Abnormality Breeds Calamity
A road trip to someone’s dreams
Sometime in the last year, I made a friend on the internet. Her name is Kathy Criswell (aka @stardatextoday on Instagram) and it seems that she started following me because of some interviews I’d done with Auri, Altamullan Road, and Eye of Melian. We’ve been Discord/Instagram friends for a while now and one of the things that has impressed me the most about her is how she treats the people she loves. I tend not to associate myself much with “fans” very often because fandoms can be some of the most toxic, inappropriate places you can spend your time and in my youth, I had such truly awful experiences in them that now I mostly avoid them at all costs. Fandoms are often plagued by parasocial delusions, inappropriate hyperfixations, bullying and gatekeeping, unreasonable personal demands, and other such dysfunctional behaviors. Kathy is the anti-fan, in that sense. She expects nothing from the public figures she loves, she respects their time and autonomy, and actively steers other fans away from crossing lines. For the last year, she’s been doing beautiful fan art and supporting the people she loves, without crossing boundaries, which is something I will always support, period. She’s done some great writing about Johanna Kurkela’s bands and is herself a wonderful artist and a talented writer.
So, of course, if you follow her, you’ll know that her trip to Finland was a big deal and it was really important for her to get to thank Johanna Kurkela for being such a beautiful, inspiring soul. I wasn’t supposed to meet Kathy until later this week, but when her flight got delayed, a friend couldn’t make it, and trains got expensive, I decided to shuffle my plans (which were falling apart anyways) so that I could drive everyone to Kitee to make sure they all got to see the first show of Altamullan Road’s tour.
I do want to briefly mention that there was a third party on this road trip too, just because it’s such a small world, because I had already met this young woman twice, funnily enough. The first time was when I was on the road selling merch for Marko Hietala; I remembered her for being one of the only English-speaking people that I sold a shirt to on that tour, in Mikkeli of all places. I recognized her again at the Savonlinna show with Tarja Turunen as well, where she was with a group of foreign girls who were dreaming of getting autographs. She’s from the Ukraine and living in Lithuania, so the fact that she was acquainted with Kathy and was coming on this road trip with us was a bit of a mind fuck, but in a fun way.
We met up with a trio in Kitee whom I have dubbed the “Nightwish Furies,” because they span a fantastic age range (really, mutual loves bring everyone together, don’t they?), who are huge fans of Nightwish and anything related, whom you might have met if you’ve ever been in a Nightwish fan meet-up in Finland. These lovely folks were the entourage for this event and we were all in the same hotel together, which meant that no one had to go on adventures alone. Myself, I didn’t have any real hopes or plans, I was just along for the ride and willing to drive people wherever they felt like going.
We arrived on the 19th in order to give Kathy some time to decompress after her 18-or-so-hour journey and everyone else went on a morning walk (my insomnia had been pretty bad that night, so I opted to stay in and rest, and do some yoga). Apparently I was doing some singing practice of “Everdream” in the shower and Kathy came back to the room and heard me from the hallway and took a video of it, much to my amusement (a friend had dared me to sing it at karaoke once—I could hit all the notes but I couldn’t do it well, so I have a bit of a vendetta about learning to sing it, hence me belting it out in the shower).
In the afternoon, we took a little drive out around Kiteenjärvi, to visit what was apparently the beach looking out on the island, where Tuomas Holopainen had first suggested starting a band. We also met the most lovely gentleman, whom we referred to as “Ukki Nightwish” (or Grandpa Nightwish), who had given them all music lessons in their youth. While these weren’t things that I would have sought myself, it was fun to be a part of them and see the joy on everyone’s faces as they got to visit the places that inspired the artists who inspire them… it’s just a nice trickle-down of happiness and I vibe a lot off of other people’s joy.
Of course, then came time for the show. It was a brilliant performance, absolutely, but what was so heartwarming to me was to see the love and happiness everywhere. The energy in the room was soft and warm, yet vibrant. Kathy kept it together brilliantly in the first half of the set, but they picked enough very special songs that the second half ran her over pretty thoroughly, to the point that the joy-energy was so strong that my mirror emotions started to flash and I began to tear up, just from the sheer magnitude of the happiness and positivity that was going around.
Afterwards, it was really a magical experience to be a fly on the wall as Kathy and Johanna met IRL for the first time. Having met them both separately, you can get a sense of when two people are on the same wavelength in who they are, so it was really a wonderful experience to see the ultimate fan meet their hero. I won’t talk about it in specifics because it’s not my story and nobody’s business but theirs, but I can say that I was happy that all of my plans got flipped in a way that allowed me to be there. I have to pass on a deep thank-you to the Altamullan Toad who couldn’t make it to the show and let me have her ticket!
So that’s more or less the story of the road trip (or toad trip, if we’re being punny) to Kitee, which is now maybe my third musical road trip story from Finland. The takeaway is this: I advise you to always do strange, spontaneous, adventurous things. We only have one life and it’s too short to not take chances and pursue your dreams. Be a good person, be respectful, be kind, take chances, bet on yourself, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find these joys in life as well!
