Off to Finland in two hours

Scorpions rocked!!!

The Scorpions show was amazing!!! I can't believe how good they actually were... Tease me please me and especially Hit between the eyes were really great... Wind of change also, been wanting to hear that one live for 13 odd years. And talking about the "kiss-a-delic" department, Klaus Meine blew me kisses :P I also got the setlist and had it taped in my back

Hanoi rocks were also really good on Sunday. What can I say of HIM... Hmm... To be honest, I didn't like it at all. VV has his charisma (which holds no candle to Klaus Meine tho, or even Mike Monroe) but other than that, I didn't like it too much... Me and Jana were about 5 rows back for the start of the show, but after a few songs I just left and went to sit with the others to the side of the area... But Jana liked HIM

Toni Wirtanen wipes em all off the map though

Ankkarock was nice. Weather was nice, bands and performances were great. No complaining about anything I quess. Flaming Sideburns and Hellacopters rocked big time. YUP was great as usual. Scropions were the scorpions, Apulanta had the last show of their "Tsingis Kahn" - tour and were pulling each others legs all the time. Hanoi rocks were a great finish to a great festival. Finland Rocks!

"Don´t take me serious, I´m just delirious. I´m not responsible, I´m just impossible"

M

whereas Ville...well, he concentrates on copying Ozzy Osbourne (badly) and, umm, boozing...

Laura says: Charisma and good looks aren't the same thing you know...

Laura says: I wanted to see Ville's famous charisma, only I didn't... Cause it wasn't there to see. Even Jana thought he was good looking, but he wasn't as charismatic as she expected.

Laura says: Ville said something like he'll be very upset if you're gonna be louder for Klaus... We were

Laura says: I understand his sense of humour well enough. In fact, I've said it a lot of times, that's the best part of the band by far. But his sense of humour didn't make the show any better, cause it was just... well... boring.

Tom says: HER and Ville especially really sucked, but I suppose you have to understand common logic before you can appreciate as much.

Tom says: I've never seen such a bad performance before from a vocalist or from any musician (and bare in mind i saw the infamous UFO Manchester Meltdown show) [... but then you have to think to yourself are they really musicians at all] and in coming on stage drunk, or stoned, or whatever he was, he was just trying to continually copy Ozzy (and if you äre going to copy anyone you may as well copy someone with talent, failing that, at least copy the charismatic skills of that person and not just their lack of musical and vocal talent

Jana says: "That's really mean, i should write something at the end..."

yet she doesn't

nor will she, nor can she, nor will Laura let her

Toni rocks.

From where we were standing, Hellacopters certainly didn't rock... The music might have rocked and the band might have rocked, but it definitely did NOT rock when we were getting more squashed than during HIM's set and when all those idiot drunken guys were crowd-surfing and the security had to pull them out right over our heads. Some people just don't know how to behave.

Heh. I saw them at DBTL and they were doing Tsingis Kahn as an encore... You could've knocked me down with a feather when I realised that they were really going to cover a Frederik song. Reetu kicks arse!

And who does our beloved Jonny boy copy? Exactly too, if I might add... Jon has stolen half of his stage maneouvres from Bruce and the other half from Southside Johnny. I've seen both on stage, and all I can say is that it's a good thing stage maneouvres aren't copyrighted. Since Ozzy is to Ville what Bruce and Southside are to Jon, it shouldn't be any worse if Ville is copying Ozzy than when Jon is copying Bruce and Southside.

And who said they were? I fell for Ville's charisma a long before I fell for the band -- or for Ville's looks. I didn't want to become a HIM fan at all at first. I liked Join Me and thought Wicked Game was, for once, a GREAT cover version, but I greatly disliked all the hype that was going on about HIM in late 1999 and early 2000... Yet somehow, that skinny lil' thing they had as their singer, that guy who wore way too much make-up and generally looked way too much of a Goth for my liking, managed to find his way into my dreams. I didn't like him or the band, I didn't particularly like the way he looked. But I couldn't deny his charisma. Even my then boyfriend said that even though he looks like a junkie and smokes too much, there's just something about him. So I'm not just talking about his looks when I'm saying he's charismatic.

