" Oh they were so sweet!" Kira Anttila and Emilia Seppälä sigh together

" Taylor shoke my hand so hard that I really felt it in my bones ( TAYLOR HANSON! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? SOMEDAY YOU"LL BE SUED FOR CRUSHING A FANS HANDBONES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) They were so nice and they looked so deep in your eyes that you felt like crying."

Tuesday June 16 was s day that Kira Anttila and Emilia Seppälä will never be able to forget. ( I would never be able to forget it either)

Imagine this: the super popular band HANSON is only performing in three places this year in Europe, including The Wembley Areena. The tickets are sold out in no time and there would have been three times more comers. Inside the Areena 8000 screaming girls are waiting for their idols to come on stage. Three hours befor the concert begins the areena is like a crazy beehive, even the littlest irritant- an announcement or blinking of the stagelights- starts a sea if screams. ( Sea of screams, is that what you call it?)

At the same time in one of Wembley’s many backrooms something begins to happen. The record company’s representative Eva arranges the people in the room into their own groups, there are seven different people- all winners of different contests in Europe. It’s the beginning of " meet and greet", since Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson want to meet their fans.

MIX ( a finnish magazine) was the sole representative for Finland in this exclusive meeting for which we had drawn the lucky winner from a contest on our web page. Kira Anttila was that lucky finnish person, she won SAS plane tickets, an all exspenses paid hotel stay, tickets to the Hanson concert, dinner at TGI Fridays and a sight seeing tour of London with our exchange reporter.

All this for three people!

To join her on this trip Kira asked her friend Emilia and her cousin, Johanna Lehtonen agreed to be the guardian.

But back to The Wembley Areena! It soon starts dawn on Kira and Emilia what’s about to happen. Meeting the idols is a bonus on the trip, a suprise, which is only revealed half an hour before the actual meeting. Kira is obviously very nervous and begins to think of a question to ask the boys. She goes all pale, as the blood seems to sink down somewhere around the knees and soon she can’t almost talk. ( Calm down girl! You wanna say something to Hanson don’t you?)

The Hanson brothers arrive in the room promptly at 6:30 pm, as was promised. A few girls let out an excited shriek, to which the Hansons react to by laughing. ( So they’re secretly laughing at all the screaming they get at concerts?!) Kira and Emilia follow the boys every move and when Isaac, Taylor and Zac come to shake hands with them the girls fill up with happiness. All questions are forgotten, the moment’s so unbelievable and amazing.

"Hi, how are you? You came all the way from Finland? That’s very exciting" talks a captivatingly smiling Taylor.

Taylor shakes the girls hands first. Then little Zac ( Little?!?!? In the picture, which I can’t scan on since I don’t have a scanner SORRY, the girls are the height of Zac if not shorter, Ike and Tay look really tall compared to them all, including the cousin...) and last but not least Isaac. The girls can’t get a word out of their mouths and stare at their heros eyes round. A quick photograph session and the situation is over. Kira begins to cry and Emilia feels dizzy. Neither one seems to relieze what just happened. Only after the Hansons have left do the girls feet touch the ground again.

" They were soooooooooo sweet" Kira manages to say

" And so real ( Duh, they were right there!)" adds Emilia

"They looked at you straight in the eye when they shoke your hand. ( Easy for Zac, so did you look up to Ike and Tay or did the look down at you?) They looked like they were really intrested"

" Meet and greet" is over as quickly as it began. The Hansons return to their dressing rooms and the girls are directed to their places. Kira and Emilia slowly begin to return to earth ( Good thing or they would have missed the concert! Oh the horrors!). A half an hour wait and the warm-up band Hillman Mix come on stage.

And then ladies and gentlemen: HAANNSSSOOOOOOOOONNNN!!!!

Kira and Emilia begin to dance and scream just like the other 8000 girls. Johanna sits in her chair and covers her ears.

" The noise here is so much louder than when I went to the Spice Girls concert ( in Finland)" ( That proves it once and for all, Hanson fans can scream, there were 12,000 people at the Spice Girls concert and 8000 at the Hanson concert but the Hanson concert was louder) Johanna says and rolls her eyes. Kira and Emilia don’t notice the noise and enjoy the concert totally. Home in Rengo you can listen to quietness again. But now we’re in London and their favorite band Hanson is playing MmmBop! Just let it all go!

MMMROCK

Hanson starts with a song which the hundreds of parents waiting for their children outside the areena recognize. Gimme Some Lovin was already a hit in the 60’s and now it gets "a Hanson" treatment. Taylor plays his keyboard whole heartedly, Isaac does the same with his guitar and Zac bangs the dust off his drums to the roof.

The noise makes you dizzy. The hours ( as in the MANY hours) wait turns into an unbelievable sea of screaming and it really doesn’t matter to the audience what the boys from Tulsa play. The Beatles stopped touring, because the noise at their concerts was so loud that they no longer heard what they were playing. That comes to mind listening to Hanson. ( NO! DO NOT THINK THOUGHTS LIKE THAT! NO!) The audience at Wembley is in such a hysterical state that visual contact to their idols is enough. ( Wouldn’t be enough for me!) You can listen to the music anytime!

