STOCKHOLM ICE REDUX
Hey bbs
Me and my sister malvien finally got home today, so I come bringing STORIES. There are some photos of the actual show - not terrific, but some - but my camera died during the finale so no photos of when we MET THE GUYS. (YEAH DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THAT?!) Mal tried her best to make the photos presentable, and I included some that are kinda shitty because they're still kinda cool. :p LIVE WITH IT OKAY
I'll skip the boring parts of how we spent 17+ hours on a boat on our way to Stockholm. However, I will first INTRODUCE OUR CAST.
anotherdream - yours truly
malvien - my sister, who demands the glory that is rightfully hers, as SHE made the zebra plushie what it is. She is a lurker here, I'm just the one who's louder. When and if we ever see Steffi again, she has promised to make ANOTHER zebra, with a top hat and pimp cane.
the_sell_out and supersonica - the other Finn and her friend, lucky bitches who sat close to the skater entrance, and who took the photos at the backstage door
illemaintenant - already an ONTD_S hero, the one with the sign, and the laptop that allowed as to TWEET LIKE CRAZY afterwards
Adrian's plushie, the seahorse bearing flowers! (Don't even ask, we just thought it was CUTE and as crazy as Adrian.)
Zhenya's plushie, the... err... well, AMAZING TREE FROG WITH A SUNFLOWER. I um. Well, malvien went "I WANT TO GIVE HIM A SUNFLOWER" (yes, it was because of Hetalia) and then we needed a plushie to go with it. AND FROGS JUMP OKAY, JUST LIKE ZHENYA. IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE. STFU.
AND ZE ZEBRA YOU ALREADY KNOW. Our international superstar who can also be seen in some of the pro photos over here
I was tweeting from my phone the whole day, but yanno, when interesting shit was happening I WAS BUSY BEING INTERESTED. Still, the tweets from @anotherdream document some of the day~
So Globen told me earlier that there would be an autograph session, but they didn't know when or where yet. During the morning I called Globen probably 4-5 times asking about it - they kept telling me to call back, they were trying to reach someone who knows about stuff. Eventually they did, and told us there wouldn't be a signing session after all. BUMMER. But we decided to head to Globen around 2pm anyway, pester some more staff to make sure the info was correct, and see if we can't stalk the guys ANYWAY. We pestered a lot of staff in the end but we were super nice about it, possibly they don't hate us >.>
The magical zebra plushie came very handy in finding the others, who recognized us immediately. There were ticket shenanigans and we eventually made it inside Globen. There was much gossiping and squeeing and we confirmed that yes, a giggly bunch of twenty-something ladies is NOT a typical guest at these events - there were lots of families and older people instead. (There were older ladies sitting right in front of us later who I swear thought we're completely insane and wanted to strangle us. We did not let this interrupt our stanning. But we DID apologize to the old ladies in our row that my sister had to crush repeatedly to go throw the plushies.) We found out things about each other - such as me and my sis were the only ones to have seen live skating before. I was excited for the others because seriously guys, skating live is just exponentially more awesome than skating on tape. We bothered some more staff to ask about any possibility of an autograph session and were shot down YET AGAIN. They did have about 40 copies each of posters that were signed by Steffi and Zhenya, but that just was not the same.
SO THEN we split up and got to our seats, which were all over the place. Ours were in A13, illemaintenant's in A21 or something and the other two, lucky bitches, had seats in A2 just by the skaters' entrance. They actually saw the skaters even before they were on ice and stuff, and apparently Steffi was being a dancing spaz there too a bit. :D
IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WAS AN EMPTY ICE RINK.
Then this dude turned up, "counting" the viewers and opening the show. He was kind of the comic relief-y presenter all throughout the show. IDK if he's some kind of a Swedish TV character or something? dear Swedes, please fill us in if you know anything.
Next THIS POPPED OUT, I think the music was "Kids in America". We spent the entire number going OKAY SO WHO IS THIS GUY WE AREN'T QUITE SURE
As it turned out, it was JAMAL OTHMAN, aka THE OTHER SWISS GUY
He has learned the art of grabbyhands from the best:
Next up was someone I predict we will stan hard in ten years: Swedish skater NIKOLAJ MAJOROV, nine years old. illemaintenant tells me he's from the town she lives in or something.
