We weren't in Helsinki - that is the name of the band.
We took Smallsteps to her first ever proper concert and well, her reviews were mixed. She had earmuffs on to dampen the sound, but the bright lights still annoyed her. I think it is because around our house, we barely have more than mood lighting on.
The band was Haloo Helsinki, a pretty obviously Finnish band, and my wife has been singing their songs with her for months so she would know a lot. However, the first two thirds of the concert were predominantly from their new album, which meant she didn't know that much of them. But she could sing along with the back third.
Nothing to sing along with for me.
Though before the encore, they played "Smack My Bitch Up" by the Prodigy.
We went out to dinner to start off the night and my Smallsteps and my wife were twinning in leather jackets, though in the image here it looks more like Smllsteps got the Travolta lead in Grease. And with me, well - not impressed.
Then on to the arena, where I was really trying to get Smallsteps to buy a tour t-shirt but she ummed and aahed about it and we instead went to our seats. About half an hour later she decided she'd get one after all so I went and lined up for another half an hour, only to get to the desk and they were sold out of the one she wanted. So, no souvenir from her first concert, other than memories.
I was more annoyed than her.
My wife was late getting tickets and we were well off the stage, but that was probably a good thing for Smallsteps anyway for this. At least she had a decent view most of the time, because we had seats and Finns don't tend to stand too much until toward the end of a concert. My wife enjoyed it more than Smallsteps, but I think that it is because concerts are boring when you aren't really attached to the music played. For me, I recognised a few songs, but they are all in Finnish anyway and are largely meaningless to me - so I know how Smallsteps felt at times. And then, two hours plus the warmup act is a fair amount of time to sit in one place for a nine year old.
The phone cameras are getting better....
And speaking of cameras, other than me, while most people did film and take some photos at some point, I was pleasantly surprised that it was kept more to a minimum. This is probably due to where we were sitting so far back, but my phone has a decent 10x zoom (leveraging the 3.7x optical) so I could get okay photos regardless. So maybe the trick for people to stay off their phones at a concert is to sit far enough away that the camera is obviously useless.
We also opened our grill season, though the grill hadn't been cleaned from its last use, which meant it took a bit of time to get it in order first. Still, it is done now, and the grilled chicken and asparagus was decent.
A good night and a pretty good day all up.
Taraz
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