Besides the flights between Bergamo and Helsinki the only thing we had fixed before this vacation were the tickets to Eppu Normaali’s farewell concert at the Ratina Stadium in Tampere. Originally they had two big stadium concerts planned, one in Helsinki and one in Tampere, but for nostalgic reasons we  wanted to attend this specific venue; the band members are from the region. Both concerts were sold out in no time. The very next day they added two more concerts the day before the original ones, one in each location. They were sold out immediately as well. Finally, they added one more concert at Ratina, and with careful planning and tactics we managed to acquire tickets to that concert.

In hindsight we were lucky that we got our tickets to the first concert (on Thursday night), since I read afterwards that there had been a lot of unruly and drunken behavior in Friday’s and Saturday’s concerts. The audience on Thursday night was well behaved, and also the weather was lovely (next morning when we were walking to the railway station it was pouring rain).

However, there were a couple of glitches in the organization or instructions. A few days before the concert we received an email reminder to exchange the tickets to wrist bands,  suggesting doing it early on the concert day in the nearby mall. After queuing for more than 30 minutes for the exchange we were told that since we had seats in the stands, we did not need wrist bands, but could enter the venue with the tickets. Nowhere in the email was that clearly stated. Another happened when we entered the venue. Our accommodation was very near, about five-minute walk away, but the direction we came from took us to the wrong gate, and we could not find any directions how to get to the next (correct) one. We asked the people who were checking people in for directions, but they just scanned our tickets and hushed us in. Well, problem solved!

Below is the 4.5m tall bronze statue “Tax Collector” by Wäinö Aaltonen on Hämeensilta (Häme Bridge) from 1928 wearing a huge Eppu Normaali merchandise T-shirt. There are three other giant statues on the bridge, one female character, all wearing different Eppu Normaali T-shirts.