FUTURE "DAT ASS":
Next up were TATIANA VOLOSOZHAR and STANISLAV MOROZOV:
Home crowd, of course, went wild with the next skater: ADRIAN SCHULTHEISS, aka INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE.
It was kind of a lulzy bullfighting program and I AM DISAPPOINT that Adrian was only thrown ONE gift, and that was ours. SHAME ON YOU SWEDES. It turned out more lulzy because the old ladies in our row wouldn't let malvien pass at first, so the plushie ended up on ice kind of late, and the flower girls DIDN'T NOTICE. So the plushie was still there when SARAH MEIER started skating. They sent a flower girl creeping up the sides once Sarah moved on to skate at the other end of the rink - sadly my photo of this adorable flower girl came out a complete disaster, since she was in the dark. BUT ALL IS WELL THAT ENDS WELL, Sarah didn't trip on the plushie. ALSO after this small failure they started sending out the flower girls after every performance even if it looked like there's nothing on the ice. :D ALL BECAUSE OF US
oh right, SARAH MEIER. Whom we didn't even know would be there until I bought the souvenir program before the show that had her intro in it.
MOVING ON to one of my favorite ice dance couples: ISABEL DELOBEL and OLIVIER SCHÖNFELDER. Pretty, fierce, awesome etc.
Audience, once again, went nuts for a Swede: their top female singles skater, VICTORIA HELGESSON.
MOVING RIGHT ON to the pair that brought the fiercest lifts of the evening: FIONA ZALDUA and DIMITRI SUKHANOV. Their lifts were INSANE and these are only a few of them, my camera wasn't good enough to capture a lot of stuff.
Then there was silence and darkness, and just the presenter person was talking. Someone came on ice and at first we were like SO WHO IS THAT. And then we stared for a while, looked at his speed and his costume and the way he skated so effortlessly. And then this guy started doing small jumps all around the rink, still in the dark but you could see him, like he was just going LAA DE DAA THIS IS SO EASY SEE ME JUMPING and we realized who it is. There were isolated shouts and then he was announced properly, and the crowd just EXPLODED. It was like THIS IS WHO WE CAME HERE TO SEE FUCK YEAH GIVE US THE KIIIIIING. It was amazing everyone even shut the fuck down when he started skating.
I am OF COURSE talking about EVGENI PLUSHENKO, FUCKING KING OF THE ICE. He did his tango program. He was so fast that most of my photos came out way too blurry - these are the ones that aren't COMPLETE disasters.
Look Zhenya, they're bringing you flowers!
In the end, he literally ran out of hands, his arms were full of plushies and flowers and the girls were STILL gathering more and he had to have them help him carry them to the backstage. Sadly I did not get good photos of this. If anyone finds photos of him on the ice getting all those gifts, PLEASE I want to see because he was holding our froggie in plain view :DDD
The difficult task of following up after the King was given to ALIONA SAVCHENKO and ROBIN SZOLKOWY. They skated a nice calmer program that I can't remember the music to but they got the crowd to calm down for the next act nicely.
...next act, PRINCE CHARMING AND HIS SWEATER OF MAGICAL DANGLY STUFF. That is Stéphane with "Ne me quitte pas". Again everybody went CRAZY when they realized who's on the ice.
Spin for us baby, spinnnnnnnnnnn. His spins are EVEN MORE AWESOME LIVE. He probably breaks some laws of physics but he's a magical zebra prince, he can do that.
He got an amazing amount of flowers and plushies too, and hugged all of the flower girls who were just beside themselves, and was just INCREDIBLY CUTE AND ADORABLE. But wait: the presenter didn't let him leave the ice just yet! There was a short interview...
...after which the presenter asked everyone to stand up and sing Happy Birthday to Stéphane. And we did, and it was awesome. We had joked about it earlier how great it would be if we got to do that AND WE DID. HAPPY QUARTER CENTURY STEFFI <3
The first half of the show ended with some shenanigans from the strange comic relief dude and Jason Graetz, they did this short routine of getting ready but then noooo no no no not your time to go on the ice yet dude, INTERMISSION. So the crowd dispersed for a 30-minute intermission, there were apparently some interviews during this but illemaintenant had convinced us earlier that we do not want to watch Adrian's interviews because apparently, he's so dim he makes Orange Bro look like Einstein. So instead we gathered to squee and pester some more staff. Illemaintenant also informed us that we had been ordered to try and find the backstage door after the show (something like "someone on twitter will shoot us all if we don't try") so we agreed to meet at the other entrance ASAP after the show ends, and returned to our seats for the second half of the show.
