Sara Hammerzmith

Alright! So, early morning, rise and shine and guess what – I WAS FEELING BETTER! One cup of peppermint tea (suggest by Curt, you’re the man!) and a few candies later, I was a good as new. Almost at least. But just in case, I decided to wear something very simple – plain black jeans and my Hollywood Groupies tee. Just in case. Didn’t wanna get more sick or trigger the fever or anything.

Said and done, we headed down towards Concorde. According to the maps, it wasn’t supposed to be all too far off from the hotel, basically just a stroll.

A stroll by the beach. My oh my.

So, ok, I may not have seen ALL of Brighton, mostly just the surrondings around the Pier, since that’s where we lived and where the concertarena was located, but DAMN IT WAS BEAUTIFUL. I could just stay and look at the scenery all day, which we also could once we got to the arena which was located just across from the beach.

So yeah. Eventually we found the arena, and the first thing I did was to head over to the Marine Center or what it is called – to get some breakfast/lunch/dinner. We decided to go one and one to keep the spots and oh my god… walking along the beach was absolutely amazing. It’s fucking beautiful I even texted Antoine to tell him we needed to go back here. Like, soon. So gorgeous.

Anyway, there isn’t much to say about my little walk over to the Marine centre, more than that I was very surprised to see an angry shopper at Subway over having to pay more than she thought a certain sub was worth. And actually, what makes me the most sad about this, is that the sub wasn’t for her, but for her child. And like… it must have been so heartbreaking for him, getting a sub and then his mother like ruins it only because some other Subway in some other town charges less… As if he wasn’t worth it… And here’s where my issues sometimes lies. I always get too into things.

Anyway. After said incident, I went back to see that our precious NATHAN had arrived! You know, the guy we met and befriended in Southampton? I fucking love that guy, just gonna say that upfront here. They also had another guy with them, so as Michelle and Nathan took off to buy some food I stayed behind with him and we talked about everything and nothing. Some of the guys in Dirty Passion came out and held us company, and a little later Nathan and Michelle finally returned. Oh did I mention.

Ace from Hollywood Groupies came out to talk to us, and that’s when we decided to hand over our gifts to them. He was VERY surprised and couldn’t really believe it, and he made the whole band coming over and they were REALLY REALLY surprised! I was a little shocked, I must admit! They gave us a a few things in return and took a picture with us, and thanked so much for it. I told them that them existing is the reason, but jesus! I’m glad we made them happy.

(Pic belongs to Hollywood Groupies)

While we were at it, we also handed over Dirty Passions gifts to Nasty who had just come out to hang out a little bit. So basically that’s what we did – more or less. Catching up on things, talking, laughing, waiting… What else is there to do when you’re in line?

OH RIGHT. I have to tell you this. We asked the merchguy from Dirty Passion if he could send Lordi or someone from Lordi out in order to pick up their gifts, and he said he would. They never came, so we figured they were busy until our fourth friend alarmed us Mr Lordi was out talking to some fans. And we didn’t really mean to interrupt, but we just wanted to get our baggage off, so what did we do?

Of course, we put on “God of Thunder” on a speaker, and displayed his favorite candy like in a store. We stood like that for a good while before he saw us… and seriously, this is the best thing ever. When he saw the chocolate bar, his jaw dropped and he excused him from the other guys and RAN OVER to us, and Michelle, of course, backed away as he came closer so basically, they ended up having a little cat-rat chase over chocolate, HAHAHA. It was the funniest thing I’ve seen in QUITE a while. We gave him his gift and let him get back to whatever he was doing.

However, as we also had gifts for the rest of the band, we got a little stressed the closer to the opening hours it came, so we asked Nasty if he could be so kind to put our bags with gifts in their merchbooth for us to pick up later. Kindly enough, he agreed to do this! Thank you!

The opening came, and we got inside this tiny little venue that is Concorde and I went and picked up a bottle water (just in case) and then we went waiting for the show. For this night, Hollywood Groupies was going to be the opener.

So basically, they went on stage. And it was just as awesome as the last two times we’ve seen them – like really, I cannot express to you guys how happy I am they ended up on tour with Lordi, I had given up hopes on ever seeing this band!

In the middle of this, I feel someone putting an arm around me. My first instinct is to tell the person off, but as I took a quick glance I just thought “Ah, it’s Dirty Passions merchguy, no worries” But wait. No it wasn’t. Took a second look.

It was Amen.

IT WAS FUCKING AMEN.

Both me and Michelle got wide eyed and he just stood there and grinned. We gave him a hug and it turns out he just wanted to come out to say Hi as he didn’t catch us before opening hours. What the hell just happened?!

And right after this, Hollywood Groupies dedicated “Pretty Bitch” to us.

What a good start on the night, don’t you think?

After their amazing set, and seriously, shout out to Kelly for playing with an injured finger – badass as fuck, and left the stage for Dirty Passion. It was bittersweet knowing this was the last time we saw them (for this time at least). I don’t have any pictures of neither Groupie nor Passion, because my camera just wouldn’t cooperate.

