Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Who would have thought Dima Bilan is SO big? Apparently he in no 3 in the Russian list of "Rich and famous" after tennis player Maria Sharapova and the grand old lady Alla Pugatcheva, and followed by basketball player Andrey Kirilenko, a creature called Philip Kirkorow and fake lesbian duo t.A.T.u. Dima made over 3,1m USD last year... And this year it seems he can't do any worse: his new album in Russian is out, with an English version for the international market coming up and charting with his "Never let you go" and the follow up and "the other song" for Eurovision, "Lady Flame" high up in the charts. Needless to say, Dima probably hasn't got time to spend more than he earns...

Lordi's album has now been number one for ten consecutive weeks in the official Finnish charts. The all time record is 12 weeks by Crash Test Dummies, and the overall record of weeks at number one is 16, held by Anssi Kela. Will Lordi also break these records?

... is the amount the Finnish state has budgeted for the Eurovision Song Contest arrangements next year. It is as yet unknown how much the EBU and its member states and sponsors will give and how much YLE must find alone to cover the predicted cost of 13 million euros.

Paula Koivuniemi won Iskelmä Finlandia 2006 (a sort of Schlager Nobel). She is celebrating her 40th year in business this year and is more popular than ever besides being Finland's gay icon number one. She has taken part in many Euroviisut and I'd love to see her in Helsinki 2007... She was also the TV-audience's favourite, winning the televote with 46%. The other nominees were Fredi (ESC 67, 74, 79), Tapani Kansa (most participations in Euroviisut by an artist who's never won), Arja Saijonmaa (several Euroviisut and Melodifestival) and Jukka Kuoppamäki (several songs in Euroviisut). Last year's winner was Jari Sillanpää (ESC 04) and Marion (ESC 62, 73) won this award in 2002.

It looks like Finns will go for the odd things. Enough of Santa Claus, snow, Moomin characters, reindeers and lakes! In the postcards Finland will show its less known habits and oddities, all from Wife's carrying to Air guitar, swamp football to sitting in ants' nests, sauna endurance to cellphone throwing, winter fishing through a hole in the ice... Europe, be ready - you haven't seen anything like this before! On the softer side the other red line in the postcard should be the four seasons: winter with snow and polar lights, spring and the awakening of nature, the midnight sun for summer and the colorful "ruska" for autumn, just to name a few. This is just a rumour and speculation but so far so good! :-)

UPDATE: Not only on spot but also on TV Lordi broke this summer's audience record: over 2,1 million Swedes watched the show! Lordi took Skansen by storm last night, making a new audience record: over 28.000 people squeezed into the Folketspark to see the hottest thing of this summer. The popular tv-program where people sing along with the artists in open air shows has been in trouble this summer and Lordi may just have saved their season, as the host Anders Lundin commented, giving it the boost it needed. If last summer's most memorable moment was Carola throwing a flower pot into the audience where it hit a poor girl in a nice, white summer dress, her stunt this summer (diving into the audience, not once but twice) fades away the moment Lordi takes the stage and gets everybody singing along, from thousands of kids present to 70-something proper ladies in flower printed dresses and nice summer hats. The beasts have eaten the beauty alive once again!

Well, we used to always say: hell freezes over, cows will fly and we will find life on Mars before Finland wins Eurovision. Well, we did win. In June I saw a flying cow (see pic), this summer we have had unusually hot weather ( breaking the magical +25 already 18 times since mid-June) - is it hell giving us the last blast before cooling down? So, NASA guys, what's up there? Any news?

Lordi spoke to Iltasanomat about their busy summer. "I haven't had time to enjoy a good ice cream, or go to Linnamäki (amusement park) yet" says Mr Lordi. "Luckily I managed to spend a few days in my cottage in Lapland between festival gigs. You must take advantage of little things when you can, like the other night when I was finally at home and found a piece of sausage in the freezer, grilled it at night on the balcony and ate it" Meanwhile, Lordi is busy doing festivals while preparing for the European tour this fall: Sweden, Germany, Spain and UK will get their share of monsterhood for sure.