MOVING ON...
Again with strange shenanigans from this dude:
After which, we were presented with Sarah Meier and her ART ON ICE DANCERS. The music was... something about bring out the girls or something, IDEK, IT WAS TWO DAYS AGO AND MY MIND IS STILL BLOWN.
LADIES CAN ALSO SPIN WHO KNEW
No I am not sure what dance move this is attempting to be
Some frontal bows...
..and some female DAT ASS
Then SUDDENLY RED CAR.
It was driven on the ice and we were puzzled. Eventually SERGEI YAKIMENKO, an ice acrobat, came out. He did flips and backflips and all other kinds of crazy shit and finally, the Art on Ice dancers brought out a TRAMPOLINE and he DID A BACKFLIP OVER THE CAR. ON SKATES. WITH THE HELP OF A TRAMPOLINE. Fierce bitch.
Car was driven away and there were again some shenanigans with the comic relief dude and someone else. They had like, a microphone stand set on the ice and were again doing a sketch about getting ready to perform and then being told noooo, it's not your turn yet, go away. Lights went off. Microphone stand REMAINED on ice.
KRISTOFFER BERNTSSON APPEARED.
Kristoffer showed us that Swedes know how to put together a swinging show program. His music was "Are You Gonna Go My Way" and the performance was complete with lipsyncing to the mike and finally breaking the mic stand over his knee. ROCK OUT.
Rockers get all the girls. Notice behind him, completely overshadowed, the ONE flower BOY, sadly left out. DDDDDDDDD:
NEXT UP, yet another go at the "nope, not your turn yet" sketch - except this time it was! We were kind of like, so who is this dude, can he even skate? The answer is, well...
JASON GRAETZ ladies and gentlemen. Double-jointed or something, his moves were crazy! I believe he was also at KOI so there are better photos of the stuff he does.
Delobel-Schönfelder back on stage, with a long scarf thing that was actually pretty cool. Props in ice dancing = win
STEPHANE BACK ON ICE. We recognized his costume even before the lights came on and everyone around us thought we're crazy when we started clapping and whistling. I approved of this modified William Tell program, the step sequence was awesome.
SOMEWHERE DURING THE SECOND HALF there was also another performance by Plushenko, Volosozhar-Morozov, Zaldua-Sukhanov, and a Man in the Iron Mask program by TEAM BOOMERANG, Sweden's best synchronized skating team. Sadly my camera was trying to die for most of the second half so I don't have any photos of these performances, but I'm sure some will turn up online anyway.
FINALE
First the sync skaters and the Art on Ice dancers came on ice, then the other stars one by one. Stéphane confirmed that he's still an adorable spaz and was dancing and doing the horns thing while they skated around the rink. AND when everyone was leaving the ice and they couldn't all fit in the tiny gates at once he just went O HEY MORE SPINS and skated back to the middle and did some more fierce spins for us. Adorable <3
SHOW WAS OVER. We did not despair! We headed to the entrance, bothered more staff, and eventually decided to go around Globen looking for an adequately suspicious door. We found one in no time. It conveniently had a sign on it proclaiming "BACKSTAGE" - how helpful! There were a couple of other girls hanging around so we decided it was probably the right place and waited.
People we saw but did not stop for autographs: Robin Szolkowy, Aliona Savchenko, Jason Graetz, Isabel Delobel, Olivier Schönfelder. IDK nobody was just very interested and/or they looked like they didn't want to be stopped. >.> First skater we DID stop: Berntsson. He, and the next one to come out, Adrian Schultheiss, looked a bit weirded out and/or amused that they were asked for autographs. BUT they gave them anyway and Adrian posed with the sign. We didn't ask if he got the plushie though. :D
SUDDENLY PLUSHY. He came out with a couple of assistants and I was almost sure he'd just walk past us, but he didn't! He stopped and signed for us when we asked. He didn't say much, mostly "thank you" and "okay" and stuff like that. He was all COOL~ and KINGLY~ and sort of intimidating and OMG. I babbled at him about how we've been watching him skate for like ten years and we came all the way from Finland to the show and I think I said "you're a god on ice" to his face, and he was just "okay zank you". :DDD LOL WAS THAT FOR REAL. I don't remember much of what he said, I was too WHELMED I mean I've been stanning that amazing son of a bitch for over a decade and I didn't want to be all embarrassed and horribly fangirly >.>
malvien however WAS NOT FAZED and HUGGED HIM. Lucky bitch. Plushy has this ~force field~ of kingly awesomeness about him and I could never in a million years have asked him for a hug but my baby sister did and got a hug. AMG.
