Hangover

Yesterday was a strange day for me. I didn't go out. I spent the whole day inside the venue. The venue was Thüringenhalle in Erfurt or close at least. InEx's lead singer is originally from that area so the place was full of his friends and relatives. Of course the venue was full anyway as they have all been. It has been really nice to be an opening act on this tour since the people arrive in time and the places are packed already when we are playing and the audience generally seems to like us as well. We are quite sure that we've got some new fans on these few gigs already. We've for example sold out our CDs already. Depends on the point of view if that's good or bad though.

We again did a small change to the set yesterday. It was the same as the day before except that we replaced Boozer with Norhern Fall. I guess we'll do it like that today as well. Here's the current set:
- Journey Man
- Wooden Pints
- Korpiklaani
- Viima
- Tulikokko
- Pellonpekko
- Paljon on koskessa kiviä
- Northern Fall
- Cottages and Saunas
- Beer Beer

I've missed all InEx starts. I watched the entire show in Hannover except the first song. Yesterday I was really looking forward to finally seeing the beginning because our dressing room was on balcony on the side of the hall so we had a perfect view to the stage. Did I get to see that? No, we had to do a fucking interview!

Afterwards we got a bit drunk. Ok, really drunk. Like totally wasted. The entire crew and bands were having a party afterwards and since we had been having a party already during InEx we were already drunk when we entered that party. I don't remember much. I woke up normally from the bus with all my stuff still with me, including the contact lenses still on my eyes, so I guess all went well last night.

Hannover

Sunday morning at the dressing room. I think this is Sunday. Last night I watched the entire In Extremo show. They were really good. I'd love to see them in Finland one day as well. Not at Tuska on a crappy afternoon slot but indoor somewhere headlining with their full production. They even said some really nice things about us on the stage which felt quite nice. Ok, honestly, it felt really good. I got that warm feeling that we're doing something right.

Our own show was better than the day before. Since we're only playing 45-minute sets we first decided to drop some of the harder stuff since we were thinking that maybe that'll suite better the In Extremo audience but we realized that the first set wasn't working that well after all, so yesterday we did the opposite and dropped the slower, softer ones and replaced them with the hard stuff. And we even opened with Journey Man. Yesterday's show was a good one. I guess we'll stick to that set list. It even was exactly 45 minutes.

I didn't buy any ABBA yesterday. And now while I am writing this I am listening to Frank Sinatra. His old albums were probably put together and recorded in a day or something but they are still brilliant. I am a big fan of big band swing and Frank did a lot of that stuff. Anyway, I went to the music store to get some strings since there wasn't any in my bass case. Don't know where they all went on the last tour. I got two sets and while I was changing them I realized that the ball in the end was too big and they didn't fit my bass. Bollocks. Jonne found himself a new guitar strap that matches his cow-like boots and Matson got himself a new double bass drum pedal thing whatever.

And now I'll head for breakfast.

Kantri tulee, kantri tappaa

Good morning! The morning is surprisingly good indeed. It's 10.30, I've just had some breakfast at the venue and I don't have a hangover which is a small miracle itself. We didn't get any red wine yesterday, but at least we had vodka, Red Bull and orange juice. Vodka-OJ worked well. We are real party animals you know. We were just laughing with Cane yesterday that after the show we were just sitting in our own dressing room drinking alcohol and not really interacting with anyone else. But as Cane pointed out, the door was open so everyone was basically invited. Maybe it was the Finnish country band Freud, Marx, Engels & Jung and our singing that kept them out.

It looks like the venue is in the middle of nowhere. For some reason it's always like that when you have plenty of spare time like now. It's only a morning and our soundcheck is scheduled at 17.30. well, I'll have to go and check what the GPS says about our location and Hannover city centre. We've been in Hannover before and that time we found some really nice second hand vinyl stores. Let's see if they are still there. More ABBA perhaps?

Another town, another place...

So, here we are in the tourbus again. We just packed ourselves in the bus at the Düsseldorf airport and started our journey to Fürth. That's about 400km I believe. At the same time I am ripping to the hard drive the 9 album ABBA box set that I bought a few hours ago at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport. I've been thinking about byuing that and for 35,95€ it was a bargain. All the studio albums they ever released and a bonus disc full of B-sides etc. Now if I only could find the "Live" album. Seems to be out of print and since it was the poorest selling ABBA album ever I doubt that there's ever going to be a re-release.

Anyway, back to the bus. This is a 4-day mini tour where we are supporting In Extremo on some of their German dates. Venues are supposed to be big and good at least. I just hope that our music works for their audience as well, because I think that even though we're both quite of often labeled under the same genre we're still really different bands and the audiences are not really that much same. We did one show with them in the summer which I believe was some sort of a show case thing so that they could decide whether we're suitable for the support slot or not. I guess we were since we're now here.

This thing goes on now for 26.12.-29.12. We fly back to Finland on 30th and play at Nosturi's new years happening on the 31st, the new years eve with Kiuas and then Moonsorrow headlining. That should be a nice show. And now we have an extra day reserved for Finnair so we hopefully have all the stuff back in Finland by the show time!

Whoa! The soundcheck is finally done at 19. We are 45 minutes late and it was not entirely our fault. We were late though, but then in the end we spend lots of time figuring out the problems with our monitor desk because bass was coming to ALL monitor on full blast and we couldn't turn it down. We thought at first that our desk is broken but it turned out after all that the problem was in InEx's desk that our signal goes through. Oh well. We're done now and the show time is in 40 minutes or so. Maybe some more vodka-Red Bull to cure the head ache.

Ok, the first show is over. I guess it was good. We haven't played a note together after the last tour but all went well. The set was only 45 minutes and I think we also finished a bit too early but we'll fix that tomorrow. We'll change the set list a bit as well. Drop the slow ones and add a couple of faster ones. Full speed ahead from the beginning to the end. But that's tomorrow.

Perfect ending

So, the tour is over. It didn't end well. Not even close. The things after the Leeds show went way too far between some of the crew and band members and didn't really get any better when we even had to cancel the last show of the tour somewhere in Wales.

First of all, everything was good in Leeds. The show was really good as usual and since it was the last show of the tour for two of the bands (three in fact, but we didn't know it then) there was a lot of pranks going on. We did a good set. We added couple more songs from outside of the regular set and were even planning to play Ii Lea Voibmi after Beer, Beer but since everyone from the other bands rushed the stage with beers during Beer, Beer it would have been a bit of an anticlimax to still play something so we skipped that. It was a long set anyway.

After the show most of us went to eat with some local friends. I wasn't eating and watching others eat is a bit dull, but I managed to lure one of our friends to a rock bar next to the restaurant to just drink which was nice. Afterwards the things got a bit out of hands and for some of us it turned ugly. No violence, but lots of shouting and "fuck offs". Earlier in the evening the crew had also made quite a crucial mistake, but we didn't know that at that point.

Anyway, we arrived well in time to Prestatyn Sands, Wales. Quite typical UK seaside resort, I'd guess. Lots of houses and cabins, swimming hall, arcade and whatever. I am not going to go into much details of that day. We were just standing behind the stage ready to go on stage, but here was no accordion! It was still in Leeds. Someone remembered that he took it to the bus after the show and since it was not at the venue and not in the bus we thought that it had been stolen. We had to cancel. There's no way we're going on stage as 5-piece. Afterwards there was also some misunderstandings about the catering and the yesterday's shouting continued. Perfect ending for a perfect day. Not fun.

