coffee (I don’t drink coffee, by the way). Then, suddenly, salmon.

I and my friend arrived at half past seven post meridiem, just to die of heart attack: when we gave the tickets to the dude (yeah, let’s call him the Dude), who was there accepting the tickets and giving wristbands in exchange for them, he had some problems with recognizing OUR tickets.
“Uhm… sorry, but these don’t qualify”, he claimed (in Finnish, of course, my translation). I was sure this was some kind of misunderstanding or, at least, some kind of a bad dream.
Well, then I said, “’Scuse me?” and he replied, “Yup, these tickets ain’t no good.”
“What are you saying?”
“These tickets don’t qualify. They don’t exist in our database.”
“BETTER QUALIFY. THEY WERE FUCKIN’ EXPENSIVE.”
“… yeah, well, maybe I don’t know how to use this reader thingy… I go and ask some of my colleagues…”
“Do that”, I grunted. I was totally upset. Who the hell did he think he was? I had bought the tickets and they cost me 70 euros. Well, 35, because half of the money was for the tickets of my friend.

When the Dude walked out of his booth, some other staff member suddenly came and asked what was wrong. The Dude told him that the machine didn’t qualify our fucking tickets. “You are doing it wrong”, the other guy grinned and took the reader. He checked our tickets and said that both of them were OK, and then the Dude gave us the wristbands. I guess my facial expression was terrifying since the Dude muttered something about how he hadn’t worked in that booth before and how this was his first time. I barely listened, I almost had got angry. I should probably be more careful from now on. :3

Then the safeguards did some personal search (for prohibited stuff, I suppose) and we got in – just to notice that there were nothing but awful music to listen to. No, Lordi would perform at 11 o’clock. What should we have done? We walked around and saw some bungee jumps (yes, there was a place for bungee jumping). Another friend of mine appeared, and we went to eat something. Hesburger’s basic hamburgers are small and empty. I’d have preferred the Kerrosateria. I don’t eat SO much that any bigger would be needed, but the basic one was way too small.

That’s about food, back to Lordi. Half past ten we went to see how the props were placed. Quarter to eleven we went to get our places and waited until it was 11 o’clock. What then? They started the soundcheck. Soundcheck when the show should’ve started already! It was irritating but we waited. We waited half an hour. It wasn’t very much fun…

Quarter to midnight it started. Due to technical difficulties the show had delayed 45 minutes but now it was about to start: the Scarctic Circle Gathering opened the show (yes, the intro song of Get Heavy album). After that they played Bringing Back The Balls To Rock, which wasn’t a surprise since they had done so two previous times already. After that they played Get Heavy and then Mr. L apologized the delay. The next song was Dynamite Tonight, which was a surprise neither since they tested the backing vocals of that song during the soundcheck.

The gig was a memorial show of Otus, the drummer who died, and farewell show of Awa. They played They Only Come Out At Night in memory of Otus; the song had been his favorite one to play. There was also the last time Awa “chose” the next song to play (Who’s Your Daddy?) with a little help of Mr. Sime and the audience.

The show of course included traditional stuff like hitting the roadie with a bass, piercing the dancing couple with a spear after The Rebirth Of The Countess, etc. Techincal difficulties showed up again when the backing vocals of Rock Police were playing too early (chorus vocals during the pre-chorus), so they were taken out completely. The choruses sounded a bit lonely with only Mr. Lordi screaming “WE ARE THE ROCK POLICE” and between those shouts – nothing. Also, I’m pretty sure Amen had some problems with his guitars in some songs.

The first encore was something I guess nobody was waiting for as an encore: Biomechanic Man. Yet it was a great performance. The second encore was Would You Love A Monsterman with Rock ’n’ Rollo choir and the last song – of course – was Hard Rock Hallelujah. I loved the pyros.

Even though I can’t actually remember the complete order of them, I remember all the songs played that night. Here they are, sorted by album:

  • From Get Heavy:
    • Scarctic Circle Gathering
    • Get Heavy
    • Devil Is A Loser
    • Would You Love A Monsterman
    • Not The Nicest Guy
    • Biomechanic Man
    • Dynamite Tonight
  • From The Monsterican Dream:
    • Blood Red Sandman
  • From The Arockalypse:
    • Bringing Back The Balls To Rock
    • It Snows In Hell
    • Who’s Your Daddy?
    • Hard Rock Hallelujah
    • They Only Come Out At Night
  • From Deadache:
    • Bite It Like A Bulldog
    • The Rebirth Of The Countess
  • From Babez For Breakfast:
    • SCG5: It's A Boy
    • Babez For Breakfast
    • This Is Heavy Metal
    • Rock Police
    • Nonstop Nite
    • Amen's Lament To Ra
    • Granny's Gone Crazy

It’s a pity they played only one song from Deadache but the setlist was so awesome I shouldn’t ask for more. <3 Despite all the problems, this was a wonderful gig.

Also, earplugs are expensive.

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1 comments:

Joni Master said...

Good blog!

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