Teenage affections

Wing of Tomorrow

Europe

I finally got my tickets to the Sonata Arctica concert in a week. Yay! I already saw them in November (they must like the UK) and it was probably the most thoroughly enjoyable concert I've ever been to. It probably helps that the songs are so easily "singable". The friend I went with was singing along after 20 minutes even though he'd never heard any of their songs before. This time I'm bringing three friends. They should start giving me a referral bonus or something, haha...

And on even more concert related stuff... I found out that my trip to Sweden in the summer happens to co-incide with a Europe-gig at a town festival in a city called Skellefteå, which is very close to where I am planning to go. Now, Europe probably aren't the trendiest choice of band to watch, but in music terms they were "my first love" in the 80s. I had all the posters on the wall, knew all the records by heart, watched the video recordings over and over, started pestering my poor mother to let me go to their concert a whole half year before they even came on tour to Vienna (in the end I was allowed to go - with my dad. My dad now claims that he really enjoyed it, though this is in contrast to his behaviour at the actual concert which he spent mostly poking fun at the rest of the audience and waving a pretend lighter. Classic "embarrassing dad" moments.) I even bought a Swedish book out of my eternal loyalty to the band when I was 15, and to this day I can still speak the language.

The funniest thing was that many many years later, as a grown up (as grown-up as I'm ever going to be anyway), with my Europe-enthusiasm long faded, I flew back to London from a trip to Stockholm, walked off the plane (faintly noting that one of the other passengers looked vaguely familiar), and... found myself standing next to Joey Tempest (Europe's singer and the sole object of my teenage affection during the 80s) at baggage claim. My grown-up reaction? I nearly had a heart attack, walked into the arrival hall (instead of attempting to say a few words to him like most people would have done in a similar situation) and shouted "guess who was on my plane" towards my waiting then-boyfriend with such a volume that half the arrival hall turned around to look at me. Not a very dignified story, but I still enjoy telling it whenever the conversation subject comes to teen idols. How many people can say that they randomly bumped (sort of) into theirs?

So, it has got to be done. I am obviously destined to stalk the band to near the Arctic Circle, just so I can sing "Ca-ha-har-rieee" on top of my voice in the midnight sun and jump along to "The Final Countdown". And I will be going to a festival in a foreign country, on my own. This should be interesting to say the least: either I will drink some beer and meet random people, or I will have an interesting, but character building, billy no mates experience!