Tomi Putaansuu, better known as Mr Lordi, was walking the streets of Tallinn this weekend when he spotted a shop selling Lordi merchandise. "What I saw made me very angry" he says, "badly photocopied CD covers, low quality t-shirt and the salesperson even had the courage to come and try to make me buy some! I was so angry I just had to walk away....". Oh dear, if the poor guy only knew it was Mr Lordi himself! Did you know "Lordi" is a registered trademark?

Looks like Sweden is under Lordimania. Eurovision veteran Lasse Holm (composer of Sweden 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986 and 1993) plays the Lordi card in his summer tour singing his version of "Hard Rock Hallelujah" to sold out audiences. At the same time it looks like Carola is struggling to sell tickets to her shows.... Hmm....

Lordi moves up to no 2 in Austrian single charts, staying at no 8 in Germany and no 3 in Belgium. In Greece the single moves up to no 6! And this weekend they perform in Skansen, Sweden in oh so popular Allsång. Can you imagine a park full of proper, nicely dressed Swedes of a certain age singing karaoke with Lordi? A must see...

Lordi's album has reached no 3 in Greece and no 26 in Belgium where they are doing some live promotion. In France the live tv-shows have got them so far to no 114 in the album chart... The single is doing well in many countries, being still no 3 in Austria and no 9 in Switzerland for example.

Wow, what a night! Or two actually as the party continued on Monday when the team returned and Rome was total chaos while Circus Maximus was filled with 250.000 people again.... Now if we only could get Italy back to ESC. EBU seems to have renewed their offer of making it Big5 if Italy wants to join again....

The list of participants for Euroviisut 2007 will be made public in November. A recent poll on the popular Viisukuppila website makes it clear what Finns want: Techno (22%), etno (17%) or pop rock (16%). Heavy rock, rock, pop, r&b, schlager and hip hop are not wanted. Techno would be something new to ESC and Euroviisut as well. The closest thing to techno we have had so far is Firevision's "Stars are on our side" in 2005. It survived the semifinal, easily being second only to Geir Rönning's "Why" but in the final the expert jury dropped it from the superfinal. It is generally thought it would have done very well in the televoting. Darude anyone? Etno has been a more familiar feature in Euroviisut, most recently by Riikka's "Toarie" and Wäinötär's "Kihlaus", not forgetting Edea's "Aava" in 1998.

Looks like Lordi adoration and the honeymoon with the press is over. When Lordi cancelled their gig in Tangomarkkinat it passed with little comment other than "well, an important gig abroad is of course very important". Now they have had to cancel the Tammerfest Rock Festival in Tampere in favour of a concert in Moscow. There is a funny line in the Finnish contracts between promoters and artists: "The artist may cancel his performance even 24 hrs before if an important gig abroad comes along". Jussi Santalahti, promoter for Tammerfest says: "It's an old thing from days when it was very difficult for a Finnish artist to get gigs abroad. Things have changed and that must go!" From now on he plans to rewrite the line: Promoter may cancel the artist if he gets a foreign act instead....

One of this summer's brides is Sonja Lumme (1985) who got married and seems to be happier than ever, and busier with work than ever! She will be spending most of the summer in the Äänekoski summer theater singing and acting. "I had to cancel my honeymoon for that but hey, you can have a honeymoon all year around but summer theater only when there isn't too much snow!" she laughs. No stranger to musical theater, Sonja has starred in "Some Like It Hot" and has been a regular star in UIT's summer show in Linnanmäki amusement park in Helsinki a dozen times and has several years of floor show experience alone and with other artists. Not forgetting her memorable three minutes in Gothenburg in 1985...

Well, it needs some figuring out but 6.701 are the euros paid for charity for one of Mr Lordi's masks used in Athens and 1.7.2006 is the date Lordi will perform in the shopping mall of the happy new owner, Vesa Keskinen. Keskinen's Tuurin Kyläkauppa is Finland's biggest supermarket in the middle of nowhere where people actually come with rented busses and so on - all the way from Russia at times! Mr Lordi will be keeping an eye on the customers in the shop's music department from now on.

