| HIM live at Tavastia, Helsinki 31.12.2002 (by Ihni) To just write a review of the gig would be unfair to all that is Finland and lust for adventure, therefore I have to write about all the trip to Finland and back. For months, we had planned to go, me and three of my friends. Even christmas passed pretty unnoticed, since we were gonna see HIM! We met in my appartment a few days before we left and just watched HIM tapes and talked and tried not to climb the walls to get the time to pass faster, so that we could go soon! Finally, it was december 29 and we took the bus to Stockholm to catch the ferry over to Helsinki. I don't like boats, I have never been very fond of them, especially not when they are out on the open seas. But we survived, and came to Helsinki on the morning the 30th of december 2002. Wonderful to be there again, although somewhat colder than in Sweden at the time. We took a taxi to our hotel and then we went out in Helsinki with a map in our hand to see if we could learn to find the way around a little. And yes we did, eventually. We had heard a lot of rumours about crazy HIM fans etc m(later on, it turned out that we were the crazy ones ... life can really surprise you at times, right?), so we thought it best to be outside Tavastia in good time before, in order to get a good place. (Note; will someone please, the next time I'm going to a gig in Finland, hit me HARD in the head if I suggest that we are gonna be there "in good time", please?) So, at midnight, we went there. We were well prepared, with three layers of clothing on the legs and many sweaters under our jackets and in general warm clothes. We also brought small "foldable" chairs to sit on, and a few covers to cover us from the cold. We sat there in shifts of two or three hours. I have NEVER been so cold in my whole life, I promise! When we were not sitting there, we stumbled back to the hotel to get some rest and some warm showers (which, by the way, didn't help much since we were frozen to the bones) and then we went out again to freeze even more. In the beginning of each shift we talked some with the other person who was there, about how crazy we were and so on, in the middle we cursed HIM and wondered if they were really worth it, and in the end we just sat there quiet, since it was too cold to talk. What surprised me was that there were no other fans there! We thought that there would be a lot of people there, since there were to be people from all over coming to see them, but no. We were alone there, in many many hours. Not until in the end, people started to show, and then some nice people had already let us in so that we wouldn't have to sit in the cold. I think we had been there for about 16 hours or something then. A waste of time, sure. Stupid, in deed. But something to brag about to your grandchildren some day perhaps, and an experience - no doubt. Just a note that finnish people are really really nice and caring. When we were sitting there, waiting, a lot of people asked us what that was about. The newspaper deliverer felt sorry for us and gave us a paper to read, but it was too cold for us to turn the pages ... One man asked if we had somewhere to live, and if not, we could sleep at his place in the warm. One person asked if we were dead, and someone asked if we were demonstrating against homelessness. Well, we got reactions anyway, and they probably got something to talk about at their jobs ... Anyway, when we were inside the time went rather quickly. Plus, there were other people there now, which made the whole thing a lot more funny. At nine o'clock, they let us in, and we were first. Of course, I would have been crying if we hadn't been, after all that we had been though. We had to wait inside before they let us in to the room where the stage was, but after 21 hours outside, one hour inside was like paradise. They opened the door, and we went (read: ran) in. Got places in the front, in the middle. Couldn't have been more perfect, according to me. There were lots of people behind us, pushing etc, but at least we were warm. The stage was smaller than others I have seen (which suited me perfectly) and high as to my hips. There was no security fence, which ment that we were leaning on the stage itself, and had our things there. Very nice, very nice in deed ... Inside, and finally where we were supposed to be, it was just a waiting. Waiting and talking and waiting and screaming a little and waiting and singing and waiting ... Wonderful. Skreppers came out on stage. The guitarist was ... eh, energic, to say the least, and a danger to all people in the first line, who had to duck for his guitar several times. The singer was as energic as usual, and had this strange outfit, which I'm not even gonna begin to describe. Cool as hell, anyway. I didn't recognize any songs, but that was okay, since it was music and people and just happiness in general in the room. The Skreppers left the stage, and there was waiting again. Some guys came out to put the HIM playlists on the floor. Not far from us, so we knew what they were gonna play. Things were getting serious. Everyone was waiting. At twelwe o'clock, this man came out and talked in finnish and then we counted down and he sprayed us with champagne or whatever it was. Then HIM came. I don't remember much from the first couple of seconds, just that they came. They were actually standing there, a few metres away from us. Unbelievable, but true. It was amazing. The songlist, well you can find it on heartagram.com if you haven't learned it by heart yet, I'm not gonna tell you about that. It was wonderful. It was hard to jump so much in the front, but we did our best anyway and wawed our hands and - I'm sure - annoyed the living daylight out of those standing behind us. Ville was talking in finnish most of the time, but sometimes he talked in english. Hm, could it have been because we screamed for him to do that? We screamed a lot. We screamed for Linde and Puppe and Gas (because they don't get as much attention) and Serpent Ride (I SO wanna hear that one live before I die) and god knows what else. We screamed a lot, and sang and jumped and had a great time with other HIM fans on this wonderful evening. What annoyed me with the new songs were that I didn't know them yet, so I couldn't sing along. Other than that, they were wonderful. I think I'm really gonna like this new album, and I can hardly wait to hear the real versions of these songs ... *happy sigh* After Pretending, they guys went out, but of course, they were to come back to play again. We knew that, since we had the playlists right in front of us. So we were never worried. They came, they played, they disappeared. Sadness. Happiness. Thirsty. God I was so thirsty after that. I couldn't remember the cold outside until later, I got out to go back to the hotel. And then I barely noticed, because too much had happened. The rest is a boring story; boat home. And now I'm back to the one place where I don't wanna be. Home. I just wanna turn back time and experience it all again and again and again ... The final grade of this night is a 9 of a 10. It was wonderful. The only thing is, that now I'm sad because I'll probably never experience something like it again. Or maybe I will I hope so. |