Later of course we found that the crew had just left the accordion in Leeds. Fuck.

Gay bar etc.

December 5, in a bus outside of Rios, Leeds waiting for load in time. Yesterday definitely was a good day. The show was really good. I have to admit that we haven't really been rotating all three sets. I think we did pink set only twice until it was dropped because Jonne got some throat problems and the "drum set" can only be done at the venues where there is enough room on stage for that.

Anyway, yesterday was good. I think all bands got quite good response. The place was not even nearly full, but since it is in two levels it seemed like a full venue because the upstairs was closed. Each did also a photoshoot before their shows. Someone said something about Metal Hammer but I doubt that. I think the guy was lacking a bit on the professional side.

The venue didn't lack anything though. Everything was perfect. Every dressing room that had vegetarians coming had even vegetarian sandwiches in the fridge. We had everything that is on the rider and even some extra stuff. Really nice. I'll gladly play there again.

The bus call was at 2 but the venue had to be empty by 1 so we had to spend an hour somewhere. We naturally chose the closest thing that was still open. A gay bar. They were really friendly to us and they sold cider. Suits me.

Rios, Leeds at 17. we just returned from the signing session at the local record store. I wouldn't say it was a huge success but it wasn't a spinaltapish failure either. Ok, I'd say and the people were at least nice.

Better days

December 4, London, Carling Academy. Just got back from the town. Took the tube to Camden and back. That is a nice part of town. The venue today is brilliant. Presale is around 300 which is not that good since the capacity is 800, but during the past few weeks they've been forced to cancel 6 shows because of bad presales so I guess they are happy with our 300 since we are not cancelled.

Yesterday in Manchester then again was totally different story. The venue was shit. I got drunk and one of the management team members made a mistake and asked me "All ok?". She now knows what I think. The audience yesterday was cool though and the place was packed. Since the venue didn't have even the basics like a shower and also our bus was once again going to be repaired we spent the night in hotel. I don't complain about staying in a hotel, but I hate travelling on afternoons and arriving venues so late that you can't really go anywhere anymore.

Today IS a better day.

Blaah Blaah part 2

December 2, England, 10.20. We should be in Glasgow right now, but we're not. We're somewhere close to Birmingham at "Authrorized Webasto dealer" trying to get the heater fixed. This is the fifth time in a year our bus breaks down. Let's not tell that to anyone. We won't get any buses anymore. My friends from Ireland are coming to see the show and actually are already in Glasgow and I'm sitting here in a garage 400km away. I didn't know it was physically possible but this situation both sucks AND blows.

Last night we played in Wolverhampton. we were supposed to play at Wulfrun Hall but because of bad presale of about 200 tickets. I wouldn't say that it's so bad but we were anyway moved to a smaller stage on the same venue. The club itself was still quite big but the stage itself was just too fucking small. They even cut down our showtimes so that Falchion played only 25 minutes and we had a luxurious 55 minutes, so we had to leave out quite a lot of our normal set. We got a good response anyway. And when the set was over they were demanding more quite loudly but there was nothing we could do. Our closing time was 22.55 and just before last two songs the time was 22.47 so I guess we filled our slot exactly.

The venue itself, Wolverhampton Civic Hall, was one of the best ones. Everything was really smooth and the dressing room even had a jacuzzi. At least some people had used that during our show. I guess it was some Battlelore members. The candy asses! Lierot!

Now there is some talk that we may have to take a train to Glasgow to get there on time. Crap.

At noon. We're moving! Whoopee! No proletarian tube ride for Jarkko!


December 3, Scotland/England, 13.30. The bus is moving again. This time towards Manchester. We also have a guest on the bus. A really small German girl that appeared at the ticket desk in Glasgow asking to get in from the guest list. well, she may have told to someone of us that she's coming but no one remembered that. We got it sorted out and she got in and we also offered her a ride to Manchester since we have an empty bed anyway because the manager aka "Julma sakemanni" is riding on the other bus.

The show in Glasgow was in Cathouse again. We were there also quite exactly a year ago. The place is crap, but again we enjoyed the show very much. I think most of us agreed that this was the best show of the tour. The same thing has happened before as well. Everyone is feeling a bit miserable and down, maybe even sick during the day and thinking things like "it's not going to be good tonight" and then in the evening you find an excellent audience waiting for you and you end up playing the best show of the tour and getting a big boost to go on to a next venue.

Wine club meeting by the way starts right now. I'll write anyway. Just have to make sure not to pour the wine on the computer. I almost did that already with cider.

I'll stop now. I got tired. More wine. Yeah, as if that will cure it.

Hittis is awake at 9 AM!

December 1, England, 9.30. Believe it or not, I am drinking cider with Hittavainen, a man who usually gets out of bed 2 hours before showtime. The reason may be the fact that we had to get off the bus on the ferry anyway and we just haven't gone to bed again. And of course we bought some tax free cider. Now we've been listening the recording of the last night's show in Amsterdam. It is quite revealing. Hmm. Good or bad thing? Interesting at least. Yesterday wasn't the best show of the tour. Some techical difficulties through the show and a couple of clear mistakes as well. Atmosphere was good as always in the Netherlands. And in the Netherlands you can actually smell the "atmosphere"...
During the day a friend of mine took us to the record store and Matson and myself managed to buy quite a lot of stuff again. I finally found for example the 3CD box set of Phil Lynott's Grand Slam. Cool.

After the show in the bus I realised that it actually was December, so I prepared everyone a hot mug of glühwein. Nice.

Now Miikka joined us and we changed the music to Popeda again. I guess it's time to have a few more.

Oh yeah, Battlelore changed a guitarist yesterday. Jussi had to leave to work so they got replacement. we were introduced twice but I still can't remember his name. He has dreadlocks like Jussi so he's a perfect replacement! So Battlelore now has two replacements in the band. Any longer tour and the band will have no actual member with them.

Bochum, Vosselaar, Amsterdam

Good morning! Yesterday was brilliant. The show was really good but the gothic party afterwards was just pure brilliance. Not for all perhaps but at least for some. It's 11 in the morning, I just came downstairs and found drum tech Antsa sleeping on the floor with his face on the couch. Funny. The venue was converted to one huge gothic party after our show. We perhaps didn't fit the crowd that well but at least we were drunk and had the first official bassist meeting of the tour. They had built some metal cages where people could go and dance. we were all there. The bassists I mean. I hope someone took pictures.
Our show was nice. We're getting tighter and tighter all the time. That's good. Again we'll be at our best when the tour ends. We have been forced to change the set list rotation already a few times. The "drum set" including the songs Jonne is on djembe can not be done at all venues with smaller stages so it has been skipped a few times. Then again we did that set yesterday and added Crows Bring The Spring from another set just because it is such a nice song to play and we were on the mood for that.
Wine club meeting starts now. Bye.

Some truck park near Amsterdam at 11. No other club member up so I have time to write something. Melkweg, the venue for today, is really nice. The only drawback is that it's located in the city centre and we can't park the buses there. Get in time is at 1 so we're basically just waiting for that. And it's snowing. No long walks today, I guess. The bus is really crowded as well, since we have a film crew joining us for a couple of days.

