Sara Hammerzmith

And with that,the gig was over. Before the gig, we had been told we could possibly go backstage, so directly after we had to head over to the meeting point, and of course it’s at this point we run into Maddy and Jasmin! I tell you though. Maddy is a girl I’ve known for a good 8, yes _8_ years and I hadn’t met her up til this point! My god! It was such a surreal feeling a way, this girl you’ve chatted with for so many years and all of a sudden she’s there! Right in front of you!

A brief little hello before we had to rush further, in order not to loose our friends. Gladly, we were all re-united with everyone at the meeting point and headed over to the backstage-area.

And seriously, it was a mess alright.

First of all, there were all these people with the VIP passes that apparently included a meet&greet or something with Lordi, and fair enough! But after a while it was time for us to get in as well, and first we got in and somehow Sophie managed to sneak in with us. They stopped Anthalerero in the door but with a little bit of arguing about her being the photographer we got her in to, and with her came Jasmin and her friend, and then the next thing happened where they stopped Maddy in the door and the next little argument started about that they can’t take in us all and leave Maddy behind, so gladly we got her in to. I think Laura and her guy managed to sneak in at this point to, as you can hear: TOTAL CHAOS!

Anyway, we were told to be quick getting our pictures taken, and I’d say we were! It wasn’t so much of a meet&greet, more of a “GET IN TAKE A PHOTO GET OUT” kind of thing, BUT, Mr OX and I did totally have a moment.

First picture is Michelle and Kaarle, second pic is Mara and Me, and the photo of me and Mara is taken by Anthalerero. 

I sadly do not have pictures of the other guys with Lordi, but you get the picture! After this we all stood in a little circle waiting for each other to get done when one of Kaarles friends came over and gave me one of Mana’s used drumsticks! Seriously, thank you J! That was just the cherry on top, seriously. When getting into the lobby we ran into Laura, who worked at the exhibition in Savonlinna this summer, if you remember? It was really nice seeing her again, and saying a more proper hello! After going out of the area we all kinda split up. Maddy & co headed over to Bäkkäri, Mara and Kaarle headed home and me, Michelle, Sophie and Anthalerero headed to the hotel to drop off some stuff and a quick clothing change before joining the rest of the people at Bäkkäri. But before so,we had one last groupshot.

We ended up spending a little while at home talking about everything and nothing before “finally” heading over to Bäkkäri where we met up with Jasmin, Maddy and their friend. We had a good few hours talking and laughing, and at one point the wonderful Kaisa came over to say hi! This meeting was completely unexepcted, but this is also one of these Lordi fans I’ve had contact with for a few years and never actually met until now. It was really cool meeting you!

I promise. Maddy did survive. Anyways, after a few hours at the place we all got a little tired and me, Michelle, Antha and Sophie headed back to the hotel where we originally planned to go to bed… and well, Michelle did, but the rest of us sat up and talked and talked for hours and hours about everything and nothing. A lot of gasps, laughters and memories shared until we decided that it might be a good idea to get a few hours of sleep before getting up to showing Antha out of the hotel in the morning. I think we slept about two hours before we went up again. Ahh, the life on the road! We said good bye to Antha for this time, went back to bed for an hour or so before going up and packing everything and saying good bye to the most amazing hotel ever.

We met up with Sophie at Sokos McDonalds and headed towards the cutest little coffeshop for breakfast and good bye. And I swear to god, like I already wrote in the previous entry… I could have sat in that coffeshop for the whole day, forever. I didn’t for a split moment want it to end. It was just heartbreaking when we had to leave for the bus and say good bye to Sophie for the last time… I can’t tell you people enough how badly I did NOT want this all to end.

This was the best weekend I have had in a very, very long time, perhaps ever. Meeting up with peers that shares the same passion as you, and meeting up with them all on the same time, in the best city in the entire world, watching the best band in this world and just living inside this little bubble that is the Lordi fandom for a whole weekend… It’s just beyond amazing and it’s the best thing you could ever possibly do.

Thank you, sincerely, ALL of you who made this weekend the perfect that it was. I’ll thank you all one more time.
Thank you, Michelle, Sophie, Kaarle, Mara, Argo, Anthalerero, Maddy, Jasmin, Aneta, Laura, Kaisa and of course – Lordi.

