**** Lordi @ Monroe’s, Galway, Ireland 10/11 -16 *****
So. The lights went out. And then the very very well recognized bass tunes from “God of Thunder” and we just… exploded. Most of the arena did. Execept the two people next to us, who had so ferociously fought for their spots… why? Bites me. And then… “SCG:VII” and they started off the set with “Let’s Go Slaughter He-Man (I Wanna be the Beast Man in the Masters of the Universe)”
And this was just so weird. All that was between us and Lordi, where a pair of monitors and all of our stuff. I have been to shows before where there have been no fence, but seeing LORDI like this, LORDI without a proper stage show, NOTHING was just pure weird.
They followed up with “Babez for Breakfast” before stopping. Stopping to tell us that, they have no stage show tonight becasue of the small stage. And that they do not have any setlist, so it was up to us to choose what songs we wanted to hear. This left me standing there confused, because I had no idea what songs I’d want to hear. So, essentially, let the mainstream crowd decide. And of course, the first song of choice was “Hard Rock Halleujah”. What else do you expect from a pub in a smaller Irish city? So, “Hard Rock Halleujah” was next, followed by “Bringing Back The Balls to Rock”.
Next song was one of the songs that were actually cut in Dublin – “Nailed by the Hammer of Frankenstein”. I felt a little uneasy when Mr L stood and proclaimed “WANNA HEAR A SONG ABOUT RAPING?” but you know… what can you do. It was good to hear it again though!
“Hug You Hardcore” followed and… all eyes turned to Nathan. You see, on the evening of the Presidential election, Nathan made a bet. That if Donald Trump wins, he will take off his top and swing it over his head in “Hug You Hardcore”. And seeing that Donald Trump actually won, he had to own up to it. And fair enough, in the last chorus of the song we did indeed see Nathan take his shirt off and swing it over his head. I fucking loved it.
I’m going to apologize right here – I didn’t keep proper tags on the setlist, so some of the songs can be a bit out of order. Next song on the list was “Blood Red Sandman”, and I think that somewhere along here, they also threw in “Rock the Hell Outta You” and “Bite it Like a Bulldog”. And also, somewhere along here, we had ice cubes coming our way, because apparently, one bandmember thought it was time for us to “cool down” a bit. Seriously, I love this band.
After “Blood Red Sandman”… it was time for our little moment. “It Snows in Hell”. Since there were no actual fence, what happened is that we created pillows and matresses out of our stuff, and simply laid down on it, like as on the floor. And as soon as we got ourselves comfortable, we saw a very familiar face getting very close to us, having water dripping, or more like, spilling out of his mouth all over us, drenching us worse than he has ever done before. He then proceeded to dedicate the first line to us, as per usual.
And then.. “Children of the Night”. And this people. This is where it got fucking serious alright. Lordi had no stage props. Nothing. So, I guess, Mr Lordi saw an oppurtunity and he took it. He used us in the song. He showed us off to the audience, that he hid us under the floor, because us being here made him sore, and that we still gotta be there, that we are not going anywhere…. At first I thought he was just singing the first line to us as usual, but soon enough I noticed he was actually fucking USING US AS PROPS. What a rush! What an absolute rush, to be used as props, completely unexpectedly. I loved this song so much already from the start, but now the song is just closer to heart than it ever was before.
“Who’s Your Daddy?” followed, “The Riff” next before they did “Down with the Devil”. We tried out our new little trick for “Down with the Devil”, which will probably only work for this show because of the flightcase, it was funny.
As we notice the band getting ready to wrap up their set, we start chanting “HELLA! HELLA! HELLA!” Because yes. They didn’t have any stage show. But they had one thing they could do. Or she could do. And after we chanted a bit, she indeed started stripping for us.
And I guess this is what made this show so special. Sure, it was a very special, weird and odd show to start with, but what made it even more special for us, is the fact that it felt like we were the only fans that existed for the band. So much interactions, so many “inside jokes” with the band, out of nowhere, so many things they wound up doing for, and to us. I can’t really get over this.
They wrapped the whole set up with “Devil is a Loser” and “Would you Love a Monsterman?” before they left the stage and we just stood there in awe. What an amazing show. What a fucking show. It was so good, and weird to see them like this. The only fucking minus though, is all those people who created fake mosh pits. You know, those people who think that just because they are at a metal show they can behave any way they want. It hurt us a couple of times, especially those times we almost knocked over Lordi’s monitors. Nice, huh?
After the show, we hung around a bit trying to comprehend it all, before making our way down to the merch. Myself, I picked up on the “Hug Me Hardcore” shirt, and Paula on some other things. I think Sophie also got some stuff. We had met up with a Polish guy, Kacper, before the show, so together with him, and with Mike of course (the angel brought us water bottles!!) made our way back to Lordis stage to take one last picture together, to treasure this moment forever.
We said a last good bye to everyone in the venue, Kacper leaving early before me, Soph, Paula, Nate, Mike and Gavin made our way outside the tourbus for some more hanging out and catching up. After Mike had went to bed (hehe) we went over to Lordi’s tourbus to say good bye to everyone… but only to regret it. A stupid group of drunk people had made their way there, knocking on the tourbus, even trying to BREAK INTO the tour bus a couple of times, making us very very embarrassed to be there. Gladly, they weren’t with us.
After some time, we said good bye to Gavin and went back home to our hotel – but at this time, it was already 4 in the morning, and having a train leaving at 5 we saw no point in trying to go to bed, so we spent one last hour together, on the floor in one of the bedrooms talking about how much we love this silly little band from Finland, and how amazing this trip had been.
Thank you guys. So fucking much. This trip was beyond amazing.
// Sara
Sara Hammerzmith 