Yesterday's venue was once again Biebop in Vosselaar. We've been there a few times before and managed to sold it out alone so we were definitely packing it yesterday as well. I have mixed feelings about the venue. The atmosphere and audience are always brilliant, but technically the venue sucks. First of all you can get to the backstage only through the stage. The backstage smells really bad and it's hard for me to breathe in there. You are not allowed to shit in the toilet backstage since it will block it. From the shower you could only get water that was described as "the coldest in the world." Which of course suited well the fact that we caked Matson after the show. It was his birthday and it seemed approriate to cake him. After the last song during the band introduction Jonne hit a cake in his face. Maybe cake was too big or his face too small but anyway some of the cake missed his face and hit both monitor desks, ours and the venues. Either of the Monitorihomo's was not that delighted.

We are about to start filming some parts for their movie now. I'll go.

Erfurt, Bochum

Catering area at Matrix, Bochum on Friday evening. Just had some dinner and a couple of those cheap German
Bacardi Breezer copies. We were out again with Kaisa. Like we did yesterday as well. I feel quite happy about meeting her and getting a new friend. Yesterday's nicest thing was perhaps the long walk with her again. We also had a mission. we had to find her an antenna for the wireless receiver and quite suprisingly we actually found a really professional music gear shop and got one. The city centre was really nice as well with of course the normal German Christmas market. We even stopped there for some glühwein which was nice.

Yesterday's show was a success as a show but there could have been more people. Then again next time we are in Erfurt there definitely will be more people since the presale for that show is already around 2000. Although I have to admit that the reason may be In Extremo who we are supporting...

The drive here wasn't that long so we arrived quite early and some of us had time to do strange things. Bus driver for Battlis and KmD for example bought himself a monocycle and managed to cut his hand falling on a parking lot. Sorry, I'll stop now. Not on the writing mood.

Blaah blaah whatever

Backstage in Erfurt on Thursday I think. Again a couple of days without writing anything. Marseille gig was not actually in Marseille but something like 25 kilometres from there. The place was maybe some suburbs or a different town entirely. Doesn't really matter. The venue was one of the nice ones. It could have been fuller though. However even the small crowd in there really made the security to work for their money. One song gone and the fences can't hold the audience back anymore. They start falling and people start running with tools and extra fences and reinforcing the fence. It was again a good solid show from us.

Personally the really important thing for that day was that I went out for a 3-hour walk with Kaisa of Battlelore. We spoke so much about everything possible and at least I think that we seem to be quite alike as persons and with our opinions on different topics. We spoke about the boy/girlfriends, politics, religion, just everything. That indeed was really nice.

The next day in Strasbourg we went out again. This time we had also a really strange couple with us, Cane and merch-Jani. They never go out. Never. The old city centre and cathedral were really beautiful. Maybe they have overdone some Christmas decorations though...

We played also a really good set last night. One little mistake happened though. We forgot to wake Hittis. We were all dressed up for stage when I realized that FUCK! We're missing one. We woke him up 15 minutes before the show time. It was not an easy show for him. For the rest of the band it was brilliant. An excellent venue full of excellent people.

It's getting close to showtime now. I'll go now.

Porto, Alicante, Madrid, whatever

Ok, two days have gone without much writing again. Right now we're in Porto on an early Sunday morning. The drivers are trying to find a way to the venue. They know exactly where it is, but they just can't fit a 4-metre bus through a 3-metre hole.

Friday's show was in Alicante I think. It was a big warehouse kind of building in the industrial area. The venue was basically ok. The dressing rooms, both with showers and even warm water, a big stage and everything. The attendance could have been better though. Presale was only about 60 so we were no expecting much. I'd say the final number was around 250 or 300 perhaps.

During Battlelore the roof of one of the dressing rooms collapsed. We had piled up some guitars and their cases on top of the dressing room not realizing that it really is not suitable for that. Leeni of KmD was sitting on a sofa when a guitar suddenly fell next to her. And immediately after that parts of the ceiling and more guitars. Thankfully no one got hurt. Possibly one laptop and definitely one pizza got some damage.

The problems continued during our show. About half of the show gone and Jonne tries to change his guitar but there's nothing coming out from the new one. And not from the old one either. Nothing. I tell the band to play Pellonpekko, an instrumental that we can do without Jonne. After that the guitar problem is still not sorted out but Jonne just rushes back to the stage and tells us that it's Midsummer Night, Beer Beer and we're out. That was the show. Quite short.

On Saturday I woke up in the bus and went out just to see that we're parked in some ugly underground garage. However, the garage was located right under the King's palace, so going up and walking around the area was a good idea. I went for a coffee with some KmD members and was later joined by some others as well for a city walk. Oh yeah, my girlfriend arrived too. She flew in to Madrid to see the show and hopefully me as well.

The venue was a small club that could hold maybe 400 people and since the presale was already 350 we knew that the Saturday night in Madrid would be hot. It truly was. The whole show went really smoothly and many said that this was the best of the tour so far. I guess it was then. I was feeling a bit tired though.

Now we're at the venue in the centre of Porto. Time for a breakfast at the café and then at 11 the scheduled everyday meeting of wine club at the downstairs lounge.

Venue, Batalho, at 17. Wine club did not meet in the bus. The most active members, Miikka of Falchion and myself, decided to move it outside and took Valohomo with us. We went to the river, got some local red and sat down on the beach bench. Sun was shining, people smiling and we got a bit drunk. Nice. I am a big fan of being slightly drunk. Then we decided to head back to the venue since the get-in time was at 14. We walked to the main square and saw a nice looking cathedral. And a pub. To the pub? To the cathedral? Both. First the pub. We never went to the cathedral. Now, back at the venue. Drum check going on. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boink. Boring.

In the bus, at 11 something, 60km to Bilbao. Last night was a good show. Something like 350 people turned up and were having a good party so it was really nice to be on stage. One of the backstage rooms was higher than the stage and there was a big window with a view to the stage. To the drum riser and part of the stage anyway. While Battlelore was on stage Hittis and myself gave them a small show. The show didn't include clothes. We saw the same kind of show when we were on stage. Nice. Not.

Porto is so far my favourite city on the tour. Sorry Prague, but Porto seems to be just a bit more decadent in the way that I like. I am a big fan of moving water as well. Both cities have rivers but somehow the riverbanks and hills of Porto are just more interesting. One minus to the city though: vegetable soup should not made with meat gravy. Meat is not a vegetable. well, some of us are.

Damn, it's snowing outside. Or at least there's some sort of mixture of water and ice falling down. And my throat hurts like hell. It's been like that for the past three days. Maybe the t-shirt and flipflops with no socks is not the best way to dress in the end of November.

In the bus near Montpellier at around 9. Throat hurts like hell and I couldn't sleep much since I can't breathe that well. Yesterday was and will remain as the worst show of the tour. It was set up in the very last minute before the tour since one other show wasn't going to happen. So, place was really small including the stage and only about 50 people turned up. Then again they were indeed "our people" which meant that playing in front of them was still nice. Except that I didn't really enjoy that so much but it definitely wasn't because of them.