Anyway. A little after this, Dirty Passion went on stage and delivered the same energetic show as always. It was kinda heartbreaking, that for the same reasons as with the Groupies, this would be the very last time for a long time we’d see them. They delivered a good show, and left us good and warmed up before Lordi.

Ace from the Groupies had asked us to save him a spot for Lordi, so he came down right before the show started to join us, and before we knew it, “Estimated Time of Arrival” started and the show was a go.

I’m not really sure what to write about the show. I’ve written about the same show about four times now, and it’s hard to find the words. So I’ll sum it up very quickly. They had cut Hella’s keys short (no baby carriage), they had mixtured a bit with “Hell Sent in the Clowns” and all in all – this is probably the… not the best gig I have seen. To put it mildly, this goes on the bottom of the best gigs I’ve ever seen. See where I’m going with this? I never really knew what a not so good show was, but now I do. Still though, it was amazing seeing them live, regardless of performance. Shit happens, you know?

But, much love to Amen for showing us so much love, and I’m personally so fucking impressed on how synchronized we are with the band. On the live version of “Blood Red Sandman” we were not a second to late nor too early, we started headbanging at the exact moment as they started playing. Sometimes you are just that synchronized, you know? And we barely got the chance to lay down properly in “It Snows In Hell” before we felt water showering over us. Thanks Mr Lordi, I love you too. And it was pretty magical during “Would You Love A Monsterman” when the Groupies joined us in the crowd. Aside us, there wasn’t much movement in the crowd.

After the show they pretty much drowned us in stuff, and Nathan managed to score me a pick from Amen and a drumstick from Mana for himself. We hit up the merchstand, where we said a last good bye to all the guys in Dirty Passion, picked up our stuff and gave Jaqueline her little gift for being a precious to us, and also bought some last gig merchandise before going outside to wait by the tourbus.

So here’s the deal. We could see in the dressing room, not a lot, but a little, and we noticed Mana took his shirt off. And I told Nathan that HE should be the one staring in the window, because I always make jokes like that, so he turned to it and started waving and said “So what, I’m just gonna be here like Hi and lik..” and then he looked down and went away continuing with “.. and just because of that Mana looked straight at me”.

HAHAHHAHA. Seriously, it’s hard to describe for you now afterwards, but it was so fucking hilarious! HAHAHAHA. Oh my god. BEST FRIENDS FOREVER, that’s what these people are. I can’t wait to see Nathan again some day. Fucking amazing person.

Unfortunately, Nathan had to leave. It was hard to say goodbye to him, and I seriously didn’t want to let him go. Almost started crying there on the spot, but I saved that for later.

After a little while, he actually ran back to us to tell us Mana had come out, so we got one last hug before leaving for good. And with that said, Mana came around. So we gave him his gift, which considered of certain requested items, and he got pretty happy. He hung around a bit to chat before going on the tourbus. After him, Hella came, and we gave her bag to requested items as well and had a quick chat with her, mainly about her pregnancy. And then the man of the hour came, so to speak.

Amen! Woohoo! He to hug us and said a lot, A LOT of sweet things I won’t bring up here – I know certain Lordi fans are stalking this blog, and to not feed the anger, but it melted my heart. He put his bag away right in the door of the tourbus, brought us some beverages and finally, we could give him his gift. He had requested getting postcards with royals on them, but sadly, we didn’t find any, so I got an idea – we should give him the Royal Gossip magazine, DAM.

And I tell you… he laughed. We laughed. He laughed. So HARD. SO FUCKING HARD for SO LONG HAHAHAHA. Oh my god. I love his laughter, and this was just beyond amazing. Of course he had some other things in his giftbag, but I’m really glad he had a bit of humor HAHAHA. OX came by too, and we gave him his gift.

We stood around for a long time with Amen talking about bands, about my hair, about the tour, about airplanes about everything and nothing really, for a good hour or so before Mr Lordi came out (he was the last person) and they had to leave. First Mr Lordi came up to us and asked us if he got us better with the spit this time, which, like I said, he did. We said good bye to the guys one last time and even waved the tourbus as it set off. Oh, we said good bye to Jaqueline as well.

When we were about to start walking, we saw the Groupies caravann drive by, so we waved them off too, and they stopped. We were a little surprised, but they popped out and asked if we wanted a ride. And sure why not? So we got on the caravann and got a ride back to the hotel and a last time chat with the band. Apparently, the easter eggs was the nicest thing anyone had done for them this entire tour, which is so sad. But I’m really glad we could make their day. They dropped us off by the hotel and we said good bye to them one last time before going in to our hotel and pass out on the beds.

This tour, and particularly this gig, was the best thing I have done in my entire life. I owe it all to Hollywood Groupies + crew, Dirty Passion + crew, Lordi + crew, Nathan and Michelle. Thank you guys, you are awesome.

// Sara