// Sara

So, after a bit of debating with myself I came to the conclusion that I’ll divide this into three parts rather than making one LONG entry about it. 

Well well! Where shall I start off. Because of school reasons I decided to leave fairly late from home, not until about 5.30 or so in the evening, arriving fairly late, as you might understand. I immediately set off for the hotel and started walking up the ever so familiar shopping street, and a few years later I finally arrived at the hotel. I set up my things and left to pick up some dinner and also heading out for some poster-hunting. Yes, I’m a sucker for gig-posters, and having seen a SlipKnot one on Drottninggatan I had to see if there was anymore than that one availible, which it wasn’t, but you know… I got my dinner so I’m happy.

So yeah. What can I say. Scare Force One on repeat, dinner and chatting with awesome people before going to bed to get ready for the real adventures. When laying down, I noticed that people had written small messages in the “roof” of the bed, and I figured I had to leave a little message as well.

The next day became a little more stressful. I know myself pretty well, and I also know I hate getting up in the morning even if I have to. Even though I packed and prepped everything already the night before, I still struggled a little coming up. I had planned so I could miss a bus or two without missing the flight, which was good. I got out in good time, and I even had time to stop and snitch Sid off the panel he was sitting at at Drottninggatan.

And this must have been my lucky day I’m telling you – when looking at the buscharts, it said it was going to leave at 8,which made me so confused, because when I checked the time-table online, it clearly said 7.40, 7.50, 8.00 and so on, and I had checked specifically for todays date, and I saw the bus before left 7.45, and I arrived 7.46.

Or at least it was supposed to have been. I went outside and got on the bus that was outside, and after a minute or so it left, like, 13 minutes before it was “supposed” to. Not sure at all what was up inside Cityterminalen, but I was more than happy that I and Sid got to the airport as soon as possible. Luggage drop off was quick, and I eventually went through security and all, with only abuot an hour or so until the plane was about to take off. Good. After all this time travelling, I’ve gotten sick of waiting too long.

I decided to pick up a coffee for breakfast before meeting up with Michelle who was already waiting by the gate! Gaaah, it was so cool to see her again, and to travel again you know? At first we started looking for some place to have some actual food, but soon decided against it and eat one in Finland instead. As we waited for the plane, a little kid came and played with Michelle’s jacket. Oh the lulz.

Since we didn’t check in nor book together, we didn’t get seats next to each other… but gladly, the plane wasn’t filled or anything so we ended up sitting together regardless! When we landed in Finland we were greeted with better weather than it was in Sweden, that could only be a good sign, right?

First stop after getting to Helsinki central was to pick up some concert tickets at a R-Kioski and then heading toward the hotel. I had originally booked the wrong hotel, but managed to cancel it and book the same hotel fellow monstermaniac Sophie stayed at. We headed over there, and much to our dismay, noticed we couldn’t check in until 4. I’ll tell you about this hotel.

So, this hotel is basically not staffed. You have a code to your room, which is also the code to the hotel and the elevator, so there is no actual receptionist or anything there. We were a little frustrated, I mean, we wanted to get to the gig goddamnit! So we called the service number, and she told us since our room was ready, she could activate the code immediately. THANK HEAVENS! We went upstairs, unpacked our things and got in touch with Argo and Sophie.

We told them to meet us in 20 minutes outside the hotel, so we went down to the lobby to wait for them. It was so exciting. I haven’t seen Argo since our trip to Italy in 2013, and Sophie, the last time I met her was in 2010!! It’s fucking insane! After waiting a while, we finally saw them coming and I literally went all ASJDLAJDLASJ on the inside for seeing these amazing people again! Wow. The feeling people, the feeling of seeing someone you haven’t seen for YEARS, and now they are there with you, in real life. It’s a surreal feeling.

We headed to the Rax Pizza buffet for Lunch and we just sat and ate good food and talked for a good hour or so, before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the show. It took a little longer time than I had expected, so we sent Sophie and Argo to head over before us – like, the arena was 5 minutes or so away from our hotel, so it wasn’t even a particularly long walk or anything. A little after they left, also we got on our way and headed for The Circus.

To be continued