The venue itself was located in an industrial area several kilometres from the city centre and it was also raining more or less the whole day, so I couldn't even go out really. Yesterday was not a good day. We even had a flat tire on the bus! At least the sun is shining right now so already the morning looks better. Today we play in Marseille and I've no idea of the presale but I trust that it will be better than yesterday. Tomorrow is Strassbourg and there the presale is already at 350. Things look a bit brighter now when we are heading back to our strong areas. The Spain/Portugal trip was still worth doing. Our first club shows down there must be done at some point. Next shows will be better advertized and sold.

Barcelona ja aamujurrit

Friday, back lounge of the bus aka Auschwitz, the smoking room. It's afternoon and I am drunk. I already promised earlier that I'll stop writing about the audiences, but I just can't. Last night in Barcelona the audience was singing all the melodies and lyrics and everything so loud that it almost made me cry. There still are moments when this business surprises you. The band was tight as fuck as well. It's always the same on tours. The first few shows are an on/off thing, but from day 3 or 5 on we just kick ass every night. One of the best signs of that you are doing something right is that you see the local crew enjoying the show. Last night the people working behind the bar were doing the polka dance during the show so I guess we were on to something good.

During the day we did do something else as well. We took the subway to the city centre with some of us and Rinksa of KmD and went to see for example the cathedral they can't finish. I can't spell the name correctly now so I won't do that. You'll know it anyway.

When we were back at the venue the FOH dude for Battlis and KmD was asking the directions and subway stations to go to the city as well. I guess he went, since when KmD was about to go on the stage they rushed back to the backstage asking for him. They call him and he says "Now already?" He was already on the subway on his way back so our FOH dude got them started and he arrived just as the intro was playing. I guess he did get some shit from that.

Anyway, back to the present. Guys are having a Playstation game of ice-hockey, Finland vs. Germany and I'm playing Kiss from the laptop to the bus speakers. Sun is shining and all is good. I'll continue later.

Lyon, Niort, Barcelona

Thursday, 9.30, on our way to Barcelona. We're still in France but the mountain range and the border obviously are already in the sight. I haven't written anything for two days now. What have we been doing? Yes, Lyon. Things really didn't go the way I wrote earlier. The other bus was already at the venue when we arrived and the gear was already in. No problem there. The venue was nowhere even near the city centre or anything so we spent the day around the poker table. We've been doing that quite a lot. So far the biggest losers are Henkka and Jussi of Battlelore and Simo Kuassimo and Rinksa of KmD. And merch-Jani.

For some reason the promoter of Lyon wanted us all to play a shorter set. First bands played only maybe 35 minutes each, Battlelore 45 and we had an hour. This was the first show where we made changes to a normal set and dropped a few songs but then we also added Pellonpekko which was not in the day's set. Otherwise I'd say it was a normal evening. Except that there wasn't much warm water left when I hit the shower. If you ask me, that's the biggest disadvantage in being the headliner. What kind of a person builds a shower for a backstage and uses a boiler that has warm water for only two persons?

The next show was in Niort, still in France. The venue was underground in the old renovated dungeons that someone said are originally from the 12th century. It was really beutiful venue. The only problem was that it smelled like a cellar. And that the buses could not stay there for the evening.
Once all was set and the poker played me and the light tech Valohomo went to see the city which turned out to be quite nice. Seemed like a really old town. A castle, few gothic churches, canal, wine store. We were sitting on a park bench drinking cider and thinking about returning to the venue when a beautiful girl walked to us and asked us to join her. We of course agreed. We didn't have to pay for her company or anything which was nice. That was of course Kaisa of Battlelore. We spend a bit longer on the town with her and got back to the venue at dinner time.
The show was a bit strange. It started a bit slowly but the audience got into it quite fast after all. Strangest thing was that they behaved like the Japanese audince: a big dancing party during the songs but totally quiet in between. Really strange. And then there was a girl with huge boobs right in front of the stage and
during Northern Fall I was just thinking about those twins and missed the chorus until Juho tapped me on the shoulder and woke me up. Funny in a not funny way.

Now I am at the backstage in sunny Barcelona. We just got back from the beach. Quite nice since I heard that there's already a few inches of snow in Tampere. As Nelson Muntz would say: "Haa haa!"

Zagreb, Milan, French highway

Monday, November 17, 11.00, Italian highway. Yesterday in Zagreb we had the greatest audience ever. 900 screaming and jumping Croatians. Most violent looking pit I've ever seen. Every band was greeted like that. Amazing.
We played a pretty good show too. It was the fourth show so we were back in to the "white set". We have three different coloured set lists you see. I really liked how we did the first five songs. Not much pauses or breaks, one songs ends, next one starts.

The venue was the same as last time, Boogaloo, basically a decent venue. This time they however had changed it so that there was no shower or even a separate toilet at the backstage. We had to use the public toilet and they had a shuttle service to a hotel where they had a room with a shower reserved for us. And they have signed the production rider that specifically says that there has to be a toilet and a shower for us. Well, maybe they fulfilled that clause that way. But it wasn't good anyway.
Since the men's toilet was really crowded and not really clean I used the ladies' toilet. When I got out there was perhaps 20 teenage girls wanting to take pictures with me. Felt a bit strange. Photo session in the ladies room.

Now we're soon going to stop at the gas station. I hope their toilet is good.

Tuesday around 11, French highway, 60km to Lyon. Yes, the toilet was good. And we got some breakfast and after that opened a bottle of red with Cane and soon Miikka (Falchion) and Tony (lights) joined and we emptied two bottles quite fast. Nice morning that was.

The venue in Milan, Alcatraz, was great. It usually serves as a huge disco/rave/whatever hall but it has some live rock shows as well. It's one of those places where you can drive a bus in for loading. 013 in Tilburg is the same. It's quite hand when the gear comes right next to stage on rubber wheels.

We had plenty of time again and we went to city centre where the only interesting thing is Duomo, the cathedral. This was not my opinion, but our guide's who's originally from Rome and has lived in Milan for a few weeks only... Duomo was nice definitely. I even went in and didn't get struck by a lightning. The old market hall thing was nice too. It wasn't really a market hall in a modern sense. Just beautiful old buildings with fancy shops and restaurants and roof covered streets between them. And old wall paintings.

It was monday so the program started earlier. Doors opened at 18 and first band was on at 18.25. Our scheduled show time was 21.45. Of course in Italy that changed already in the beginning and Falchion started at 18.45 and others then accordingly.

I think I should quit talking about the audiences since I can only use the cliché phrases like "best audience ever" or "wild and loud". I'll just mention that the choir singing started from the first note of Wooden Pints and didn't end until the last note of Ii Lea Voibmi.

Backstage curfew was at 1.15 so we had plenty of time to stay in and get drunk. That's what we did and continued outside. The other bus left earlier but we continued with our people.

Now I heard from our driver that since the other bus is longer than this it can't park next to the today's venue so once we get there we give them a call and the other bus will come and we have to quickly unload it because it will block the whole street. I have to go and prepare myself for that. That means that I will have to go and hide myself upstairs.

Praha, Zagreb

Parking lot in Prague around noon. First things first: We kicked some serious ass yesterday in Glauchau. Really, it was the best show in a really long time. We were tight as a virgin pussy. The audience was singing along with us and everyone in the building enjoyed it. Great. We did Northern Fall for the first time ever and Crows Bring The Spring for the first time in a few years. There were two women in front singing that song so that you could really see that they were hard core fans. That really felt good.

