Pyrotechnics professional Tommi Niemi tells what happened behind the scenes of Lord’s victory.
Showy pyros played a prominent role in Lord’s virtuoso performance in Athens. KARI PEKONEN
Tommi Niemi is a professional with a long career in pyrotechnics, as he tells in his book The Bomber’s Diaries (Tommi Niemi, Like, 2026) About Lord’s visa trip.
Niemi had made pyros for several world stars, such as Paul McCartney’sRammstein and Iron Maiden’s concerts. He also had a long collaboration with Lordi in his background, when the band was chosen to represent Finland at Eurovision in 2006.
The Viusu project got off to a rocky start. The organizers did not give permission to use pyrotechnics. The band made countermeasures and demanded a permit, which eventually failed.
The only condition was that we should use pyros from the very first practice with a full set and from then on in every practice and live draw. It suited us. In the end, there were a total of 12 of these times. It wasn’t cheap, but otherwise it was a great dealNiemi says in the book.
The pyros ended up being a spectacular part of Lorde’s Hard Rock Hallelujah performance.
During the finals week, the band and the whole delegation began to believe that Lorde might have a chance to make it. From the semi-final, Lordi reached the final and the expectations grew even more.
Nieme’s role was to be the main pyro shooter at Lord’s show, and he shot pyros from the front of the stage. The other pyrocolleagues took care of the spark showers on the sides of the stage.
Right from the first rehearsal, the technical, stage and production team of Eurovision started to fan us. In my opinion, it was at least due to the fact that we didn’t have to make any worse adjustments. Things had already been well rehearsed, and nothing made anyone more excited or scared.
Right before the final, Niemi found out that Greece had been granted a special permit to use pyros and there were no conditions.
Lord was not told about it.
However, I was so excited that I went to tell the representative of the Greek delegation and their pyrotype that if something goes wrong in our presentation or some equipment breaks down due to your pyros and regulations, you can be damn sure that after the presentation the entire Finnish delegation will make such a big deal about it that the coverage of the moon landing will come second!
Lordi’s virtuoso performance also featured spectacularly spreading wings. KARI PEKONEN
Finally, the day of the finals came and Lordi took the stage.
My feet were tapping and I was rocking the song with my whole body. I immediately caught the song and the feeling. I hummed the song along with Mr. Lord’s vocals. The first pyro point arrived and I pressed the trigger button. Gunpowder flames roared and a wide heat wave swept through the arena. My cheeks warmed, yes!
Everything went as planned.
The points count started and when it was about halfway, Finland was swinging at the top.
There was still half an hour to announce the results when Niemi received a text message. The message was from a Finnish member of Ebu’s management team From Kjell Ekholm.
21-5-2006, 00:44:52, Tommi just for your information we have won the pyrot t kjell, the message read.
Niemi knew that Ekholm was a member of Ebu’s management group that followed the sages Svante Stockselius with. Stockselius supervised the scoring.
Afterwards, I heard that at some point during the counting of votes, Svante had thrown a pen at Kjell’s head. When Kjell had then looked at Svante, he had only slowly nodded. Kjell had immediately realized that now hit and sank. He immediately sent me a message so that we would have time to prepare for the traditional winner’s replay.
So I was practically the first “outsider” in the whole world, after Kjell and Ebu’s leader, to hear about Finland’s victory.
Niemi showed the message to the other members of the pyro team and everyone started to scream quietly.
Niemi did not tell Lord or the others in the Finnish delegation about the victory.
In his newsletter, Tommi Niemi talks about his career as a pyrotechnic professional. Renskuphotos
The organizers soon told the pyro team that they couldn’t use pyros, because there would be so much confetti flying onto the stage. Niemi understood this, and there wouldn’t necessarily have been enough time.
Finnish flags were flying all over the arena and the audience shouted Lordi and Finlandia. We all had our mouths in as wide a smile as can be. Everyone hugged each other and the feeling was incredible, I had never experienced anything like that. Then it hit me again that we had made history. This was Finland’s first Eurovision win. Tears ran down my cheeks.
Nieme still has the winning message on file.
The italicized passages are excerpts from the book Räjäytäjän diankirkyat (Tommi Niemi, Like, 2026). The book will be published on 18.6.