Twisted Sister in Oulu, Finland
In 2005, the Finnish S.M.F.s had been waiting 19
years for Twisted Sister to play in Finland, including myself. I
was 10 years old when Twisted Sister played their first and only
concert in Finland in 1986. Having been a fan of the band for six
months, I asked my father to take me to the show but he wouldn't
do it. I thought to myself that Twisted Sister would come to
Finland many more times and I would surely see them in concert
some day. Little did I know that there wouldn't be Twisted Sister
a year and a half later...
I fell in love with Twisted Sister the moment I
heard We're Not Gonna Take It from my friend's cassette. I turned
to Twisted Sister directly from children's songs and heavy metal
took me over. I didn't see the Twisted Sister videos until years
later, so I wasn't attracted to the image of the band but the
music itself. At first I didn't even have an original tape or a
record, so I didn't know what the band looked like. I just knew
that they made the best music I had ever heard in my life.
The years went by but even the break-up of the
band didn't lessen my love for Twisted Sister. Surely the fact
that nobody else seemed to like them made it even stronger. When
Dee Snider's S.M.F.s played in Stockholm, Sweden (neighbor
country of Finland) in 1998, I jumped at the chance to see my
greatest idol live, even though without his legendary band mates.
Later Twisted Sister was reunited and played at the Sweden Rock
festival in 2003. I had to be there, of course. But never in my
wildest dreams had I dreamed that one day Twisted Sister would
play a concert so close to me as they did on May 7th, 2005. And
it gets better...
When it was announced that Twisted Sister would play the
opening show at Club Teatria in Oulu, Finland, I couldn't believe
it at first. I was going to do my damnest to meet the band, even
briefly. On the day of the show I met my old concert-going friend
and his girlfriend and brother. We went to the hotel together to
wait for the band to arrive. We had to wait for hours but the
wait was worth it. The band signed stuff for all the fans and
posed for photographs with them.
The show itself was great and quite historical, as Twisted
Sister performed the entire Stay Hungry album for the first time.
Don't Let Me Down and Horror-Teria were played live for the
second time ever, so it was quite a treat for the die-hard fans
like myself. There were some technical problems during the show
but nevertheless it was an excellent show. The concert was
noticed by all the media and there were several TV-crews,
photographers and journalists present at the show. Even some of
the Finnish celebrities were there. It seems that Twisted Sister
is a popular band in Finland after all, with the near full
capacity attendance of 2000.
I had planned that since I live quite near Oulu, I was going
to leave after the concert if all things went well during the day.
It turned out that I didn't get all the band's autographs or
pictures. I was lucky to spend the night (all 5 hours of it) in
my friend's hotel room. We woke up early to go to breakfast
around the same time as the band did. And sure enough, as the
band members were leaving the restaurant, they signed the rest of
our stuff and so on. Later on after most of the band had left,
Jay Jay came to chat with us and gave each of us a Twisted Sister
window sticker. All the band were really cool to the fans.
A million thanks to Dee, Jay Jay, Eddie, Mark, A.J., the road
crew and management for a time to remember. I'm really lucky to
have met my heroes.
Below are the pictures of me with Twisted Sister.