Now we are in Prague at a hotel parking lot. We can't drive to venue with the bus so we'll have a shuttle service to take us and the gear there. I guess it's because there's no parking space for buses. I expect quite a lot from tonight's show. Presale has been quite remarkable and we're once again working with Pragokonzert which means that everything will be perfect and beyond. Hmm. What's going on. I can smell the Sweet Leaf...

Gas station in Austria, morning of November 16th. We are on our way to Zagreb, Croatia. Yesterday was a great day. The venue was quite close to the city centre so about ten of us went for a walk. There was almost the entire Battlelore, three of us and even a Falchion guitarist Miikka. The idea was to just see the beautiful city and maybe grab a beer or two. And we were stupid. Some of us didn't have the local money so we stopped at the exchange office and just changed some cash not realizing that the exchange office was taking almost 5 euros for every action. So when four of us exchanged 10 or 20 euros all separately we ended up paying them 20 euros! Idiot tourists!

The old city centre was great though. Really beautiful. Although it still didn't get my "Favourite European City Award", Paris is just so hard to beat. Maybe with more time Prague could win... Anyway, a funny thing was that people were dropping off from our group and in the end it was only me and the two Battlelore singers. We stayed in the city till about 17 or so when it was already getting dark and all the city lights were starting to go on and city became even more beautiful if possible. When we were finally walking back towards the venue Kaisa received an SMS saying that they're doing a soundcheck right now. I guess they just did an instrumental soundcheck. We on the other hand didn't do a soundcheck and probably won't in the future either.

In the end the attendance was around 800 and the place was packed and hot and steamy as a Finnish sauna. Every band got a really good response from the crowd and were having a really good time. And Kaisa was also able to sing again which was really good news. Our show was really good. We weren't as tight as the day before but the audience was perfect. Last night two new songs got their live debut: Ali jäisten vetten and Nuolet nomalan. They went rather well except that Nuolet nomalan sounded a bit off-key. After the show we came to the conclusion that it was a violin that was really out of tune.

That's about it for now. It's becoming more difficult to type since the bus is moving again.

Boogaloo, Zagreb at 20.00: Just posting this, no time to write more.

First date

Around noon of 14.11. at the back lounge of the bus. The first show was yesterday in Giessen. Everything was more or less a bit of a mess since everything was still searching for it's right place. I guess all bands did at least a decent show. Ours was just a bit too long, not really because of too many songs, but too long pauses between them! We'll fix that today. The audience seemed to like the show anyway. The party mood was on even though it was Thursday. Oh, yeah. My preamp is broken again. Take my word of advice. SansAmp PSA is NOT for live use. The digital stuff just can't handle the physical stress. It's a brilliant preamp, but don't take it out from your home. They keep saying that many people use it in their live setup, but that just can't be true. Unless they get new preamp every day.

Today we've been sorting out the transportation and actually managed to fit all our gear into the two buses we have and were able to leave the trailer entirely. Now I guess we're getting closer to the next town Glauchau and someone will take me shopping for new a preamp. I'll get back to that later.

Backstage around 15. No chance of getting a new preamp. So we'll just sit here and watch Pluto cartoons and try to organize something for Prague.

Tulta munille!

So, tomorrow we start a tour with Battlelore, Kivimetsän Druidi and Falchion. Our gear and crew left yesterday and we will fly to Germany tomorrow morning. We've rehearsed some material that has never been played live and some old material will make a comeback to the set, so if you saw us during the summer you can still come and be surprised. We'll be rotating three different set lists so you can even come on two or three consecutive nights and you'll hear different sets every night! In fact, if you want to hear all the songs from the tour you will HAVE to come on three consecutive nights!

I will try to update this blog as often as possible. It depends a lot on if there's a WLAN available or not. See you.

Jatsia K-mollissa

For the second time in a row we were booked to headline Ultima Ratio festival in Oberhausen, Germany. Turisas were also on the bill so I wouldn't have complained even if they had been the headliners. They are a tough act to follow, especially when some band members are in a condition not suitable for performing. Well, performing maybe, but definitely not playing. We had once again left Finland really early, in the middle of the night in fact, some of us bought some alcohol from the airport and were drunk as hell already when we landed in Düsseldorf, and things didn't get any easier from that on. The show sucked.

Everything else was alright though. We met lots of old friends, like Turisas guys and gal, and Kivimetsän Druidi once again. We spent the Sunday afternoon before the flight in a Mexican restaurant in the city centre of Düsseldorf, so if you leave out the show itself, it was a nice trip.

Paikat hellänä

On Saturday, October 25, we played in our home town. Well, at least Hittis, Juho and myself live there. We were booked to play at Hellä, a heavy metal night club, as a part of Lost In Music festival or whatever that was. I've seen some gigs at Hellä and for some reason none of them have been really big successes. This time there were four bands all together including for example Kiuas so we expected a lot more from this show, although each band had to cut their sets down to only 40 minutes.

Since this was a home town show and we were not going to do the soundcheck we had no actual plan when to arrive or anything. When I walked in some time after 21 Hittis was the only one of us in there. The backstage had only beer which I don't drink anymore, but the bands were getting other beverages from the bar with cheaper prices so the beer only policy was not a problem. The evening before the showtime went quite smoothly. Everyone arrived on time and we hit the stage as the second last band before Kiuas.

Technically the show wasn't that good. I had no decent monitor and had to share with Juho which wasn't good for either one and after two songs or so Kauno got no sound out of his stack anymore, although the preamp sound still went to FOH so the audience heard him. He just didn't hear himself. The amp, cab and the cables were alright next week at the rehearsals. Puzzling. The set itself was short and fast. We dropped some of the slower, mellow stuff and just kicked ass the whole 40 minutes. The place was really crowded as well and they were loud so it was a really good show for us. I just hope that because of the Lost In Music thing there were also some Finnish promoters who saw that on a good night we actually do kick some serious ass! Which wasn't necessarily the case next weekend...

Ookkona Oulusta

On the weekend of October 17-18 we did a large scale tour through Finland. Two shows. In Kalajoki and Oulu. Kalajoki is a small town about 130 kilometres south of Oulu and as far as I know the place is practically dead during the winter months. The town has one of the most beautiful beach areas in Finland and is therefore really crowded during the summer. The club was called Dyyni (Dune) and it was located right next to the sand dunes of the beach. We arrived quite late, a bit after 19, so I really couldn't see anything but judging by the really strong wind I'd say that we were quite close to the sea.

I felt that the club was not really our kind of place since it felt more like one of those fancier kind of night clubs, but at least the people working there were really cool already from the start. I don't think the place can be called a hotel but it did have some rooms as well. One of them was used as a backstage. Sometimes I just just can't get into the "concert mood". It's not about alcohol or anything. I just feel a bit out of my place. Kalajoki was one of those shows.

The show itself was surprisingly good. I wasn't really expecting many people to show up so the audience was a nice surprise. Not even nearly full, not even half full, but everyone was in the party mood so it wasn't bad at all. I'm writing this two weeks afterwards so I can't really remember the set list or basically any other details. If I don't do this right after a show I start forgetting details and they get mixed with memories from other shows. One thing I do remember from the show. During "Beer Beer" someone gave Jonne a pint. At one point he raised a pint up in the air but forgot that the ceiling was quite low. So he ended up breaking the pint and cutting his hand. It looked quite bad since with the beer it seemed like there was a litre of blood on the stage.