So, finally YLE seems to have found a magic formula and therefore will not change it. The Finnish selection will be done exactly like this year: 12 artists, 24 songs, 4 semifinals, 1 final. All together with record companies who will pick up the artists with YLE and the songs with the chosen songs. "This year brought us the ultimate winner and several other hits. We have already been contacted by artists and record companies and it all looks very promising" says YLE's Ilkka Talasranta. Chosen artists will be made public in November. Songs must be sent to YLE before December 1, 2006. Semifinals - all in Tampere Tohloppi TV-studios - are broadcasted live on January 20 and 27, February 3 and 10. Where the grand final will be held on February 17 is still a secret but Turku Halli is widely tipped as a consolation prize. Or could it be that YLE wants to test Hartwall Areena...? Last but not least: a compilation CD will be released on February 11 featuring all 24 songs! :-)

Lordi had a very busy juhannus-weekend giving 4 shows in three days: three in major rock festivals in Rauma, Joensuu and Kalajoki, and a surprise gig in a private party on Baggö island. Less than 100 people were treated to a full Lordi show in the middle of a forest with worried firemen as special guests. "We booked them during the ESC week and boy were we lucky! Lordi has had to cancel the much awaited gig in Seinäjoki Tangomarkkinat in July for big TV-shows in France (three different shows including prime time Saturday night) Mr Lordi himself denied the rumours about his voice problems and dreams of moving to the countryside with his wife-to-be Johanna. Other artistic projects are taking shape: full length comic books will be published in autumn and he dreams of a monster movie... "This is all wonderful but if it was up to me I'd just spend time in my cottage, watching movies and chilling out naked! And hey, we do get a lot of requests for monster sex, especially from G...

Lordi's guitarist Amen has been remembered by his hometown Mäntsälä as well. They have erected a memorial stone in his honor next to his old school. It's made of the world's hardest stone, local "aurora granite".

As expected, Lordi will also be featured on a stamp! Mr Lordi will draw the stamp himself and it will be one of four stamps released in a sheet in May 2007. There is still no news when the Lordi coin will come out but Rovaniemi already has its Lordin aukio (Lordi Square) :-) A comic book written by Mr Lordi has already been released and they have also planned Monster Park next to Santa Park in Rovaniemi. And would you like a Lordi kebab?

Trash mag "Seiska" reports on its cover about Jari Sillanpää's new happiness. "Jari has found a new love?" is the headline inside. Note the "?". They have managed to put together a 2-page article about nothing really. He talked to a dark man in a bar in early May for a long time and they left together. The same night he went to Hotel Kämp with a darkhaired man, says another eye witness. They have been seen in a karaoke bar. Jari didn't sing. The other one did. Someone has even seen them entering a building together! And shopping in Stockmann! And again in a gay bar where this handsome guy danced with Jari and after that they hugged and kissed. They have spent at least two nights in the Hotel Grand in Stockholm. Yes, it must be love!

YLE held a press conference and confirmed Hartwall Areena (or Helsinki Areena as it is officially called) as the venue. The dates are those chosen by EBU even if many feel it would have been a good idea to postpone them by a week or two (Finnish weather can be rather tricky in May but generally by the end of May it is quite nice and nature is in full bloom). The draw for the running order will be decided in the delegations meeting in Helsinki March 12. By that date all the national finals have to be over and songs and videos ready for presentation. The budget is 13 million euros and will come from YLE, EBU and external sponsors. How the sponsorships will be done is yet unclear as Finnish law prohibits advertising on YLE channels. YLE plans to have a "Made in Finland" show without foreign help except renting for some extra technology for the occasion. The city of Helsinki is widely involved in the happening, promising a week long party for all its citizens and the whole of Fin...

Lordi seems to have scored a pan-European hit with their winning song "Hard rock hallelujah" and even more so with their album "Arockalypse". It is also the very first Finnish album topping the Swedish album chart and they did the double trick there as "Get heavy" is number one in the midprice album chart! In Finland "Arockalypse" has gone Platinum and the previous two albums have gone Gold so far... Here are the top placings in various countries that I have managed to pick up for the single: Finland no 1, Latvia no 3, Sweden no 9, Norway no 9, Germany no 5, Austria no 6, Ireland no 4, UK no 25, UK rock no 1, Switzerland no 5, Lituania no 3, Belgium no 2. And for the album: Finland no 1, Sweden no 1, Norway no 21, Germany no 8, Austria no 15, Switzerland no 8, Belgium no 45, UK rock no 6, Greece no 30, Denmark no 33