LIVE: May 26th 2006, Market Square Massacre
As we all know, Lordi won the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest in Athens, Greece on May 20th. After returning to Finland, a few days later there was a huge celebration and concert held at the Market Square in Helsinki for the new national heroes. At the time it was the biggest public event in the history of Finland, with more than 90 000 people attending. Before the ESC, Amen was so sure of them winning and more or less jokingly said in a newspaper interview “Torilla tavataan!“ which means “See you at the Market Square!“ which has become a meme when Finland gets any kind of international recognition. The world record of group karaoke was also made during this event, with the crowd singing Hard Rock Hallelujah.
Lordi played a short but energetic, 6-song set and the president of Finland, Tarja Halonen, joined on stage half way through the set and awarded the band with a bronze key flag, the highest symbol of appreciation and recognition of quality Finnish work. Apparently I didn’t take too many photos of the gig itself, but here’s a good look of the overall celebration, fans and the monsters. 30 of these images I’ve never published before. Here are also the photos I’m most proud of. After the show, the band was already leaving the stage but I had an idea and told them that we really should take a photo with 90 000 people behind them. You won’t get a chance like that every day. The concert was later released all over the world on DVD as “Market Square Massacre” with one of those photos used as the cover image.
(83 PHOTOS)