On Saturday around noon we got up, packed our gear and headed to Oulu. The first stop was for breakfast at a gas station in Pyhäjoki. It seems that the further north or east you go, the more difficult it is to get vegetarian food. Well, at least I managed to send a really ugly "Greetings from Pyhäjoki" postcard to the lady. C'mon. Why would anyone put a picture a town's office building on a postcard if the building is just a concrete block from the 1980's?

We arrived in Oulu well on time since the distance was only 130 kilometres or so. Teatria is not really that far from the city centre but I really don't know Oulu at all and the weather wasn't that good either so I ended up spending the afternoon at Teatria backstage getting bored. Teatria gig was like a first gathering of the Finnish Fire tour since three and a half of the four bands were present, missing only two Falchion members. It was nice meeting for example the Druidi guys and a gal again. The last time I met her was in St Petersburg, Russia and I don't think she was with Druidi at that point yet. Or was she? Does it matter? No.

Anyway, the gig itself was brilliant. Certain members slept the whole day and were in a great condition for a change. The Oulu audience was just as good as the last time. There must be something in their water. Or maybe it's the alcohol. Either way, once again we had a really good show in Oulu. Except for the small problem of stage falling apart in the middle of the show. Apparently they had torn down and rebuilt the stage for some reason and had done something differently this time. In the middle of the show I stepped on nothing. Suddenly a 10-centimetre gap had appeared in the centre stage and it was growing. I tried to catch to stage managers attention but at first he just pointed to Risuparta because he thought there's something wrong with the equipment. Finally I managed to point out the hole in the floor and they pushed the stage back together and tightened some straps which was nice. I mean, Jonne has fallen from the stage a few times, but never actually through the stage.

The show was over quite early so we headed to our hotel in the city centre and spent a couple of hours in the local metal bar with some Druidi and Battlelore members. Nice. I'm sure we'll get to do more that during the next four weeks.

The Sunday was shit. Crappy weather and you have to drive all the way from Oulu to Tampere. Oh well. It was a good trip.

Aika on Lahden

On Saturday, October 11, we played at Finlandia Club in Lahti, Jonne's current home town. The venue is part of Sibelius-talo concert hall, so the backstage area for example was quite luxurious with sauna and everything. The pre-sale was around 200 tickets and then a few dozen Jonne's relatives on a guest list so we knew that there was going to be people.

We were supposed to be there at the venue really early. Paukku sent a message on Friday that we're leaving Tampere at 10. The idea was that the venue was reserved for us from the noon on and we were going to set up the stage props for the forthcoming tour and rehearse the tour set two or three times so that for example the light guy Tony will know what's going on. Well, I've seen how things work at every venue and I knew that there's nothing happening at noon and decided that there's no way I'm going to get up that early. I decided to drive to Lahti myself. We left home around 1 and when we arrived there was still nothing for the band to do. Finally it was time for the soundcheck and we had time to play maybe four songs! I could have left home at 17 and still be there on time. Bollocks. The support band arrived too. It was nice to see Metsatöll again. Really nice blokes. And at least three of them know how to drink as well.

The show itself was really good. As most people know we've never had much following in Finland so we are kind of used to a slightly lamer response when compared to practically any other country. However, the show in Lahti was different. The place wasn't full, I believe they sold around 300 tickets when the capacity is 600, but it was a really good and loud audience so it was really nice to be on the stage. The only major change was that we put Jonne in the back of the stage on the drum riser during "Orbina" and "Kipumylly". I guess we'll be doing that every time there is enough room on the riser. We also dropped "Keep On Galloping" from the set but I don't think we added anything.

After the show we went to sauna for a while. Metsatöll had already started. I really wanted to have a few drinks but I couldn't since I was driving and my girlfriend won't drive my car. When I am rich enough I will take a taxi to every show.

In The Army Now

Yeah yeah, I know. I missed a few shows from the blog. Quit whining. Since the last update we've done only four shows or so. The first one was a headlining set at the indoor festival in Oostende, Belgium. There were some remarkable things. The day was too long and some band members were way past the best performing condition. That combined with the concrete tube where all the drum hits echoed around a few times made it probably the worst show we did during the entire summer. We did meet an old friend Stijn, the monitor tech from Paganfest, which was nice. We also met other old friends My Dying Bride who were on their way to Tilburg I believe. Since Finnair lost my bass I needed a replacement and was going to borrow theirs but they didn't arrive in time so I ended up borrowing a bass from one of the previous bands. Anyway, the promoter was getting a bit worried at the backstage about the bass situation and I finally told him that MDB will be there and I'll use theirs. The guy looked like he received an electric shock.
- "What? Who?"
- "My Dying Bride."
- "Why?"
- "Well, they are coming to meet us anyway and they have a suitable bass."
- "So you know them? Really?"
- "Yep."
The guy literally started shaking. "Oh my god. Oh my god. My Dying Bride. Korpiklaani. Oh my god. Both my favourite bands will be here. Oh my god."

Aaanyway, that's pretty much all I'm going to say about that show. Except that "Pine Woods" did a comeback to the set and was a total mess.

The next show was a festival in Raismes, Northern France. This time we arrived a day earlier and spent an evening as guests of the promoter at the festival.
After various things all ended up to the point where he was cancelling our appearance unless Jonne apologizes from him. And after all Jonne wasn't even the one to blame! Anyway we got it sorted out and did our set which was a lot better than in Belgium. The biggest change in the set was the opener. We started with "Kantaiso" which was it's live debut. "Pine Woods" was still in the set and a lot better than a week before. "Kantaiso" didn't really seem to work as an opener though. It seemed like the show really started with the second song "Wooden Pints". Nice show anyway.

The next show was a bit unordinary one. First of all it was set up really fast, just about a week in advance and the venue was going to be Vekaranjärvi military base (Spinal Tap anyone?). It was a conscripts' demobilization party. I personally felt already from the beginning that it wasn't going to be that spectacular and it really wasn't. We did it as well as possible anyway and there was basically nothing wrong with the show itself except the fact that the audience was basically just sitting in their tables. Only a few brave soldiers got up to dance during the last half of the show. Maybe the lack of alcohol and women was keeping them a bit quiet and the show really wasn't a party we've been used to.
The PA was provided by a local company and the sound tech of Kivimetsän Druidi who we toured with was with them. He wasn't doing anything, he only came to see us. Nice.
We did some small changes to the set. We decided to open with "Wooden Pints" again and moved "Kantaiso" to the second slot. We also dropped the djembe songs "Kipumylly" and "Keep On Galloping" from the set because we thought that they really wouldn't work in that environment.

