Finnish fans gather to celebrate Lordi

Finnish music fans flooded into Helsinki onFriday for the first public performance by costumed rock band Lordi since its Eurovision win.

Organizers estimatedthat about 70,000 people including many young fans wearing ghoulish Lordi-like monster masks packed thecity's main market square for the free evening concert, Agence France-Presse reported. Police blocked nearby roads and helicopters hovered over the site.

The four-hour event was broadcast live on national television and alsoincluded other Finnish bands.

Finnish President Tarja Halonen was also present to congratulate and to cheer on the demonic-looking musical quintet.

The hard rock group, which always performs clad in monster masks and armour-like costumes, shocked pop music fans around the world last weekend when it won the Eurovision Song Contest, held in Athens this year.

Lordi is Finland's first Eurovision winner since the pop music competition began in 1956.

As the winning country, Finland musthost next year's version of the musical competition and Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, a purported hard rock fan,has pledged government funds to finance the gig, which is typically watched by more than 100 million TV viewers around the world.

Since last weekend's win, Lordi's song Hard Rock Hallelujah has been a mainstay on Finnish radio, its album The Arockalypse is approaching platinum status and stories about the band have been featured on the front pages of newspapers and local tabloids.

Earlier this week, nearly 200,000 people signed an online petition protesting local tabloid 7 Paivaa after it published a photo of band leader Mr. Lordi unmasked and revealed his real name, Tomi Putaansuu.

The band's members (Mr. Lordi, Kita, Amen, Awa and Ox) had asked media to respect their monster image, refer to them using their stage names and not to publish pictures of them unmasked.

The publisher of 7 Paivaa issued an apology and closed the office Friday.

Other Eurovision winners include Swedish group ABBA, which won in 1974 for its song Waterloo; Canadian singer Celine Dion, who performed on behalf of Switzerland in 1988, and 1980s British pop group Katrina and the Waves, who took the prize in 1997.