Sara Hammerzmith

As promised, in celebration of the release of “Nailed By The Hammer of Frankenstein”, Lordi’s most recent single, here is my throwback entry about my very first Lordi gig back in 2006. I had to dig up some old photos for this, so excuse the delay. Put on the new single, and enjoy the party.

All inclusive – Four days with Lordi, including sleep-over!

Alright. So, as you guys probably have understood so far, my first full Lordi gig happened on September 19th 2006. The location was Gothenburg, the arena was Lisebergshallen. I went to this gig together with one of my closest friends at the time, Lina, and as it happens, it’s her birthday today! and her friend Catrin. We started queueing for the show around 12, in the morning or how to put it in order to get in the frontrow. We were obviously first in line, despite this being 2006 it didn’t seem Lordi had that many hardcore fans in the town for the night.

The queueing was pretty much what queueing always is – hilarious. Loads of laughing, loads of anticipation and perhaps madness. I recorded a lot of videos during the day, and gladly, some of them are put together in the video I’ll link below. It’s from this legendary video and night we’ve gotten the expression “One day with Lordi – All inclusive” which I’ve used many times when writing about my experiences as a Lordi fan.

Here’s a fun story. We eventually decided we would go up to people and ask them if they liked Lordi, if they were going to the show and things like that, but it wasn’t a lot of people coming around. There was however one person who we saw coming in the distant, and we thought about asking him. However, we were too shy to actually go up to him, so I just snapped a picture of him for some reason. Later on, when reviewing this picture a little closer, we realized that we had been very close to walk up to MR AMEN HIMSELF to ask him if he liked Lordi. I kinda wish today that we had done it. Just for the hell of it to see his reaction.

Lina outside Liseberg

When it got closer to opening time, more and more people started to come and gather around the doors. After a while, it got pretty crowded and then it happened, the one thing that aren’t allowed to happen. They opened the other doors.

We had throughout the day asked the staff about which of the gates would open, and they had repeatedly told us that it was the main gates, the ones we were at, that would be opened first. Good. But then, when it was finally time, they opened the sitegates instead. Do you understand.We had been queueing for 7 hours, and then we weren’t even let in first, not even NEAR to be let in first. This still to this day pisses me off, and this is why I have no trust at all for venuepeople and doors if they have multiple.

Well well. Eventually we got it in, got sucky places of course in the middle of everything. Supportact for the night was a Swedish band called Sabaton. I’m not sure if you guys ever heard of them, but they are a Swedish band from Falun singing about wars, mainly*. The show was energetic, and for me, who at the time was only familiar with Wig Wam and Lordi, this was pretty revolutionary. What the hell is this.

Fun story: Lordi was having different supportacts throughout the tour, and for some reason I had mixed Sabaton up with another band, so I thought the band was German. And me and denial are good friends, so despite the singer (apparently called Jocke) talked Swedish, I still thought they were German. I still have the text I sent to my best friend that night.

“Not sure what band is playing, but for being a German band the singer speaks pretty good Swedish!”

I was, at the time, blown away by the gig. I caught the keyboardist (apparently called Daniel) actually raising his keyboard as if it was a guitar! Crazy! I sadly do not have a picture to share with you guys about this, as I can’t find the original folder with all the pictures. Fun note: The singer asked us to jump for their last song (I think it was called ‘Primo Victoria’ or something) and Lina just looked at me and went “WE CAN’T JUMP NOW? WE NEED TO SAVE ENERGY FOR LORDI!” And I agreed with her. Haha, oh the fangirlness.

But yeah. It was entertaining as hell! I heard the band is doing pretty good these days though, glad to hear!

Anyway. After the show, both Catrine and Lina was carried out because of the heat, and I got scared being left alone so the guards carried me out too. So we went from bad spots to even worse spots. I was never actually carried backstage or anything, I just got out of the crowd. So there I was. All alone. Awaiting Lordi. And after a little waiting… the lightning went off, “SCG:3” started and then they fired the whole thing off with “Bringing Back The Balls To Rock”.

I was just like OH MY GOD ITS LORDI ITS LORDI ITS LORDI ITS LORDI. AAHHHH. MY GOD. LORDI LORDI LORDILORDILORDILORDI.

Right after this song I found Lina again, so I did get to enjoy the gig together with her. Sadly, I couldn’t find the folder with all my pictures from the night, so I can’t give you a full setlist. They played a lot more songs than the songs featured on the DVD from Stockholm, but yeah, the DVD gives you a good hint of what songs was played.

Ahh, where do I begin to talk about the gig. I was really just in awe for everything. And scared. These monsters terrified me at the time,  but oh my god. I remember how OX yelled the wrong city (Malmö instead of Gothenburg). How I had planned to record snippets of every song, but when Kita had finished his drumsolo and fired off a bazooka so loud that I jumped 500 feet in the air and accidently turned off my camera. Like how the whole stagesetting amazed me. How the band amazed me. Since I don’t have access to photos nor videos it’s hard for me to point out specific things when it’s this long ago, but I really remembered how blown away I was from it all.

