September 1, 2010: Apocalyptica at WIIL Studio East in Pleasant Prairie, WI

September 1, 2010
Apocalyptica
WIIL Studio East – Pleasant Prairie, WI

I WON A RADIO CONTEST!!

I know people think I win a lot of things, but my track record with radio contests is short. I think I’ve maybe won 5 times over all the many, many years I’ve been listening to the radio. Now, I listen to a lot of radio and I have all the station phone numbers on speed dial, but it’s not as easy as you’d think! Well, it hasn’t been for me anyway.

Either way, the fact that I won the chance to see Apocalyptica perform LIVE in the studio at my fave radio station…well, what could be better?

Here’s the quick (hahaha) details on how it all went down.

For a couple months, my friend Kim and I already had tix to see APO play at the House of Blues on Sept 1. On Aug 30, Monday night, I found out that APO were going to play in the studio at WIIL. OMG! NO WAY! Well, the only way to get to see this was to win. Usually you call in when they tell you to or you text a “word” and hope to be picked as a random winner. Tuesday around lunch time I was on the WIIL website looking for details about this In Studio since NOTHING had been mentioned on the radio when I noticed a Twitter comment that led me to Facebook. For the APO Studio East performance, on Tues, ONLY Facebook friends were being notified to enter! Winners would be picked at 5pm. OMG! TEXT TEXT TEXT!!! I emailed Kim and told her to enter too. She did.

Lucky for me, time passed pretty quickly that afternoon. I left work and had the station playing on my way home. Still NO mention of the APO In Studio on Wed. I stopped for gas near home. While pumping gas, Kim texted me at 5:12 asking if I had heard anything. I replied to her text with “no” then finished with my purchase. Well, when I got back in the car, I had two text messages that came in at 5:13. One from Kim with her reply of “ugh” and the other was this:

congrats. you won entry for studioeast tmrw w/ apocalyptica, reply with your first/last name for more info ASAP…95WIILROCK!

OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I quickly replied back to the station with my name and then I texted Kim and told her I won! I also pulled away from the pump and parked.

Her first reply was: NO!!! How!!!!!

I told her I got a text.

Her reply: Just now!!!???

(remember, it was literally a minute or two between the time I told her I hadn’t heard anything to sending her the text that I had WON!)

I then rec’d another text from the station giving me the address, the time to meet and to bring…THREE FRIENDS!!!! If I had any questions, I should send a text.

WOOHOO!!!

Another text from Kim: OMG!!!!! OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!! i’M DYING!!!!!

I sent my son a text asking him if he had any tests in the morning. I then left the gas station and went to the bank (yes, I had some errands after work! haha) He replied with: “Maybe…Why?” I decided to wait until I got home to tell him why since I was only 5 mins away.

While waiting at the bank I sent some more questions to the station asking how long it would last (about an hour) and if the address was the studio or somewhere else (the studio).

After getting money at the bank, I once again parked in their lot. I texted Kim that I would call her in a few minutes. I then called my boss. I originally was taking a half day on Wed. I told her I just found out I won a contest but had to be there at 10am and would it be ok if I just took the whole day off. She said yes, asked what I had won and sounded pretty excited for me.

On my way home, I called Kim. I was totally driving in a daze too! EEK! Weird what winning does to a person. She said to me, “Tell me everything, and talk slow.” So I told her how it all went down. We talked about who else to invite, what time to meet, etc. OMG!! We both could not believe it. (Oh, and she did not get a winning text).

At home I talked to my son. He said he had 3 tests and since it was a late start anyway, he would be missing most of his classes if he went. I was going to let him miss school but he decided to be responsible 🙂

Back at home, around 5:51 I got a mass text from the station:

wanna hang with APOCALYPTICA? they’re in studioeast tmrw, 1030am, reply with “east” to enter…95WIILROCK!

HAHAHAHAHA – no thanks, I already won 🙂

Around 6:30pm I jumped on-line. I checked the station FB page to see a comment from 95.1:

congrats to teresa and adam, the facebook winners…we’ll get a few more text winners tonight, use the same short-code and keyword…tom and lisa also have a chance for you to win, tomorrow morning…

There were ONLY TWO FB WINNERS picked from entries between 10:40am and 5pm?! HOLY COW!! I can only imagine there were QUITE a lot of entries too!!

So in the end, after trying to find people that could go, it was me, Kim, hubby and my cousin Rachel.

How would I sleep!? So excited!

Also, on Tues afternoon, I rec’d an email from a friend letting me know about an After Party in the HOB Foundation Room with Apocalyptica. I was able to get my name +1 added to the guest list. Talk about APO OVERLOAD! (and I mean that in a good way!) I just knew Wednesday would be an awesome day and Wednesday did not let me down! 😉

The next morning I was worried about construction traffic but there ended up not being any. We got to the station early. Kim got there at 10am and Rachel a little after that. After using the bathroom and unexpectedly getting to see “Studio East” we stood around with the other winners in the lobby of the station. We counted about 20-25 people.

