I can’t estimate how many times I sang the song Fairytale Gone Bad by the Finnish band Sunrise Avenue on SingStar (remember the karaoke game on PlayStation?). It is one of the two songs I’m able to perform quite acceptable (with the other one being Du schreibst Geschichte by the German Indie Rock band Madsen). But I had also heard songs like Hollywood Hills, Heartbreak Century or Thank You For Everything numerous times on radio.
‘This is the end, you know
Sunrise Avenue, Fairytale Gone Bad
Lady, the plans we had went all wrong
We ain’t nothing but fight and shout and tears’
When the band around lead singer Samu Haber announced that they would separate after 20 years on stage I had to get a ticket for their final concert in the Olympic stadium of Helsinki, Finland. It was a unique experience to see how deeply the band is connected to the people in their country. To listen to Samu Haber moderating the evening purely in Finnish and to see the special concert culture in Finland; including the fact that the highly priced alcohol (mainly beer) is only sold outside the stadium in cans.
The Helsingin Olympiastadion is the national stadium of Finland and was already opened in 1938. It is a historic monument and the largest stadium of the country, combining a soccer field with a running track (which is out of fashion in all of Germany in contrast). The stadium can be found very easy because of the attached tower. It is 72,71 meters high – which is exactly the distance that the Finnish javelin thrower Matti Henrikki Järvinen achieved in the Olympic summer games of 1932.
The stadium is located two kilometers afar from the city center at the city quarter Töölö. If you want to get there you can easily walk over, passing the main railway station, the central library Oodi, the Finlandia Hall, the Finnish National Opera and the Töölönlahti Tölöviken lake. But there are also good tramway connections: lines 2, 4 & 10 to Töölon halli or lines 1 & 8 to Kaupunginpuutarha for example. The stadium is surrounded by nature and on the giant rocks in the north and east sometimes people picknick that didn’t get tickets. The list of acts that performed here includes AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Genesis, Iron Maiden, Metallica, U2 and The Rolling Stones.
Helsingin Olympiastadion
Paavo Nurmen tie 1
00250 Helsinki
Finland
https://www.stadion.fi
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