From seeing my favorite band for the first time. When they got down to playing “Hard Rock Hallelujah” we were all really sad, could it really be the end already? Already? No…

But it wasn’t over. Not for us. A few days prior to the show, Amen had given us backstagepasses. So while the other guests left the arena, we hung around waiting for their at the time tourmanager Tomi Niemi. Eventually he came and took our names, and asked us to wait at the seats, as he was picking up the rest of the people. The disturbing thing about this, is that we had yet not found Catrin. We called out her name, but she was nowhere to be found. So we ended up going backstage without her.

Ahh, I remember it all so well. How we passed those black curtains that separate us mortals from the band, how we walked down the stairs from the seats and then up the hellishly long stair to the backstage area, and that the first person I run into in the small corridor is Mr Lordis wife.I got so starstruck when I crashed into her, it isn’t even funny.

They took us to this conferance room and someone joked about us seeing a movie. Lina and I, shy as we were, sat down in the back row, as far away from the front as possible. After waiting for what felt like forever we heard dunk…. dunk…. dunk…. And there was OX.

And then Kita.

Mr Lordi.

Awa.

Amen.

RIGHT THERE. RIGHT IN FUCKING FRONT OF US. I couldn’t breathe, I got scared and starstruck and I was so happy we were in the back.

No one made any approaches to the band, everybody just sat in their seats. Kita asked why no one was coming up, and a guy yelled out “We are scared of you!” in which Kita responds with a “Ok, bye!” and almost walks out of the room before laughing and returning. Eventually people started approaching them, but not us. We were still scared. We stood in the back and took pictures of them instead.

And that’s when it happened.

That’s when I see Kita point right at me. Waving to me and saying “Ey!! come over here!” in a cheerful matter. The story behind this, is that I was wearing a Kita faceshirt to the gig. People knowing me should be no stranger as to how much I love Kita. Did I go? Of course not. Kita kept calling out for me, and by now, OX has also noticed us and Lina’s OX faceshirt and started to call us over as well. The pressure from the two became a little big, so very hesitantly we started going over there.

Tommi met us halfway taking our cameras so he could take pictures of us with the band. On shaky legs I walked up to Kita, looking down at the floor. I was too scared to even risk meeting any of the monstars eyes and suddenly I feel someone grabbing me, not only by my arm, but like across all of me. At this point I stop walking, only to realize I’m moments away from crashing right into OX. I slowly look up his ribcage, his neck and at last meets his green eyes that are staring down at me. I’m pretty positive my eyes were big as tomatoes and about to pop out of my head.

That someone who grabbed me, eventually turned me over, told me he thought my shirt was really cool and embraced me, half-way at least. If you haven’t guessed already. This “someone” who grabbed me, turned me over and embraced me was no one else than Kita himself. Tommi quickly snapped a picture of me and Lina and OX and Kita, and I was shaking like a LEAF I’m telling you. I’ve never been this nervous in my entire life.

I went to my bag and picked up the poster I had brought to get signed and started making my way arond the members. I started with Amen who was the furthest away. Didn’t say anything to him as I can remember, and then moved on to Mr Lordi who stood for a good while turning my poster up side down to find a good angle to sign it from. Went to Awa, then back to Kita and OX. While Lina was running around getting autographs, Awa approached me.

I must have looked so scared, because she was so sweet in her approach. She went up to me and said “Hej, bor du i Göteborg?”. This means, “Hey, do you live in Gothenburg?”. I got so confused that she was talking Swedish to me and I was just like “n-n-no…”. Then I remember that she actually speaks Swedish. She continued on telling they had been all around the city today, to Hard Rock Café and everything and that she loved the city. Then she told me that’s all the Swedish that she knows and I told her it was cool, or something like that. I really just nodded and smiled to whatever she said.

Awa got occupied with some other fans, in which Kita approaches me. I’m so glad these monstars actually do this – approach their fans. I was so scared and nervous and didn’t dare to talk to any of them, and I’m beyond grateful that they actually came up to me and didn’t just be like “ah, she doesn’t care!”. Anyway, he came up me and asked me if this was truly everything we wanted to have signed, like all of us, and I told him that yeah, I guess so. He told me he was surprised, because it happens in Finland sometimes that people bring like 20 copies of one album to get signed.

It isn’t until now I understand what Kita was talking about. And I think all your Lordifans knows what, or rather, who, he was talking about.

After this while, the monstars said good night and we were escorted out of the arena. Outside we finally met up with Catten again who was a little bummed she had missed out on the M&G, but she was happy anyway. After this, I went home to Karlstad and they went home to their places, and that was the end of an amazing day. A truly, amazing, day.

You know. This is probably, even to this day, one of my most cherized memories ever. This night was so special. Maybe it’s because of my first encounter with the monstars, maybe not, I’m not sure at all. But when writing this, I have felt my heart starting to pound faster, my arms getting weaker and my hands starting to shake. I have literally gone back to the exact feeling I had that night, and it almost makes me cry right here right now out of happiness. This night was the best ever, thanks to Lina, Kita and the rest of the band.

And this, my friends, is the story of my first Lordi gig, and my first meeting with the band. It’s been 8 years, and a lot of things have happened since. But this, this can’t be beaten. Ever. I guess it’s something about being 15 and meeting your band for the first time.

// Sara

* Please pay attention to the irony and sarcasm put into the entire section of Sabaton. It’s all written with humor.