Janick Gers Appreciation Blog: Iron Maiden Trip'2011. Part 1.

So, here it finally is! The huge report consisting of several part about my little trip to see Iron Maiden in Helsinki and St.Petersburg. I waited for it for months and my excitement grew stronger with each week and never subsided! And then my time had come! The trip finally started!

Part 1.
St.Pete and Helsinki before the gig.

The adventures started when I was still in the Msk airport waiting for boarding. On a seat next to me there was a Swiss businessman, who watched me as I was checking the IMFC forum on my iPad (and letting some kids play Angry Birds on it:)). After the kids were gone, he asked if I was an Iron Maiden fan :D Well, naturally I am :) Turned out he liked 'em too, but had never been to the concert. As he also was flying to St.Pete I suggested that he'd go to the concert there, but alas he was flying out sooner than that :) Still, it was a really unexpected conversation and finally the chance for me to practice some spoken English, albeit a very short one :)

In St.Petersburg I met Nika, a fellow Maiden fan who let me stay the night at her place, 'coz my flight to Helsinki was only the next day - it was not very convenient to make connection flights on the same day, besides we wanted to meet for several months, so it was a good opportunity for that :) We had a nice chat, a nice stroll and watched a coupla Maiden dvds. Also checked my messages on the forum and saw that I didn't win the FTTB for the Helsinki gig. Damn! Another problem was that I had very little sleep :D

Next morning I was on my way to Helsinki, with the last chance to use free WiFi at the airport, which is very common thing in Russia, but not anywhere else it seems... The flight lasted only 40 minutes or so - the shortest one I've ever had so far :) Once I got to the city, I found my hotel very fast - only a few minutes from the central station. A few minutes of rest there, and I'm calling Adam and Elfi, with whom we arranged to meet. I asked, which hotel they were staying at, and Adam answered something, that sounded very similar to the name of my hotel. What a coincidence, I thought - we were staying at the same place! So they decided to collect me from my room and then go together to meet Celia. I waited, but no one came. A call from Adam - the room 412, in which I was staying, was empty. What the hell?! Turned out, we were in different hotels after all, but when 2 people to whom English is not a native language speak, such confusion is quite common :D I spelled the name of my hotel, he spelled his, and we realised our mistake :D So we decided to meet at the central station instead.

I got there first and was just walking around for some time, when I heard someone shouting 'Dee!'. I turned around - and there they were! After a few hugs we went to the hotel Celia was staying at, met her - she gave us a very warm welcome, checked the messages for the FTTBb - none of us won, and went for a stroll and some lunch :) A Norwegian, an American, a Dutch and a Russian - I just love how the IMOC unites people from all over the world :D Btw, it was funny, how none of us looked like a Maiden fan. Only I had a small IM pin on my backpack, so we were kind of Maiden fans undercover :)

After the lunch we decided to check out the venue - the big Olympic Stadium, so we'd know where to go the next day. To get there we had to use a tram, and Adam and Elfi had 3-day touristic cards for transport already. Celia bought the same for herself, while I was staying there only 2 days and decided that I'd just pay in the tram itself - I wasn't going to use it a lot. But Celia bought me a 2-day card, so I wouldn't need to worry about it, and didn't even want to hear about me paying her back. It was soooo nice of her! We walked around the stadium a bit, couldn't decide what the proper entrance was, but accidentally snuck right inside on the right stand :) There we watched for a bit how the stage and the barriers were assembled, and I was waiting all the time that some big security guy would come and tell us to piss off :) But no one did, so we left on our own after a while :)

Then we got back to the center, where Celia decided to have some rest and returned to her hotel, but not before I gave her one of my pictures - the one with Bruce - which I printed before the trip :)

After that Adam, Elfi and I had a nice walk through the center of town (with me being a kind of a guide, even though it was my first time in the city, but I have a very good sense of direction and rarely get lost:)), checking out some sights, hoping to spot someone from the band :) But we only saw Ash and some other guys from the crew and then decided to have some rest in one of the pubs. I decided to have a beer for a change - normally I don't drink at all, but Maiden already changing a lot about me, however stupid it may sound :) Still couldn't finish the bottle - alcohol is a vile stuff :D While we were ordering, Adam was asked for an ID, and I wasn't, though last time someone tried to guess my age, he though I was 18 :D Elfi also asked how old I was, and I asked her to guess too - I'm always interested in what people think about this - she thought I was 22. Nice :) Well, I thought Janick was much much younger when I first saw him :p After a while we left the pub, noticing that the Maiden crew was using it as well, and tried to find an internet cafe with no luck at all :) Then, at about 11pm we decided that we all had very little sleep recently and would need some rest before the gig, so we headed to our hotels. I gave Elfi a couple of my drawings of Dave and I should've given something to Adam too, but had no idea what :) Sorry Adam, I hope you wasn't offended by it!

I didn't get a very good sleep though - I was just too excited about my first Maiden gig on the floor, and besides, nights in Helsinki in summer aren't dark at all, and the first night I didn't notice the dark heavy curtains so I could block the light. I gave up on trying to sleep at about 6 am (which is 7am Moscow time - my usual time for getting up). A bit later after breakfast I had another stroll through the almost deserted city, got a bit tired, returned to the hotel for a bit more sleep :) Succeeded, called Adam, who was right on his way to Celia, so I joined them. But turned out that Celia already left her hotel (it was about 12 - no wonder :)), so we tried to find her in the market square or the small city center, but with no luck. Hell, we didn't even spot anyone from the band the day before, and there are 6 of 'em! What shitty stalkers we are! :D Adam and Elfi wanted to try her hotel again, but I thought it was time for me to eat smth and head out to the venue - I wanted to try and get a good spot even though I didn't win the FTTB.