THE MAIN EVENT
Stéphane FINALLY came out and before he made it out the door some of us just... SQUEALED out loud. (I did NOT. I was calm cool & controlled. The guilty parties KNOW WHO THEY ARE) Steffi looked AMUSED but didn't even flinch or run away or anything. So he came out with his stuff and his assistant (or something?) was carrying some of his stuff. So we asked him for autographs, and he was just SO NICE AND CUTE AND PRESH. Seriously, if you think from photos and videos that he's impossibly cute and presh, MULTIPLY THAT BY HUNDRED and you may be getting close. I'm just going to switch to list mode now because this isn't a coherent paragraph anyway~
- I'm still half convinced he's a collective hallucination because NOBODY CAN BE THAT AWESOME IRL. I thought beforehand that maybe like the camera adds ten pounds, it adds 100% charm but NO. Steffi's charm cannot be properly conveyed except in person.
- We asked him if he got our winged zebra plushie, and he was like yes, was that from you guys?, it was cute, I have it here. It was RIGHT ON TOP OF ONE OF HIS SMALLER BAGS THAT HIS ASSISTANT (or whatever) WAS CARRYING. We asked if we can take a photo of him holding it and he was all yeah sure of course! and took the plushie out and a photo was had. ^_^ So yeah we didn't actually give the zebra to him there, we tossed it on the ice after his first performance (we wanted to be sure he gets it), and you can even see it in some photos where he is hugging the flower girl who's holding the plushie! I am still hyped that he actually liked the plushie. ^_^
- Stephane is doubly adorable because he actually seemed interested in us and listened to our babbling and everything. He listened to my babbling about how the zebra had 25 roses, one for each of his years, and he asked us if we're from Sweden. We said yeah some, but a few of us came from Finland, he seemed surprised and asked us how we came there. We said boat, he asked how long the trip was, we said about twenty hours (it's like 17~ or so hours to be exact) and he made this "OOF" sound like he was imagining how long and horrible and boring it is. IT WAS ADORABLE. So of course we then said it was totally worth it and we'd do it all over again for him if he ever does another show in Sweden.
- Stéphane Lambiel is a great hugger, smells awesome and sweet and flowery and is really kind of tiny and cuddly. We regret we didn't kidnap him and pack him with us. illemaintenant touched his hair and tells us it is unbelievably soft. My sister was *this* close to being lifted in the air like the flower girls, because she's tiny as fuck (barely 4'10 even though she's 18) but sadly the zebra reconsidered and just hugged her normally.
- When he was asked to hold the ONTD_S sign he was a bit "WTF is ziis" and read the sign OUT LOUD in the most ADORABLE ACCENT. hence the comm is now titled ahhhenteedee skaatiing. I wish someone had gotten that on video it was SO ADORABLE the way he said it. (We told him it's a shout-out to our skating fan community.)
SO UH THAT WAS IT I THINK GUYS. CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE, I SWEAR THAT EVERYTHING IN THIS POST IS TRUE, REALLY HAPPENED, AND IS MAYBE ONLY A TINY BIT EMBELLISHED. I AM STILL ON A HIGH SORTA AND IT MAKES ME GRIN LIKE AN IDIOT WHEN I THINK THAT I HUGGED STÉPHANE LAMBIEL.
If I forgot some details that I mentioned somewhere else or that someone else from our ~entourage~ remembers PLZ do tell, I will edit liek whoa.
BONUS SCANS of the pages of the souvenir programme I got signed!
