I was fortunate enough to go to all three of Sonata Arctica's California gigs, even after getting pretty badly injured at the San Francisco gig. >From that point on, I was known as "the dead girl" by Jani. LOL Whatever works I guess!
San Francisco was QUITE hot and QUITE squishy, but the gig was very, very good. It was nice to finally see and meet them in person, as I have heard probably 15 shows from Finland over my friend's cellphone (crystal clear, I might add) over a few years and have been able to always talk and joke around with Tony at each of those gigs. So was cool to finally meet everyone face to face. "Hey, it's cellphone concert girl!". hahahaha As if I don't already have enough nicknames.
I think it was very cool for me as each of the gigs were quite different from each other. The setlists may have been the same, but the type of energy of the crowds, the lighting and the whole club situation made each night completely unique in their own way. For me, that's what it's all about when I decide to drive 7-9 hours one way to get to the extra two shows. I somehow managed to get a lot of photos at San Francisco - in between getting severely squashed, shoved, moshed and crowd surfed into, etc. I am so thankful that my friend Drew was there to help soften a bunch of the blows. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have gotten ANY photos. There is no photo pit at the club nor are there very many lights and the stage is also quite small. But hey, all the more intimate!
Since I drove to Hollywood with a quite mangled body and badly injured legs and thighs, I got to the Hollywood gig at 925pm. The place was really packed! I did manage a photo pass for that gig, but stood next to the stairs in order to not have someone push me over. But even so, I'm almost glad because I caught a lot of REALLY cool lighting with the band, the horns in the air and whatnot. Something different for me.
I am personally happy with a lot of the Santa Ana gig pics because there was lots of lighting there too and I was able to sit in the photo pit and not get killed or have to stand (which was still very difficult). For some reason, it seems that my camera liked to take the best photos of Henrik. Tony is quite hard to catch without the microphone in his face, but I think I managed a few for the three days.
It was great fun to have been able to see all three gigs and talk with them a lot. I am very thankful to those friends of mine who helped me get enough gas money to do these gigs!!!
If you want to see the photos, you can go to
www.photomistress.com . I also posted a new interview section. In there I decided to post one of my interviews that I did with Tony back in 2001 - I will be getting a new one with him very soon via email and will post that as soon as I get it. I hope you guys like everything and can't wait for them to come back next year!!!
~Squeak (aka Alina)
