Sleeping

I am in a gun metal grey room, with air pipes and ducts creeping around the walls in complicated patterns. There is an air of excitement buzzing around the place, the reason for which is not immediately apparent. There is a murmur of something that sounds like rain in the distance.

Suddenly, a familiar looking man with long blond hair and a platted beard hands me a bright red guitar and asks me if I'm ready? I have no idea what I should be ready for so I stand there, guitar in one hand looking slightly puzzled. Then it clicks and I recognize him as Marco Hietala, the bassist/singer from Nightwish and sure enough he has a bass guitar across his back.

He smiles at me and with a grin spread wide across his face says, 'For our entrance!' He then peels back one of the ducting pipes on the wall to my left, revealing a circular hole about one metre in diameter. With a slap of his hand on my shoulder, he gently nudges me forward saying 'You first, of course!' and I hastily strap the guitar on and start climbing into the hole.

Trying to navigate myself through a narrow space like this is quite entertaining, made even more so by the addition of the guitar, but it is only a short crawl before a brilliant white 'wall' appears before me, with a faint grey pattern spreading out from it's centre, becomes visible. I pause to look at it and can't help feeling that the pattern looks something like a tribal dragon tattoo, but before I can be sure, Marco calls from behind me and urges me to move forward.

I experimentally place a hand on the wall and push forward. It feels like rubber, or perhaps elastic, and it stretches and bends as I push against it. It soon becomes apparent that it's so stretchy, my hand can't break through it and I start scrabbling away at it like a cat, when a voice from behind me says, 'Use the guitar!' and with a flourish, I ram the headstock of the guitar into the elastic wall and it rips straight through, tearing it open so we can crawl on into the opening beyond.

I spill out of the hole, onto a dark black platform with very bright lights suspended some way above me and turning to watch Marco emerge from the hole too, it dawns on me that the hole is actually one of the bass drums of Jukka's drum kit. Scanning around, I see Tuomas stood behind his keyboards and Anette bouncing up and down with a microphone in hand, a little to his left.

I clamber awkwardly to my feet and turn to Marco and ask 'Where's Emppu?' to which he replies, 'He's sick today, so you're playing instead!' and I glance down to see that my guitar is Emppu's ESP model, which brings a smile to my face.

A few clicks of the drumsticks and we're into a song - Sleeping Sun to be precise, which seems to me to be a curious number to open a show with. The fact that there are no apparent people at this show probably means this will not be noted by the (missing) audience, so dutifully we play on with me desperately trying to not make too many mistakes. Clearly noticing the lack of audience, Anette and the other's decide to have fun and mix up the lyrics, style, music and just about everything that they can.

This goes on for a few minutes until people seem to get bored and down instruments and head to the right of stage towards a brightly lit doorway.

Walking through the doorway, I'm slightly confused to find we are now inside Janetta and Anna's kitchen, only all 'kitchen' things have been removed and the room crammed full of comfy looking red sofas into which the band, and various other friends have all sat themselves. A cosy fireplace burns brightly in the corner and across the full length of one of the sofas, my dog is lying with his paws clutching a chewy bone on which he is busily gnawing. I snicker quietly to myself as I spy the fox trap hung from the kitchen ceiling.

There is no space left on any of the sofas so I sit down on the floor resting my back against the sofa and listening to the general babble in the room, overlaid with the crack and pop of wood on the fire. I feel my eyelids getting heavy and, seeking somewhere to rest my head, the only convenient place seems to be against the legs of the person in the chair - in this case Janetta. Without so much as a word, I shuffle sideways, prop my head against her kneecap and slowly drift off to sleep.

Apologies to Janetta, but your kneecap was quite comfy and I didn't want to make my dog get off the sofa! :)