RANDOM BONUS MOUNTED PLUSHIE ZEBRA HEAD WE SAW IN A GAMLA STAN SOUVENIR STORE.
edit: AND A RANDOM DETAIL I FORGOT, but you all know it anyway. My personal gaydar re: Steffi? Permanently stuck on GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY now. And I used to be in the "bi or ~european~" camp. >.>
Me and my sister malvien finally got home today, so I come bringing STORIES. There are some photos of the actual show - not terrific, but some - but my camera died during the finale so no photos of when we MET THE GUYS. (YEAH DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THAT?!) Mal tried her best to make the photos presentable, and I included some that are kinda shitty because they're still kinda cool. :p LIVE WITH IT OKAY
I'll skip the boring parts of how we spent 17+ hours on a boat on our way to Stockholm. However, I will first INTRODUCE OUR CAST.
anotherdream - yours truly
malvien - my sister, who demands the glory that is rightfully hers, as SHE made the zebra plushie what it is. She is a lurker here, I'm just the one who's louder. When and if we ever see Steffi again, she has promised to make ANOTHER zebra, with a top hat and pimp cane.
the_sell_out and supersonica - the other Finn and her friend, lucky bitches who sat close to the skater entrance, and who took the photos at the backstage door
illemaintenant - already an ONTD_S hero, the one with the sign, and the laptop that allowed as to TWEET LIKE CRAZY afterwards
Adrian's plushie, the seahorse bearing flowers! (Don't even ask, we just thought it was CUTE and as crazy as Adrian.)
Zhenya's plushie, the... err... well, AMAZING TREE FROG WITH A SUNFLOWER. I um. Well, malvien went "I WANT TO GIVE HIM A SUNFLOWER" (yes, it was because of Hetalia) and then we needed a plushie to go with it. AND FROGS JUMP OKAY, JUST LIKE ZHENYA. IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE. STFU.
AND ZE ZEBRA YOU ALREADY KNOW. Our international superstar who can also be seen in some of the pro photos over here
I was tweeting from my phone the whole day, but yanno, when interesting shit was happening I WAS BUSY BEING INTERESTED. Still, the tweets from @anotherdream document some of the day~
So Globen told me earlier that there would be an autograph session, but they didn't know when or where yet. During the morning I called Globen probably 4-5 times asking about it - they kept telling me to call back, they were trying to reach someone who knows about stuff. Eventually they did, and told us there wouldn't be a signing session after all. BUMMER. But we decided to head to Globen around 2pm anyway, pester some more staff to make sure the info was correct, and see if we can't stalk the guys ANYWAY. We pestered a lot of staff in the end but we were super nice about it, possibly they don't hate us >.>
The magical zebra plushie came very handy in finding the others, who recognized us immediately. There were ticket shenanigans and we eventually made it inside Globen. There was much gossiping and squeeing and we confirmed that yes, a giggly bunch of twenty-something ladies is NOT a typical guest at these events - there were lots of families and older people instead. (There were older ladies sitting right in front of us later who I swear thought we're completely insane and wanted to strangle us. We did not let this interrupt our stanning. But we DID apologize to the old ladies in our row that my sister had to crush repeatedly to go throw the plushies.) We found out things about each other - such as me and my sis were the only ones to have seen live skating before. I was excited for the others because seriously guys, skating live is just exponentially more awesome than skating on tape. We bothered some more staff to ask about any possibility of an autograph session and were shot down YET AGAIN. They did have about 40 copies each of posters that were signed by Steffi and Zhenya, but that just was not the same.
SO THEN we split up and got to our seats, which were all over the place. Ours were in A13, illemaintenant's in A21 or something and the other two, lucky bitches, had seats in A2 just by the skaters' entrance. They actually saw the skaters even before they were on ice and stuff, and apparently Steffi was being a dancing spaz there too a bit. :D
IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WAS AN EMPTY ICE RINK.
Then this dude turned up, "counting" the viewers and opening the show. He was kind of the comic relief-y presenter all throughout the show. IDK if he's some kind of a Swedish TV character or something? dear Swedes, please fill us in if you know anything.
Next THIS POPPED OUT, I think the music was "Kids in America". We spent the entire number going OKAY SO WHO IS THIS GUY WE AREN'T QUITE SURE
As it turned out, it was JAMAL OTHMAN, aka THE OTHER SWISS GUY
He has learned the art of grabbyhands from the best:
Next up was someone I predict we will stan hard in ten years: Swedish skater NIKOLAJ MAJOROV, nine years old. illemaintenant tells me he's from the town she lives in or something.
