LORDI at the ESC: Would you love a monster man?

Would you?! Hahahahahaha! This is a big, wide, grinning cheers to Finland: Congratulations, Tomi, for winning the EUROVISION Song Contest!

This was not only the first victory of a heavy Rock band, this was the first Eurovision with a real Heavy Metal band participating (if you don't count WigWam from Norway and everybody a bit softer in this genre, of course)! Further on they won 292 points which is the highest score according to the official press statement by Finnish broadcasting company YLE.

The press statement reads like it was an easy highway to the top - but it wasn't. This victory was against all odds, made up by Finnish Authorities in parts themselves, the Athens organizers and many, many adding up to a big wall which Lordi victoriously climbed:
One really severe step were the pyro restrictions, a bill made by a company of fellow Germans. But the organisers of the Tuska Metal Fest and some other private funders took action to bring Lordi on stage with pyros.

In Germany the tabloids were heavily campaining: Old Schlager-Fart Nicole was given the opportunity to rant about Lordi. An article of it's own was made up against "Monster Awa" aka Keyboardist Leena.

But the frenzy broke loose when LORDI finally won the Eurovision: "Would they have won without the costumes?"
What a question? Would have KISS or SLIPKNOT have had their success without their costumes and make-up? Would some of the last 5 years' winners have won without their sex-appeal? Is earth flat?!?

So that's why everybody seems to be hunting for "unmasked" pics. But the results on that seem to depend. So did UK's THE SUN set their readers for a blunt canard (even though it's funny if you like Children of Bodom). Sweden's Aftonbladet is having really poor pics as well, so seems like BILD has paid lots more, see here the whole coverage. (Yes, it was my first try with the new scan-to-pdf function of our scanner...)

To be fair:
Every heavy metal fan all throughout Europe who at least could stand LORDI a little bit supported them in any way, and if it only was that he bought beer for his or her colleagues on one of the many "I vote for Lordi" parties. So it's a victory against all those Schlager freaks and anoraks, who were too undecided between "the ballad from Ireland" and "the old ugly singer from Sweden". But this is a different story told in a different article...