A Yle employee whispered big words to Juha Veli in Athens – This is how the Lordi drug progressed 20 years ago

Lordi won Eurovision in 2006 with no less than 292 points. PDO

292.

With that number of points, 20 years ago in Athens, Finland won its first Eurovision. Lord’s Hard Rock Hallelujah swim his way into the hearts of Europeans and the rest is history.

Juha Veli Jokinen worked in Athens as a reporter for Iltalehti 20 years ago together with a photographer Kari Pekonen with. According to Jokinen, the vibe in the old city of culture was not quite as boisterous as elsewhere, but Lord’s song stood out from the crowd.

– Pekonen and I used a taxi a lot. Athens is a big and vast city. There was a distance and huge traffic jams, so at least five or six times during these car trips I heard a song from Greek radio, Jokinen recalls.

Interest in Lord grew not only among the public but also among journalists. The thought that victory might come was palpable.

According to Jokinen, the media were sure of a five-way victory even before the final result. When the preliminary votes started to rain, a Yle employee said the words that speak volumes to Joki: Finland is preparing for the wise.

There were hardly any Finns present in the Athens vizus. Therefore, according to Jokinen, the international media was stuck with Finnish journalists. Someone got their share of the outcome out of this.

– I also know two hundred words of Spanish, so I gave a TV or radio interview in Spanish. Similarly, in Germany for a short time, I tried to monger something, Jokinen recalls.

Media grab

Katja Toivanen served as Lord’s spokesperson from Eurovision in 2013 To Beast or Not to Beast up to the disc.

So he knows very well what kind of media frenzy there was around Lord at the time of the sages. Amidst the media frenzy, Lordi gave interviews wearing latex suits. According to Toivanen, it was 30 degrees at best.

Toivanen mentions several times during the interview that the interest in Lord was strong. The intense interest was also seen in the fact that interviews were given on the way to training.

– I remember when even one radio reporter asked if I couldn’t get two minutes. But then there’s always one and another and the next, and at some point you have to leave. I said that you can interview here while we walk inside, Toivanen recalls.

Toivanen comes up with another example from a Greek TV broadcast. Toivanen describes the local media as unyielding. According to him, it was difficult to stop the TV interview, no matter how much Toivanen asked.

– The guys in the band lifted the young journalist up and put him down jokingly, Toivanen recalls.

– According to everyone, it was a fun ending to that.

Privacy

Lord was interested not only in music but also in other matters. People wanted to know who was behind the masks. However, they wanted to protect the privacy of the Lordi camp until the very end.

Toivanen recalls that it was difficult to maintain privacy during the five-week period, but everything was managed.

– It wasn’t nice then, which is of course its own thing. But the media and public interest was so massive that there wasn’t much time to think and consider whether this is now difficult or not, says Toivanen.

Jokinen recalls that he tried to bring, for example, Rovaniemi background to the Lordi interviews. However, it didn’t work out.

– We talked with other artists about where they are from, where they have a summer house and who is in the family. This was a strange feeling when he (Mr. Lordi) was a prisoner of his role even for Finnish journalists, Jokinen recalls.

– Lord’s information about Finland and their history was awfully poor during the five-week period.

There was a veil of mystery around the group dressed as monsters. For Jokis, however, this broke a few years after the victory, when he got to meet Mr. Lord, aka Tomi Putaansuu, without a mask.

The interview session was organized by Toivanen. Mr. Lordi and Jokinen sat next to each other in Helsinki’s Vaakuna Hotel.

– I brought him a drip bread from Tampere and he came to it without a mask. He ate both drip breads from the box, says Jokinen.

Katja Toivanen remembers the meeting mentioned by Jokinen.

– It was a show of trust, of course with him, Toivanen states.

All in all, Toivanen and Jokinen remember the five-year-old country of twenty years ago as a good experience.

There was also time to party alongside work.

– Yes, we probably partied until four in the morning, Jokinen recalls.

However, the five-point victory was only the beginning. A few days later, 100,000 people gathered at Helsinki’s Kauppatori to celebrate the historic victory. The Lordi drug had conquered Finland.