FUTURE "DAT ASS":
Next up were TATIANA VOLOSOZHAR and STANISLAV MOROZOV:
Home crowd, of course, went wild with the next skater: ADRIAN SCHULTHEISS, aka INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE.
It was kind of a lulzy bullfighting program and I AM DISAPPOINT that Adrian was only thrown ONE gift, and that was ours. SHAME ON YOU SWEDES. It turned out more lulzy because the old ladies in our row wouldn't let malvien pass at first, so the plushie ended up on ice kind of late, and the flower girls DIDN'T NOTICE. So the plushie was still there when SARAH MEIER started skating. They sent a flower girl creeping up the sides once Sarah moved on to skate at the other end of the rink - sadly my photo of this adorable flower girl came out a complete disaster, since she was in the dark. BUT ALL IS WELL THAT ENDS WELL, Sarah didn't trip on the plushie. ALSO after this small failure they started sending out the flower girls after every performance even if it looked like there's nothing on the ice. :D ALL BECAUSE OF US
oh right, SARAH MEIER. Whom we didn't even know would be there until I bought the souvenir program before the show that had her intro in it.
MOVING ON to one of my favorite ice dance couples: ISABEL DELOBEL and OLIVIER SCHÖNFELDER. Pretty, fierce, awesome etc.
Audience, once again, went nuts for a Swede: their top female singles skater, VICTORIA HELGESSON.
MOVING RIGHT ON to the pair that brought the fiercest lifts of the evening: FIONA ZALDUA and DIMITRI SUKHANOV. Their lifts were INSANE and these are only a few of them, my camera wasn't good enough to capture a lot of stuff.
Then there was silence and darkness, and just the presenter person was talking. Someone came on ice and at first we were like SO WHO IS THAT. And then we stared for a while, looked at his speed and his costume and the way he skated so effortlessly. And then this guy started doing small jumps all around the rink, still in the dark but you could see him, like he was just going LAA DE DAA THIS IS SO EASY SEE ME JUMPING and we realized who it is. There were isolated shouts and then he was announced properly, and the crowd just EXPLODED. It was like THIS IS WHO WE CAME HERE TO SEE FUCK YEAH GIVE US THE KIIIIIING. It was amazing everyone even shut the fuck down when he started skating.
I am OF COURSE talking about EVGENI PLUSHENKO, FUCKING KING OF THE ICE. He did his tango program. He was so fast that most of my photos came out way too blurry - these are the ones that aren't COMPLETE disasters.
Look Zhenya, they're bringing you flowers!
In the end, he literally ran out of hands, his arms were full of plushies and flowers and the girls were STILL gathering more and he had to have them help him carry them to the backstage. Sadly I did not get good photos of this. If anyone finds photos of him on the ice getting all those gifts, PLEASE I want to see because he was holding our froggie in plain view :DDD
The difficult task of following up after the King was given to ALIONA SAVCHENKO and ROBIN SZOLKOWY. They skated a nice calmer program that I can't remember the music to but they got the crowd to calm down for the next act nicely.
...next act, PRINCE CHARMING AND HIS SWEATER OF MAGICAL DANGLY STUFF. That is Stéphane with "Ne me quitte pas". Again everybody went CRAZY when they realized who's on the ice.
Spin for us baby, spinnnnnnnnnnn. His spins are EVEN MORE AWESOME LIVE. He probably breaks some laws of physics but he's a magical zebra prince, he can do that.
He got an amazing amount of flowers and plushies too, and hugged all of the flower girls who were just beside themselves, and was just INCREDIBLY CUTE AND ADORABLE. But wait: the presenter didn't let him leave the ice just yet! There was a short interview...
...after which the presenter asked everyone to stand up and sing Happy Birthday to Stéphane. And we did, and it was awesome. We had joked about it earlier how great it would be if we got to do that AND WE DID. HAPPY QUARTER CENTURY STEFFI <3
The first half of the show ended with some shenanigans from the strange comic relief dude and Jason Graetz, they did this short routine of getting ready but then noooo no no no not your time to go on the ice yet dude, INTERMISSION. So the crowd dispersed for a 30-minute intermission, there were apparently some interviews during this but illemaintenant had convinced us earlier that we do not want to watch Adrian's interviews because apparently, he's so dim he makes Orange Bro look like Einstein. So instead we gathered to squee and pester some more staff. Illemaintenant also informed us that we had been ordered to try and find the backstage door after the show (something like "someone on twitter will shoot us all if we don't try") so we agreed to meet at the other entrance ASAP after the show ends, and returned to our seats for the second half of the show.