Finally it was time for our first trip across the Atlantic. We were booked to headline "The Age Of Darkness" festival in Calgary, Canada. The trip was going to be heavy. Leaving at 3 in Friday morning to Helsinki-Vantaa, fly to Frankfurt then wait for three hours and fly 10 hours to Calgary and arrive at almost the same time Friday afternoon as we left Frankfurt. Tuomas aka Risuparta aka Risis aka Saatanan Risuparta had already left on a separate flight a few hours before. I watched "Mars Attacks!" and some sitcoms but mostly just slept during the flight.
We were picked up from the airport and taken to a really fancy downtown hotel Sheraton Suites, right next to French Maid, the titty bar. Whoopee! Some of us went immediately to sleep but I had the idea of trying to stay up until it was a bedtime in Canada. I thought that I'd be able to handle the jet lag easier that way. Of course I ended up drinking with Paukku, Risuparta and the organizer's crew in their room. I slept in a bed but as far as I know Paukku slept on the couch and Risis slept on their balcony under the table. Giving a good first impression is really important in this business!

On Saturday we were scheduled to get to the venue at 14. Manager, "julma sakemanni", was also arriving around noon. I spend most of the morning in the bed and the Irish pub downstairs drinking Strongbow with Risis. We had each received $50 for food from the promoter but we found better use for that. Cider. French Maid was also an option but it lost a competition. First things first. There's always a chance to see tits but getting decent cider can be really difficult.

The venue was called MacEwan Hall Ballroom located at the campus area of University of Calgary. I think the locals called it just "MacHall". There was nothing wrong with the venue, quite nice actually. The dressing room area was a bit too small for the number of bands involved but it was ok. We've seen worse. We did a soundcheck and since our show time was at 23 we decided to head back to the hotel. Strongbow time! At this point the pub stuff already recognized us so we basically didn't really have to order much.
- "More cider for you guys?"
- "Yes, please."
- "Should I open a tab for you?"
- "Yes, please."

Matte the evil German had stayed at the venue to take care of our merchandise. He was quite soon back at the pub with us since everything was sold out. The doors opened at 18 and according to him at 19:07 everything was gone!

We arrived to the venue finally some time after 21 and basically just waited for the show time. We met a couple of fans though. One young female was dressed exactly as our Vaari on our album covers, including the horns on her head!

The show was really good from us and the audience was brilliant. Finally we have to believe all the things that for example Ensiferum guys told us about the Canadian audience. Loud. We did basically the same set as at Vekaranjärvi. We were originally of course going to do the djembe songs as well but we were stupid enough to leave djembe home. We didn't pack it for Vekaranjärvi and since we didn't even unload the car between the shows we just forgot the drum. I think we added one or two songs though. What were they? Can't really remember. I don't thing we did Beer Beer at Vekaranjärvi but we certainly did that in Calgary.

The real action of the trip started at the hotel. All the bands and the promoter's crew were staying on the same floor. We were of course the last band to arrive to the hotel, everyone else had already been there for a while. Jonne and myself were the first ones in and we went to the check the room where all the noise was coming from. The local crew's room was packed with people. Bands, fans, whoever. I opened a wine bottle, went to the balcony to get some air and tasted the wine. The next thing I see is a hotel security officer telling everybody to leave the room and the hotel since we had been evicted because of all the complaints about the noise. So I just get out to the corridor and see all those people packed there. I walked to our room, went in and went immediately to bed and pretended to be sleeping. Quite soon I can hear a security person walking around the room and telling someone that "it's all quiet here, only someone sleeping." A bit later I hear Matte arriving and starting to argue with the staff about our eviction since we actually were not the ones causing all the trouble. Hittavainen did a good job helping him, since he had been smoking downstairs and arrived with his bag after every other band was already thrown out. "See that, our band is just arriving!" After a while we actually got the permission to stay, which was nice. Now I could finally get out of the bed and take off my shoes and pants!

On Sunday we had to check out at noon but we were leaving at around 18 so we had plenty of time to do whatever we wanted. I went to see the city centre. I even went up the Calgary Tower http://www.calgarytower.com/ and then walked around the parks and the city streets. Honestly, there wasn't much to see there. Just a normal city.

At the airport we had probably the smoothest check-in ever even though their belt for excessive luggage wasn't working at first. So far Calgary airport and Air Canada are on top of my carrier list. The flight back to Frankfurt went really easily. I started to watch "Interview With the Vampire" but after maybe 15 minutes pressed pause and decided to take a nap. It was a seven-hour nap. I was home finally around 20.30 Monday evening. I left around 3.30 Friday morning so it was almost 4 full days for just one show. This is again one of those moments when you have to ask if this is all worth it. Yes, it is.

Vielä on pesää jäljellä

The summer is about to end. You know that because the festival bookings are getting fever and fever. And from the calendar too. I am not absolutely sure but I think Summer Breeze and Lowlands were the last open air festivals this year so the summer is officially over. We had a pretty shitty schedule since we were flying from Helsinki-Vantaa really early on Friday morning which meant that we had to leave around 2 in the night. Nö sleep at all. Both me and and Jonne were by the way at the Motörhead show where they recorded their Nö Sleep At All live album. The show was brilliant, the album sucked then and still does. Aaaanyway, really early at the airport on Friday. We had some new lighter guitar cases and for the first time in some time we were way under our weight limit.

We were in Frankfurt a bit before the bus. We had a meeting at McDonalds. Why don't they have veggie burgers? They should. And the same goes to Burger King. The bus arrived. The best tour bus we've ever had. Really cool double decker with two lounges, two TV/Stereo/DVD-systems and everything. Really nice. Looks like we're doing the Finnish Fire tour with the same bus which is more than fine with me.

I really have to admit that my memories from Summer Breeze are a bit vague. I do remember the area and the show but the rest is a bit blurry. I remember some people though, like Emmi from Enska with whom I was watching Eluveitie and drinking her vodka. It's so nice that she's finally old enough to buy that herself. Then I remember later meeting Eluveitie people at the backstage including the two new members. I also remember talking to them. No idea what though. Probably insulted them: "You'll never be able to replace the Kirder brothers!" or something like that. And then there was this German female bassist we've met several times through the years. I think she was with Pain at some point. And I believe I have a picture of her boobs. At least they look like hers.

I remember that at one point of the night Cane and myself were telling Jonne that "No, we can't do a TV interview now, we're way too drunk for that", but Jonne just said that "C'mon, it will be even better like that!" Next morning when I wake up in the bus on our way to the next festival I check my messages and see that there's a message from Matte, the manager: "TV interview @ 21.30. Press tent." Paukku was also awake at that point and we had a small conversation:
- "Oh, we must have missed that one."
- "What do you mean?! You did the interview. Jonne, Cane and yourself."
- "Really? I have no recollection of that."
- "No wonder, you were a bit drunk. All of you. Luckily I have some video material from that."
- "Great."
It appears that there happened quite a lot of things during the interview. Not exactly the interview though. I was talking most of the time to someone else, Cane passed out during the interview but Jonne did his best with the interviewer. Or so I heard. And it only went downhill from there. You'll get to see the video when all persons involved are dead and gone. And with the life style like this, it won't take that long.

On Saturday we were playing in the Netherlands at Lowlands festival. I had not checked anything about that festival before and it really surprised me with it's size. It was a really big festival with several stages which were all in tents of different sizes. It was also nicely diverse. There were many different musical styles represented which was really nice for a change after all the metal festivals. That doesn't really mean that I watched them but still. At least it was a nice change to maybe get some new fans since the main portion of the crowd was definitely not metal crowd. I think we did that. We did a good solid show with no big problems. The tent was full, not packed though. It looked like there indeed was quite many people who probably saw us for the first time and they seemed to enjoy the show as well as the more familiar people, so I guess it did some good to us.

