PART 1
I started at a new job back in June, which is a regular type of 9 to 5 office hours, weekends off. In my previous job I could change shifts with co-workers in order to get multiple days off in a row, which allowed me to travel around basically whenever I wanted, as long as my bank account agreed with it. But starting from June, that wasn't the case anymore.
Sum 41 had their Summer tour of festivals in Europe for 2,5 weeks from the beginning of June. Of course I wanted to attend the tour, but there was no way I could take any days off this early at my new job. So the only options for me were the weekend shows. Basically my only option was the show in Milan on June 17th, which was Saturday.
MILAN, ITALY
Normally I don't do festivals. I don't feel that all the time and money that goes to travelling is worth the 30-45 minutes Sum 41 is playing at a festival. This time though, it seemed to be my only option before they would take a longer break (it wasn't confimed yet back then, but I had a feeling they wouldn't be back any time soon). The plus side was, there were a couple of familiar Skumfuks attending the show, so at least I would be in a good company.
A day before leaving to Milan, I started my regular show day planning. This consists of getting to know the transportations to and from the venue (or the festival grounds in this case), and making sure what I am allowed to bring with me (normally I take my backpack with me). While searching info from the festival's Facebook page, I noticed a lot of posts and comments from the fans who had attended the festival already. There were A LOT of serious complaints about the festival. The biggest issue was, that the last train from the festival area to Milan city left only an hour after the last band finished. The problem with that was, that it took some people over 3 hours to get to the station from the festival area. The gates and routes were too narrow for 80,000 people to exit the area in time. Reading tips from the comments, I figured the only way to get back to the city for the night would be skipping the headlining band and to leave to the station early to avoid the hustle. Of course I would've preferred to see all the bands, but I was there for Sum 41, so I didn't mind it too much.
I was about to meet Anastasia, the superfan from Russia, (who, by the way, currently leads the "most Sum 41 shows attended" title with 26 as of today) before the show. She told me that she had arranged a car ride to the festival for us, so we wouldn't need to take the train. This was good news, no reason to stress about the train after the festival. Or so I thought.
The guy who drove us there, told us that he was at the festival also the day before, and said it was a nightmare to get out after the last band. This day, he wanted to leave before the headlining band. Well, that was okay for us, after all we were prepared to leave around the same time anyways.
When we arrived at the festival and entered the area, we were shocked. Both of us, Anastasia and me, are front-row-fans, as we enjoy to see the show as close to the stage as possible. But that wasn't going to happen this time, as the front of stage was VIP only. SHIT! The festival website clearly stated that the front of stage would be a VIP area (picture, not in scale, as the VIP area was HUGE) only for Thursday (Green Day) and Sunday (Justin Bieber). Not on Saturday! You weren't even able to buy VIP tickets for Saturday, so the front of stage area was for only those who had bought the full 4-day pass. BUMMER!
The first band, Nothing But Thieves, was okay. But when the band started playing, it would still be over an hour before Sum 41 would start. Since we couldn't get to the front, and the area wasn't full of people yet, I decided to get around the festival area, which was HUGE. There I managed to bump into Lula and Flora (Sum 41 Italy) and Blake (Sum 41 video guy), whom I hung around with for a while. He's such a great guy to talk to! Soon Blake had to head back to the stage to get ready for Sum 41's set, so I decided to go take a leak before things will get crowded. But by the time I got back, I had lost all my friends! I tried to contact all of them, but only one who answered was our driver. We agreed to meet at the car after the second-to-last band. But what came to seeing Sum 41, I was alone in the crowd of 80,000. Well, I'm used to be at the shows alone, so not a big deal. Still a bit bummed though.
It was time for Sum 41! I was as close I could get, near the barrier that separated the VIP area, but it was still so far away. On the plus side, all the big fans were right there with me, as opposed to the generic 4-day-pass people who were almost static during the whole show, so I guess it wasn't that bad of an experience.
The downside of writing these things down 7 months later is that I don't recall much about the details of the songs. But what I do remember is Goddamn I'm Dead Again. Deryck stopped the song right before the guitar solo, as he's used to do, but this time you could feel he was genuinly upset about the lack of energy in the front of crowd. This was also the first time I saw them NOT to finish with Fat Lip or P4P. Instead, they finished with Still Waiting, which I found out was because they really tried to get the crowd moving to end the show.
My thoughts about the show? Sum 41 nailed it, as usual. But the arrangements at the festival were so bad, so this show won't be remembered in my top 10.
The Setlist
1. The Hell Song
2. Over My Head (Better Off Dead)
3. Fake My Own Death
4. Goddamn I'm Dead Again
5. Underclass Hero
6. Motivation + The Bitter End
7. Enter Sandman
8. We're All To Blame
9. Walking Disaster
10. Pieces
11. We Will Rock You
12. In Too Deep
13. Fat Lip
14. Still Waiting
After Sums had played, I tried to track down my friends. Anastasia was the only one who answered, so I hung around with her during the next band. This band was part of the reason I agreed to attend this festival. It would be the first time I'd see blink-182 live! Damn I was excited! The show was great, but again, being a mile away from the stage made the experience a bit tame.
After blink, we tried to contact our driver. No answer, so we proceeded as we had agreed on, to meet him at his car. As we were walking towards the car location (maybe about 2 miles / 2-3 kilometers away), we heard the headlining band start as we got further away from the festival. We felt bummed, but the idea of spending the night at the train station didn't feel attractive, so we went on to find the car.
And we found it, so we started to wait for the driver to show up. And we waited. And we waited. Until it was time to decide to head to the train station before the massive crowd would come there before us. We tried to contact the driver for a 100th time, but no luck. So the train it is.