Too bad you couldn't see it... Cause it was definitely there. True, I never saw HIM live back in 1998 or 1999 or even in 2000, in the days when Ville was still performing with a ciggie in one hand and a bottle of red wine in another. Some ppl who did see them then have said that in some ways, in those days he was even more charismatic than today...cause back then he was maybe more himself in a way, more insecure. All I can say is that I definitely enjoy his charms and his charisma today, regardless of what he might have been like in the past.

...and he said that tongue planted firmly in cheek.

The things he said about Turku and Ruisrock might have had SOME truth in them, cause the crowd in Ankkarock didn't seem as loud or enthusiastic as in Ruisrock... But then again, there were 30 000 ppl in the area in Ruisrock, and only about 18 000 or so in Ankkarock, so naturally the Ankkarock crowd couldn't have been equally loud.

I thought it did. I've seen shows where Ville has barely uttered a couple of words and flashed only a couple of smiles... But in Ankkarock he was smiling a lot, talking a lot, cracking jokes and generally being a lot more interactive with the crowd than at some of the shows I've seen. So it was definitely not boring, IMO anyway.

Then again, even though HIM shares the Nr 1 band status with the Jovis in my heart these days, you guys are of course free not to like them. All the better for me and for my friends if you don't, actually -- a few ppl less with whom to compete for the front row spots. And for the autographs, the cool meeting stories, the interviews, etc etc.

Ahh you've got some old knowledge there, Tom. HIM are now known as HIM in the US too, they don't need to use HER there anymore. :P And they didn't suck, they were fab. It wasn't the best HIM show I've seen, but it was among the better ones. Maybe you just didn't see them from close enough... :P They've said it themselves many times that they don't like festivals or big arenas, they're a club band.

Now when I come to think of it, if a band wants to win over new markets and sell a lot of records and still claim to prefer clubs over anything else, isn't that a bit of an oxymoron? If you're a hit and you're selling truckloads of records, the shows you play need to be quite big too... Hmmm.

I've never heard or seen Tom play or sing...but I'd be willing to bet my life on it that each and every member of HIM is a better musician than he is. I also believe they're all better musicians than for example Iceman (no offence, Ice, read the next bit of this sentence before you kill me!), and I absolutely adore his songs and his voice... Iceman's, that is. But there's obviously a reason -- or a few reasons, actually -- why they've sold over a million records and Ice or Tom haven't. I've read my Synnin Viemää book, I've talked to the guys themselves, I know they're 100% professionals. You can choose not to like them if you wish, but don't underestimate their talent.

Haha, you obviously haven't seen Ville drunk if you thought he was drunk or stoned in Ankkarock. He practically always drinks beer on stage, and I've also seen him drink "Belarussians" (valkovenäläinen, a drink with vodka, coffee liqueur and milk) and Jägermeister on stage. But that doesn't mean that he'd be drunk, it's just his way of relaxing during a show. Just like smoking. He also drinks water and whatever else he needs, of course. In one of the interviews I translated for the band, Ville said that because of the constant adrenaline high the band members are on when they're on tour, he doesn't care what anyone in the band does to get down from that high when they're not on stage. But only when they're NOT on stage. His exact words were something like, "I don't care if you're shooting some friggin' heroin right into your eyeballs, as long as you don't screw up the gigs". Ville is almost as bad of a perfectionist as Jon is when it comes to performing, he wouldn't screw up a gig by being drunk or stoned on stage.

And as far as copying Ozzy is concerned, like I said, Ville is no better or worse in that than Jon is in copying Bruce and Southside. Same thing, different idols.

i'm here now

well, i thought HIM were good, but not as good as i expected. ville must have been drunk or something ville definately has great looks!!! he almost blew me away when he got on stage.... gorgeous!!

but the scopions show was miles better!!!!

its all about the music

Laura says: Tom rocks!