SOBER FEELINGS - Joonas Porko

16 - pure mayhem

I truly couldn't remember how long exactly I had been standing at the side of the stage, watching the band perform their set with my eyes wide open.

All I was able to recall was that I initially wanted to force myself to pay more attention to the lyrics of the songs this time. It was more or less the second time I saw the band perform but the spectecular act the six guys put on on stage quickly led me to dismiss my initial plan.

Being too blown away by their energetic movements, impressive vocals and the bright pyros, there would have been truly not even the slightest possibility my mind would have been able to grasp even one clear thought during that show.

The pure mayhem ended with Blind Channel's performance of Dark Side. The cheering crowd was screaming at the top of their lungs, the noise being so deafning that at one point I was genuinely scared about losing my ability to hear.

Especially when Aleksi, Joel and Niko moved close to the barrier, the screaming girls went rigid. In a matter of seconds there were dozens of hands touching the men's bodies which didn't seem to bother them at all.

The deafning noise got increasingly louder once again when Niko ended the song on a long, raspy scream.

"Kiitos!" Joel's voice sounded slightly hoarse, no wonder after his vocal chords spent about one hour with creating a mix of singing and screaming.

It was somewhat of a surreal feeling when the guys waved at the audience one last time before they disappeared backstage. While I was still trying to process what I had just witnessed these past few hours I felt a slight tug on the hem of my shirt.

It was Santeri who probably wondered why I was still standing there, staring at a stage that was now more or less empty.

"Hey, you. Are you coming? Trust me you don't want to miss the after party. Most of them contain a lot of naked skin." The tour manager smiled brightly at me, his brown eyes were reflecting pure contentment. "You know what, in that case I'm coming." I joked and proceeded to follow Santeri to the backstage area.

The tour manager and I hadn't even entered the backstage area when we heard shrill screams coming from the tent. Joel, Aleksi, Niko, Joonas, Olli and Tommi were all running in circles shirtless, pushing each other around and pouring loads and loads of beer and champagne over each others heads.

"What in the name of god?" Something about watching them jumping ontop of each other like little kids while drowning their bodies in alcohol was so ridiculous to watch that I immediately bursted out into laughter.

"Told ya, a lot of naked skin." Santeri winked at me and although he probably was used to the boys' after-show-behavior, he too had to laugh and slapped his knee when Tommi suddenly slipped and landed on his back.

"Hey Lyra, how did you like the show?" Joonas had noticed my presence and was dodging to escape Olli's bottle when his gleaming blue eyes met mine.

His blonde curls were wet, sticking to the top half of his face, so he ran his skilled fingers through his blonde hair to uncover his eyes.

"No words. The show was amazing!" I had to yell due to the fact that Niko and Joel were screaming and attacking each other right infront of my eyes.

"Ready to get wet?" Joonas held up the can of beer in his hand, throwing a challenging look in my direction.

"Joonas I swear to god if you-" in this moment the blonde one started to head in my direction. I shrieked and attempted to run away but once again the other boys had no intention of letting me escape.

Niko and Joel suddenly stopped their play fighting when they noticed what was going on and soon the two men were holding me in place, each of them wrapping their strong arms around me.