We got to the train and arrived in Milan safely. But we felt super bummed, that we had totally missed the headlining band because of our driver's no show. While we originally planned to leave before the headlining band anyway, we felt that if we knew beforehand that we wouldn't get a ride home, we probably would've stayed at the festival till the end. We still had a fun time, so it felt wrong to leave so early. But there we were, missed the headliner.
After recovering from the disappointment, I figured that the band had just put out a new record, so I was sure they would return to Europe soon, maybe even to Finland. I had never seen them live before, I really liked some of their songs and was really looking forward to see them in Milan. I was this close to see them, so I promised myself if they came to Finland, I would buy tickets no matter how high the price would be. After my trip, I really started to listen to all of their material and started to become a huge fan. I was really excited about their music and felt even more sad about the fact that I missed their show (a full length set I might add) for nothing. But there would always be a next time. Right?
The headlining band in question? Linkin Park.
PART 2
blink-182 was going to play in Stockholm on June 21st. I was planning to attend, but since it was on a Wednesday, those plans fell through after I got my new job. Hence I was eager to attend the Milan festival, even if it was a shorter set for both blink and Sums.
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
Sum 41 had already started their tour in Europe when blink-182 cancelled their performance in Stockholm. Only a few days later, Sum 41 was announced as their replacement. DUDE! Stockholm is only a one hour flight away, and the flights weren't too expensive either, so I decided to go. Especially since this was Sum 41's second show in Stockholm in 3 months, so I expected them to do the same as in Stuttgart a year before, where they played two shows in 6 months apart. In the second show of Stuttgart, they played a lot of rareties, such as There's No Solution, Heart Attack, No Brains and other songs they normally don't play. The reasoning was "we just played here a few months ago, so we decided to do something different". I wasn't at that show, but I figured the Stockholm show this time around would be the same. So I had to go!
One problem though. I wouldn't be able to get any days off from work. That wouldn't stop me though. To sum up quickly, I left work on show day at 2pm (the earliest I could without applying for a special reason from my boss, and attending a show wasn't one of them), headed to the airport, where I arrived at 3pm. My flight took off at 3:55pm, and I arrived in Stockholm at 3:55pm local time (one hour difference). I got to the hostel at 5:45pm, put on my Sum 41 gear, grabbed something to eat and headed to the venue, where I arrived at 7:40pm. The show started at 8pm, ended at 9:30pm. Spent some time after the show with a fellow Skumfuk I had met there. I was back at the hostel at 2:30am, left the hostel at 3:55am, arrived at the airport at 4:55am. My flight took off at 6:30am, and arrived in Helsinki at 8:30am. And straight to work at 9.30am (the latest I could sign in without permission). And after typing this all down, I decided to upload my Snap story about it for those of you who'd like to see it.
As I arrived to the venue, I got an Instagram notification on my phone. Luckily I checked it out, a Skumfuk from Italy (didn't know her before) had sent me a message and wondered if I wanted join her at the front row, since she had come there alone. Not sure how she found out about me, but of course I was up to meeting new fans! One problem though. I arrived at the venue less than 30 minutes before the showtime, so the place was FULL of people. I thought I had no chance to get to the front, but luckily I got there already during the first song. The venue wasn't a regular one, actually it wasn't a venue at all. It was an amusement park, where people rode rollercoasters during the show right next to the stage. So awesome! Would be cool to experience a show on a ride some day, with a band not as important as Sum 41, haha!
Anyways, the first song was The Hell Song, and as we know, Deryck likes to take people on stage during the bridge. I was already at the front by that time, and Deryck recognized me right away. He looked at me and said "Don't you even try, there's no way you'll end up here this time". Bummed, but so awesome at the same time!
![Glad :glad:](./images/smilies/dft010.gif)
The crowd was so intense, so I didn't feel like filming anything, since it wouldn't have good quality anyways. So I was all about enjoying the show! I decided to do one exception though, I wanted to record my favorite new song, Goddamn I'm Dead Again. The quality of my recording didn't matter, I was there to have fun, and if I got some of that feeling on my camera, so be it. So as the guitar solo came in, I was just feeling excited. I didn't realize what was going on at the time, but in the video (at 3:03) you can see Deryck going to say something to Yoshi (Sum 41 security). I was just feeling the power of the Brown Surround Sound, when all of a sudden Yoshi grabbed me, lifted me over the barrier and the next thing I know I'm on stage! HOW CRAZY IS THAT!
![Glad :glad:](./images/smilies/dft010.gif)
From that point on, I was so full of happiness and excitement like a little boy. My mood might have influenced my objective observation ability, but it felt like it was the best show I've been at in every possible way. The songs sounded perfect, the solos were great (shout out to Pieces), every member sang their vocals perfectly, I was so in heaven!
After the show, I reunited with Camilla, the fan I met before the show. We shared our thoughts about the show, and decided to head to downtown together. She left to wait me outside the venue as I went to get my backpack from a locker. As I walked towards the locker, I heard Yoshi shouting my name. I turned around and he said "Deryck wants to see you". I just froze still for a moment
![Oh Shiz! :ohshiz:](./images/smilies/dft008.gif)
The setlist wasn't anything special compared to their other shows of the tour, but I didn't care after a night like that.
The Setlist
1. The Hell Song
2. Over My Head (Better Off Dead)
3. Fake My Own Death
4. Goddamn I'm Dead Again
5. Underclass Hero
6. There Will Be Blood
7. War
8. Motivation + The Bitter End
9. Enter Sandman
10. We're All To Blame
11. Walking Disaster
12. Breaking The Chain
13. Makes No Difference
14. With Me
15. Drum Solo
--Encore 1--
16. No Reason
17. We Will Rock You
18. Still Waiting
19. In Too Deep
--Encore 2--
20. Pieces
21. Welcome To Hell
22. Fat Lip
My Snapchat story