ON TOUR: Bringing Back The Balls To Finland 2006

Right away after the release of The Arockalypse, Lordi started their Bringing Back The Balls To Finland -tour to promote the new album. The tour took place over a few weekends in March and April 2006. This was the first time the band played in smaller clubs and venues in Finland, some gigs without any pyro effects. There was some controversy, because the booking agency had sold, without the band’s consent, two versions of the Lordi show for venues. A cheaper one without any pyrotechnics and a more expensive, full-blown Lordi experience. Of course most of the event organizers had paid for the cheaper one. On the bright side, now more people and younger fans from all over Finland could come see Lordi play live for the first time. I was working on all of the gigs; on some I sold merchandise and on some I was setting up the stage and doing various, glamorous roadie things. At Klubi, Tampere, I even got to be the guy who, during the show, dresses Lordi in his many accessories and hands him the props he uses. I was so frickin’ nervous that night :)

During the BBTBTF tour, a couple of other events happened. There was a TV appearance on YLE TV2 Lista-program (more on that next week), a 3-song showcase gig at Sony BMG Finland on March 8th, and of course, Lordi was voted to represent Finland in this thing called the Eurovision Song Contest. The Finnish qualifiers were held at Turku, March 10th. From these two events I don’t have any pictures, at least any worth posting at this time, we were all working our asses off…

But here’s a mixed assortment of over 200 live, backstage, behind-the-scenes and meet & greet tour photos, many of which I’ve never published before. Oh, and after this tour I got myself a new camera, so from now on, the pictures might get a little better in quality…

(207 PHOTOS)

March 3rd 2006: Rytmikorjaamo, Seinäjoki

March 4th 2006: Finlandia Klubi, Lahti

March 11th 2006: Nosturi, Helsinki

On this gig and this gig only, Kalma made a special apperance during Would You Love A Monsterman? He played a second bass and even duked it out with OX in a bass battle of sorts.