But the Hansons want something else. Mmmbop was one of last years greatest hits, but now the boys want to play rock. Already from the way the stage looks you can tell that the Hansons have come to play: there’s really nothing extra on stage. Isaac is standing on the lefthand side of the stage and playing his guitar. Taylor is standing behind his keyboards at the right side and Zac is hard to see behind his drums nad there are no video screens to help...

Thinkin ( Thinkin of You? I always thought it was Thinking of You) of You, Where’s the Love and River follow and Hanson concentrates on playing despite the noise. The boys say something into their microphones between songs but it all gets lost in a sea of screams. On with the show and Hanson continues with Weird and Sometimes.

Then there’s a short break, while stagehands move thongs around on the dark stage. The lights come back on and now there’s a sofa and a lamp on stage. On the left of the sofa there’s a small drum set and on the rightside there’s a simple keyboard. The boys come back on stage and and Isaac sits on the sofa acoustic gitar in hand. Zac stands behind his drums ( He plays them standing up?!?! Mabye not!) and finally the audience sees his face. Taylor introduces the next song, which is Stories from 3 Car Garage.

As the boys play half acoustic you can imagine that this is what it’s like at home practices, nice and easy.

With You in Your Dreams, Soldier and More Than Anything follow and the guys are only half way through. But now it’s time to raise the tempo and the rest of the concert is is all partying. Mmmbop makes the feeling explode and after playing it the boys leave the stage. But only for a few seconds, since the audience makes it clear that they want more. Man From Milwaukee and Look At You are the encore songs and then it’s the last song. Summertime Blues has been a rock classic for 40 years already and as to show the audience that they’re not just a pop playing teenage band they’ve choosen it to be the last song.

Second Hanson Article:

Now it’s clear, Hanson’s coming to Finland next year. At least that’s what Zac assured us. You see I asked the boys to promise to put Finland on their next tour at the press conference earlier today and Zac shouted very loudly:

" I promise I promise, we will come!" ( I hope, I hope, I hope you do!)

I don’t know can you take Zac’s promises too serouisly, but Taylor a bit older and more patient hinted in the same direction.

" We would perform everywhere if it was only up to us. But after our next album is finished, we’re going to do a bigger tour and hopefully we’ll come to Finland then too." ( I hope so too Taylor!)

Hanon’s this years tour in Europe was very short ( you can say that again), only three concerts. One in Paris, one in Cologne and one in London.. In July there’s a longer tour in America ( and people are complaining, I’m not saying everybody, that Hansons not coming near them when they live for example in Pennsylvania and Hanson’s coming to Washington D.C., at least you drive there in a day actually less! You can’t really drive to any of those places from Finland, let alone if you live in South America, Asia, Australia or Africa!), but then the boys are going to do the finishing touches to their new album which is already in the works.

" We have such a attached fan base that although we don’t have anew album ready we had to come on a mini tour in Europe." Says Taylor

" And for the same reason we put out 3 Car Garage. It’s meant only for our fans while waiting for a new album."

" We’ve already recorded quite a few songs but it’s hard to tell what it’s going to turn out like, it’s still hard to say" says Isaac

" Some songs might sound different then before, but I would still say that, our Hanson sound comes through strongly. I think that the album will already be done in the fall." ( NOTE the next day at the MTV Europe interview the album would be out at the latest next spring)

Hanson’s press conference was arranged at Planet Hollywood‘s movie theater and naturally all the british pop magazines were there. The boys posed for photographs for the first few minutes and then answered questions.

Why didn’t you agree to take B*witched as your warm up band?

Taylor: Somebody had booked the band without us knowing. We have nothing against B*witched, but they don’t play live music so that doesn’t fit as our warm up. But good luck and success to them! ( C’est La Vie is Be*witched’s single right now)

Is it important that bands play their own instruments?

Issac: Everybody has all kinds of music and if some band doesn’t play themselves it doesn’t make them any worse. The music’s what’s important.

Taylor, can you still sing as high as you did on the first album? ( tough question, ain’ it?)

Taylor: I already sing MmmBop in an lower key. You have to be able to change according to the circumstances.

Is boring living in publicity?

Taylor: What’s usually boring. We live in publicity, but we also have home where we get to be how we want to be.

Why are you only playing three concerts in Europe?

Isaac: In between recording we wanted to go on tour, since all year we’ve been talking about our music to the reporters and now we wanted to play it to our fans.

The Bee Gees has been on top for decades and they’re brothers. Do you think being brothers helps stay on top?

Taylor: I Think the Bee Gees have stayed on top because they’re dressed in such tight pants. ( Whatever you say Mr. Tight Shirts and Pants)

Issac: And we don’t really fight anymore, we know each other mabye too well.

Zac: Which isn’t good, because we can’t come up with pranks for eachother. They’re so easy to guess beforehand.

Are the rest of your family going to participate in the band in the future?

Taylor: I don’t think so. They do help at home by listening to new songs and telling us right away are they good or bad.

Last year you told us that there’s a movie being made about you. When is it going to be ready?

Isaac: I don’t know, I think it was just an idea in somebodys head. We never talked about it seriously.

How do you resist the girls approaches?

Taylor: We don’t resist them at all anymore. We just jump away . Mabye...