It wasn’t too long before I realized the band was not there. They were supposed to be on air at 10:30am. Well, at 10:33am I happened to look out into the parking lot and saw a silver passenger van with tinted windows drive by. We then heard talking on the other side of a curtain that was dividing “Studio East” from the lobby and then about 10:40 we could hear the sweet cello sounds of them doing soundcheck. I wondered if they would have a vocalist with them. A few minutes later we heard someone doing a vocal soundcheck. Kim and I wondered if it was the same guy we had seen with APO back in May.

Around 11am they let us sit down. There were two sides with chairs and an aisle down the middle. The first two rows were actually leather love seats and then the rows of chairs behind that. Of course the love seats had “reserved” signs on them. I sat in a chair behind the love seat on the right side. A photographer was sitting on the inside aisle and then Kim sat next to me. Al sat in the back and Rachel ended up two rows behind me.

Eventually Tom told one winner, who actually played cello on air to win, to sit on the love seat on the left and then since the other was open, they told someone else to sit there. Oh well, I could still see over the people in front of me. 🙂

It was between 11:05-:10 when we went live on the air. SO EXCITING!!! Again, I had never been to one of the 95.1 Studio East performances so I was really excited to be participating in this one.

Between the Q&A and the three songs played live, it was an awesome experience.

Live on air from Studio East

Tom Keif interviewing the band

“End of Me” from 7th Symphony

Mikko plays cello on “Beautiful” from 7th Symphony
Perttu and Eicca made quite a bit of eye contact while playing. If only we knew what they were thinking…

Commercial break – me and Kim

More Q&A

He wasn’t playing, just playing around.

“I’m Not Jesus” from World’s Collide
7th Symphony is written on the side of Perttu’s cello

I think we were live on air somewhere between 30-40 minutes. After that we were all told to line up against the wall for the M&G! WOOHOO!!! I had been wanting to meet APO ever since I saw them live for the first time back in 2005.

While waiting, I realized someone in line in front of me was someone I had driven, along with my son and another friend, to Q101’s Block Party back in 2008. We talked for a little bit before the band came out. Kinda funny running into him at the station since APO was one of the bands he saw that day at Block Party!

FINALLY…the time had come! Mikko came walking up the back of the line handing out some promo cards. As he handed each person one he would say, “Thank you for coming.”

Next Eicca came walking up the back of the line. Although, I didn’t notice him right away until he was hugging my cousin. Then he hugged me. Then he hugged my friend Kim. Awww. He shook hands with the guys. 🙂

Eventually the band was behind the radio station reception desk and we were ready to get started. No matter how many times I may rehearse in my head what I want to say to band members, 8 out of 10 times, it blows right out of the window and I just ramble out something or other. I totally spaced and didn’t say nearly all of what I wanted too. Plus the fact that they were running late to head back to Chicago. Not a lot of time for long talks.

Oh, the night before I was going thru all my APO CDs and thought to myself, “I can’t bring all of them to be signed.” So I brought World’s Collide and the new one 7th Symphony. Well, I noticed they also had promo flats for the new album. Someone was carrying some extras and I noticed the back side showed the band. Well, by the time it was my turn to meet the guys, I totally forgot about the other side of the flat! DARN IT! I had wanted them to sign the side with their faces. Oh well…the 7th Symphony album cover is pretty awesome. Oh and I had hubby get a promo flat signed to our son.

My friend and I told Eicca and Mikko we’d be at the HOB that night. (Tom had mentioned the show earlier on air.) Other than that, I really don’t remember what else I told them other than their performance was awesome. “Rockstar memory loss” sets in! GAH! I do remember telling Perttu, “You sir, are my favorite.” To be honest, I don’t even think I looked at him. HOLY HELL was I a wreck! haha I barely said more than a few words to Paavo. I know I told them thanks for signing before I left the line and noticed Hubby was meeting Eicca. I heard hubby ask if he could sign the flat to “Jake”. I then butted in and told him how our son’s HS marching band was using part of their version of Hall of the Mountain King. I mentioned that my son was a fan and had seen them a couple times before. I went on to say that their Band Director had used a picture of an “apocalypse” along with a couple other pictures as a hint to the song being used this year and how when my son saw it he thought, “Nooo, it cant be.” OH, BUT IT WAS! Eicca thought it was cool.

Promo card from Mikki

We were then told to get back in line to wait to take a picture with the band! Due to timing, pictures would not be taken with individual cameras, but by the station photographer.

Originally the lady told us we would take our pic with the people we came with. Hubby wasn’t going to have his picture taken. I looked at Kim and Rachel and said,”I don’t know you.” So, one by one we took our pics 🙂 HEHE

After we were done and moved out of the way, we looked at each other again and said, “Nice to meet you.” HEHE

Thanks to WIIL for these next 3 pics!

L to R: Perttu, Mikko, Me, Eicca, Paavo

We said good-bye to Rachel and Kim followed hubby and I home. I needed to buy Trans-Siberian Orchestra tickets before Kim and I headed downtown to the House of Blues! 🙂

Continue to APO show @ HOB