MOVING ON...
Again with strange shenanigans from this dude:
After which, we were presented with Sarah Meier and her ART ON ICE DANCERS. The music was... something about bring out the girls or something, IDEK, IT WAS TWO DAYS AGO AND MY MIND IS STILL BLOWN.
LADIES CAN ALSO SPIN WHO KNEW
No I am not sure what dance move this is attempting to be
Some frontal bows...
..and some female DAT ASS
Then SUDDENLY RED CAR.
It was driven on the ice and we were puzzled. Eventually SERGEI YAKIMENKO, an ice acrobat, came out. He did flips and backflips and all other kinds of crazy shit and finally, the Art on Ice dancers brought out a TRAMPOLINE and he DID A BACKFLIP OVER THE CAR. ON SKATES. WITH THE HELP OF A TRAMPOLINE. Fierce bitch.
Car was driven away and there were again some shenanigans with the comic relief dude and someone else. They had like, a microphone stand set on the ice and were again doing a sketch about getting ready to perform and then being told noooo, it's not your turn yet, go away. Lights went off. Microphone stand REMAINED on ice.
KRISTOFFER BERNTSSON APPEARED.
Kristoffer showed us that Swedes know how to put together a swinging show program. His music was "Are You Gonna Go My Way" and the performance was complete with lipsyncing to the mike and finally breaking the mic stand over his knee. ROCK OUT.
Rockers get all the girls. Notice behind him, completely overshadowed, the ONE flower BOY, sadly left out. DDDDDDDDD:
NEXT UP, yet another go at the "nope, not your turn yet" sketch - except this time it was! We were kind of like, so who is this dude, can he even skate? The answer is, well...
JASON GRAETZ ladies and gentlemen. Double-jointed or something, his moves were crazy! I believe he was also at KOI so there are better photos of the stuff he does.
Delobel-Schönfelder back on stage, with a long scarf thing that was actually pretty cool. Props in ice dancing = win
STEPHANE BACK ON ICE. We recognized his costume even before the lights came on and everyone around us thought we're crazy when we started clapping and whistling. I approved of this modified William Tell program, the step sequence was awesome.
SOMEWHERE DURING THE SECOND HALF there was also another performance by Plushenko, Volosozhar-Morozov, Zaldua-Sukhanov, and a Man in the Iron Mask program by TEAM BOOMERANG, Sweden's best synchronized skating team. Sadly my camera was trying to die for most of the second half so I don't have any photos of these performances, but I'm sure some will turn up online anyway.
FINALE
First the sync skaters and the Art on Ice dancers came on ice, then the other stars one by one. Stéphane confirmed that he's still an adorable spaz and was dancing and doing the horns thing while they skated around the rink. AND when everyone was leaving the ice and they couldn't all fit in the tiny gates at once he just went O HEY MORE SPINS and skated back to the middle and did some more fierce spins for us. Adorable <3
SHOW WAS OVER. We did not despair! We headed to the entrance, bothered more staff, and eventually decided to go around Globen looking for an adequately suspicious door. We found one in no time. It conveniently had a sign on it proclaiming "BACKSTAGE" - how helpful! There were a couple of other girls hanging around so we decided it was probably the right place and waited.
People we saw but did not stop for autographs: Robin Szolkowy, Aliona Savchenko, Jason Graetz, Isabel Delobel, Olivier Schönfelder. IDK nobody was just very interested and/or they looked like they didn't want to be stopped. >.> First skater we DID stop: Berntsson. He, and the next one to come out, Adrian Schultheiss, looked a bit weirded out and/or amused that they were asked for autographs. BUT they gave them anyway and Adrian posed with the sign. We didn't ask if he got the plushie though. :D
SUDDENLY PLUSHY. He came out with a couple of assistants and I was almost sure he'd just walk past us, but he didn't! He stopped and signed for us when we asked. He didn't say much, mostly "thank you" and "okay" and stuff like that. He was all COOL~ and KINGLY~ and sort of intimidating and OMG. I babbled at him about how we've been watching him skate for like ten years and we came all the way from Finland to the show and I think I said "you're a god on ice" to his face, and he was just "okay zank you". :DDD LOL WAS THAT FOR REAL. I don't remember much of what he said, I was too WHELMED I mean I've been stanning that amazing son of a bitch for over a decade and I didn't want to be all embarrassed and horribly fangirly >.>
malvien however WAS NOT FAZED and HUGGED HIM. Lucky bitch. Plushy has this ~force field~ of kingly awesomeness about him and I could never in a million years have asked him for a hug but my baby sister did and got a hug. AMG.
