The second Apocalyptica gig in Romania came in a little less than a year, on another gorgeous day of 31st – May, this time. Held in the Roman Arenas open-air, a rather small venue, the concert had two opening acts: two Romanian bands, Magica and Bucium. They were okay, although when waiting for your favorite band in the world, you tend to pay little attention to anything else.

The Apo gig started on time – or even a few minutes earlier due to the eagerness of the fans that already started to make a racket. And they kept yelling their lungs out for the entire duration of the gig… I mean, I've seen many concerts, but the Apo ones have def. been the loudest! The boys had new clothes (yaay, was about time!), but the most obvious was Perttu that traded the leather pants for baggy ones… weird cut ones with faux-pockets or whatever, and an equally cut T-shirt to match it. Well, he listened to our banner and didn't keep it on too much so… yeah.

Perttu seemed tired, regardless of his usual hopping about – something told me all this touring caught up with him. Though he *did* introduce “Seek and Destroy” and in the end gave the microphone to (not-so)-little Perttu – that was silent, as usual. :P Of course, girlies flipped off (yeah, I yelled too, d'oh!)

Eicca was… Eicca-ish. He towered wherever he stood, and the wind blowing through his hair (was a really chilly and windy night) made him look almost poetic… He did drum, as usual - but not with his bow, with a regular drumstick – he did all the ‘usual tricks' – but regardless how many times you see that, it's still great! Ooooh, and at a certain point I managed to unglue my eyes from the Antero/Perttu part of the stage (that was in front of me) and saw Eicca standing behind Paavo, ‘scratching' his ass with the bow – he was playing in tune, but instead of the strings, used Paavo's ass. I swear, these boys can play *anything*! :P

Of course Paavo was his usual energetic self, hopping about, bouncing up and down, almost doing back-flips, entertaining, yelling, ‘directing' the audience with his bow. So cute he made me wanna jump onstage and give him a Romanian sound smooch on both cheeks! Aww! He retaliated for the butt-playing by later spanking Eicca with his bow. Oooh, and he saw our “Soita Alasti” banner and his face immediately lit up and he smiled – he seemed so happy he made me feel like that banner was the only thing he was ever looking for… He hopped to Eicca, whispered something in his ear, still exuding with joy, then Eicca nodded. (“Yeah, I saw the crazy phorumers too, calm down Paavo!”)

And Antero… Sorana and I stood in front of him – and the man had FUN. I mean, I knew he could laugh and have facial expressions, but I wasn't able to spot them last year. But now… Wow. He beamed with happiness. He smiled a lot, and at a certain point I saw him looking at us – Sorana was signaling him to stand up. I joined her, yelling “Stand up, stand up!”, making desperate gestures. He smiled viciously but did nothing. The we yelled some more, begged, gave him beaten puppy – eyes, then showed him to stand up “just a little” – a few inches between our thumbs and index fingers. The man was so obviously enjoying teasing us he kept smiling but not moving. Grrr!! After a bit more pleading, more “come on, stand up just a little bit!”, he did: he began to stand up. My heart stopped and I turned the camera on – but when his ass reached a few inches in the air, he slumped back on. TEASE!!! He laughed like mad after that. I don't know about Sorana, but I felt like slapping him over the head for teasing us, “Very mature, Manninen! Now go to your room and think about what you did!!!”

The finished the songs and left the ‘battered' cellos on the floor, came back for the encore after the crowd yelled “we want more” so bad, my ears felt like they were gonna bleed. They played their usual encore, then left, leaving the crowd cheering for more. We began to yell “we want more” again, hoping that they will play one more song, we started to thump our feet (and some of us were on a sort of a metal platform, so the sound was *loud*) and they came back… but not to say goodbye, as I thought – they played one more encore! :D They played “Seemann” – I don't think they ever played this for en encore, don't know if they're much into the habit of playing double encores… But it was like a dream that would never stop – and none of us wanted it to! Then they left and returned a few minutes later to say goodbye… When they left the stage for good, no one would move, we still hoped they might return once more…

All in all – was an amazing show, and even if the already small venue wasn't full (the promotion SUCKED! I saw less then 10 posters in the entire huge town, only 2 weeks before the gig itself!), the fans were loud enough to make their numbers unimportant. We knew all Metallica lyrics, didn't sing just the chorus, and the feeling was amazing – to hear hundreds of voices chanting the lyrics… Gave shivers down my spine… And the sound was flawless – best concert sound I ever ever heard. Crystal-clear. My respect to the sound crew, they made this one completely memorable experience.

I dunno the setlist, but it was roughly the one they play this year. Hey did play “Repressed” and it sounded fantastic! I like it more instrumental, though. (I recorded it when they did the soundcheck, still sounded amazing. :P)

Then we left waiting for autographs, got ‘thrown out' by the police (several times, heh), then after eons of waiting and trying to get close to the bus, Eicca came out surrounded by 4 bodyguards, and when we asked for an autograph, he said, “I'm sorry, I can't.” and got into a car. :'( It was like last year all over again. Seems that the organizers were bad enough not to arrange a little meeting with the fans – as it happens EVERYWHERE. But never in Romania, it seems. The police treated us like criminals, not like people wanting a signature on a piece of paper (or on an overpriced poster). As I said, at least they didn't beat us, I know that tends to happen at concerts (*remembers Sepultura gig, same venue*) so I can be happy about that and keep my mouth shut. Seems that with the people here, there's no way in hell I can get an autograph, so I'll have to go to another (actually civilized) country to get close to the people that mean so much to me. *sigh*

Oh well, we left after a half an hour or more, dunno why – cause Eicca left? Cause the guards told us they were leaving or they left already? Cause there was no movement around? Wah. Seems that they did give autographs after all – and I missedit. Once more. Third time around. Hooray.

But hey – it was an AMAZING gig, worth every single drop of sweat and worth the ticket ten times over. They were great, out of the world, as usual. Proved me once more why I love ‘em.