THE MAIN EVENT
Stéphane FINALLY came out and before he made it out the door some of us just... SQUEALED out loud. (I did NOT. I was calm cool & controlled. The guilty parties KNOW WHO THEY ARE) Steffi looked AMUSED but didn't even flinch or run away or anything. So he came out with his stuff and his assistant (or something?) was carrying some of his stuff. So we asked him for autographs, and he was just SO NICE AND CUTE AND PRESH. Seriously, if you think from photos and videos that he's impossibly cute and presh, MULTIPLY THAT BY HUNDRED and you may be getting close. I'm just going to switch to list mode now because this isn't a coherent paragraph anyway~
- I'm still half convinced he's a collective hallucination because NOBODY CAN BE THAT AWESOME IRL. I thought beforehand that maybe like the camera adds ten pounds, it adds 100% charm but NO. Steffi's charm cannot be properly conveyed except in person.
- We asked him if he got our winged zebra plushie, and he was like yes, was that from you guys?, it was cute, I have it here. It was RIGHT ON TOP OF ONE OF HIS SMALLER BAGS THAT HIS ASSISTANT (or whatever) WAS CARRYING. We asked if we can take a photo of him holding it and he was all yeah sure of course! and took the plushie out and a photo was had. ^_^ So yeah we didn't actually give the zebra to him there, we tossed it on the ice after his first performance (we wanted to be sure he gets it), and you can even see it in some photos where he is hugging the flower girl who's holding the plushie! I am still hyped that he actually liked the plushie. ^_^
- Stephane is doubly adorable because he actually seemed interested in us and listened to our babbling and everything. He listened to my babbling about how the zebra had 25 roses, one for each of his years, and he asked us if we're from Sweden. We said yeah some, but a few of us came from Finland, he seemed surprised and asked us how we came there. We said boat, he asked how long the trip was, we said about twenty hours (it's like 17~ or so hours to be exact) and he made this "OOF" sound like he was imagining how long and horrible and boring it is. IT WAS ADORABLE. So of course we then said it was totally worth it and we'd do it all over again for him if he ever does another show in Sweden.
- Stéphane Lambiel is a great hugger, smells awesome and sweet and flowery and is really kind of tiny and cuddly. We regret we didn't kidnap him and pack him with us. illemaintenant touched his hair and tells us it is unbelievably soft. My sister was *this* close to being lifted in the air like the flower girls, because she's tiny as fuck (barely 4'10 even though she's 18) but sadly the zebra reconsidered and just hugged her normally.
- When he was asked to hold the ONTD_S sign he was a bit "WTF is ziis" and read the sign OUT LOUD in the most ADORABLE ACCENT. hence the comm is now titled ahhhenteedee skaatiing. I wish someone had gotten that on video it was SO ADORABLE the way he said it. (We told him it's a shout-out to our skating fan community.)
SO UH THAT WAS IT I THINK GUYS. CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE, I SWEAR THAT EVERYTHING IN THIS POST IS TRUE, REALLY HAPPENED, AND IS MAYBE ONLY A TINY BIT EMBELLISHED. I AM STILL ON A HIGH SORTA AND IT MAKES ME GRIN LIKE AN IDIOT WHEN I THINK THAT I HUGGED STÉPHANE LAMBIEL.
If I forgot some details that I mentioned somewhere else or that someone else from our ~entourage~ remembers PLZ do tell, I will edit liek whoa.
BONUS SCANS of the pages of the souvenir programme I got signed!
RANDOM BONUS MOUNTED PLUSHIE ZEBRA HEAD WE SAW IN A GAMLA STAN SOUVENIR STORE.
edit: AND A RANDOM DETAIL I FORGOT, but you all know it anyway. My personal gaydar re: Steffi? Permanently stuck on GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY now. And I used to be in the "bi or ~european~" camp. >.>