After the show we once again had plenty of time do whatever we wanted. It included alcohol. I had a lot of fun with the bus driver and Hittis during and after the dinner since they were serving free alcohol and we started using the straws as weapons, meaning that we were blowing pieces of napkins through them. The floor was covered with the paper mass when we left.

During the evening I went to see only two bands, Nightwish and Sex Pistols. I think I watched maybe three songs from Nightwish until I understood that I honestly really don't like their music. Later it was time for Sex Pistols. I went to see them from the beginning and ended up waiting an extra 25 minutes since they just decided to let people wait. I was a bit skeptical about the whole thing. They finally started and four songs was enough for me. Tired, uninspired, boring. Good sound though. They released one album in 1977. Nothing more. 31 years ago. It is a good solid rock album. But still. They are touring around the world playing the entire album and a few covers. I guess they are still doing "The Great Rock'n'roll Swindle".

I guess that was basically our summer. Now we have a few one-offs to do and then another tour starting on November 13. See you then!

Pellavarock and rehearsals

Pellavarock, Lammi, Finland. Nice little one-day festival at the lake side. Last time we played there was in 2005 and from there we left for our first although short European tour which included Summerbreeze festival as well. Three years later it happens again, first Pellavarock and a week later Summerbreeze. Coincidence? Yes.

Anyway, I drove to Pellavarock myself. It's only about an hour drive from my home and we left around 14.30 which felt a bit strange since we were supposed to play in like three hours or so and it didn't feel like a festival at all. It was nice to meet some Finnish friends for a change, like Janne from Rytmihäiriö/Moonsorrow and the festival guys. The festival itself had two stages, we were on the small one. The basic idea was that there were no big gaps between the bands. When one band finishes the other one starts on another stage. This also meant that the change over times were really long. I think we had something like 1 hour 20 minutes or so. And still we manage to be ready just in the last minute. That wasn't entirely our fault though. There seemed to be quite a lot wrong on the stage and for example the bass setup which usually is the fastest took really long. And we didn't have our own stage guys either. Paukku was giving a hard time for the festival crew and the stage tech got so pissed off that he walked off the stage. FOH tech brought him back and together they managed to get the stage done.

We played our normal set once again. No changes whatsoever. From the stage I noticed some familiar faces in the front row. Of course there were the "local guys" as usual but also some old friends from Italy and UK which was a nice surprise. I hope they had a good time in Finland. After the show we spent a while sitting at the backstage but quite soon left and drove back home. So nothing spectacular in this festival trip.

We've been playing basically the same set from the Paganfest till now. Only small changes every now and then, mostly when we have had to adapt to shorter sets. However we've been talking about changing the set a bit and it's finally happening. We've been rehearsing quite well in the past few weeks. I guess we're going to continue with the same set through the festival season but later this year there's going to be some changes. We've been rehearsing four songs that have never been on the set list and three songs that haven't been there for a while. One of them is so old that Juho and myself have never played that live. Oooooh, the excitement!

Anyway, we're leaving tomorrow morning at 2 to Germany again. Maybe I should get drunk today. Paukku can pick me up from a bar. Hmm. Interesting.

From Kuopio to Neuhaus an der Pegnitz

The original schedule for the weekend of July 25-27 was Finland, Germany and Portugal but the Portugal festival got cancelled which left us with a slightly difficult flight schedule. Anyway, on Friday it was one of the few Finnish appearances at the Rockcock-festival in Kuopio. It's about 300km from Tampere so we left at noon. Not really because we had to since our showtime was at 21.00 but some of us wanted to see Popeda at 18.00.

We arrived there around 17 and the first thing I did was that I looked up this small girl from Oulu who brought me a screw from Amfisound. On Thursday evening I was changing strings at home and when I removed A-string half of the machine head fell off. Only the string tension was keeping it together. At some point one screw had fallen off. It can't have been that long ago though since I change strings in every 4 or 6 shows. So first thing was to fix the bass and then it was time for Popeda. They are one of the more popular Finnish rock bands who started already in the mid-70's. I guess they were good. I honestly think that the band is good but the lead singer has gone worse and worse during the years. But I did watch the entire set which I almost never do at the festivals.

Our own show was at the tent on the beach. The band before us had maybe 20 people watching them. Jonne for example was really worried because of that. However, during the change over people started to gather up and when we started the tent was quite full. Not packed, but full. We did once again the normal set. Orbina made a comeback but then again we left out Keep On Galloping because Jonne forgot to put this plastic thing on his broken finger and couldn't hit the djembe anymore. We also finished with Ii Lea Voibmi for a change. We had some time to hang around the area after the show but in a couple of hours we started our journey to Helsinki-Vantaa since we had an early morning flight to Frankfurt. I tried to sleep in a van which wasn't really that easy but then again the flight went quite fast since I fell a sleep immediately and don't even remember the take-off.

We arrived Frankfurt around 10 local time and packed ourselves in a van again. Distance was only something like 300km and showtime was a 20.00 so we had plenty of time and we stopped at Thomann in Burgebrach which was almost on our route. I was able to keep myself from buying anything. I spent some time testing a 5-string Fender Jazz but didn't buy that after all. Hittavainen on the other hand bought a 5-string violin. While he was testing it the others were playing double basses although we didn't really know how to. Must've been pain for the staff.

Veldensteiner Festival took place at Veldenstein Castle in Neuhaus an der Pegnitz. I believe the exact year when it was built is unknown but some sources say that it was started in 1008 so it's quite old I'd say. The festival also included a medieval market and many of the people were dressed accordingly which I always like to see. A part of a castle is nowadays a hotel and we had one of the rooms as a dressing room/backstage.

While we were waiting our showtime we checked the area, ate something, had a few drinks and met some fans. I wasn't really checking if the whole festival was late but at least the band before us, Knorkator, played 20 minutes over their time. The change over was 30 minutes and we probably could have been able catch up with the schedule slightly but we decided not to hurry. We have always been the band who does that. Catching up the schedule and even finishing a bit earlier if things are running late. Those times are over. If the other bands or the festival don't take care of that, why should we?

The show itself was not the best from us. At least I felt it that way. Personally the reason was that we hadn't really been able to sleep well and that took away some of the fun. The audience still seemed to enjoy the show which was the main point anyway. We really should tell Paukku what songs we're going to play because we still had encore to do when he already put the outro on. Then again we don't necessarily know what we're going to play until we're actually on the stage. Maybe we should do something about this. Since the outro was already playing the audience wasn't really expecting the encore but we went out and did that anyway. I believe it was Let's Drink and Ii Lea Voibmi.

We hung around the area till the end of the evening. The idea was that we could watch Schandmaul's set but I really couldn't see them. I tried but didn't really see much. You see, I am a dwarf. Basically we ended up meeting people and signing strange things, like female asscheeks. I am not complaining. This wasn't our usual crowd since it was more medieval festival than a rock concert and probably therefore people seemed to be genuinely surprised to see the band there. I guess they are more used to the bands who don't go to meet and greet their fans.

After the festival was over we drove to our hotel in another village. They seemed to have some sort of a village festival going on and some of us still went out to see what's happening. Not much. I went bed quite soon but some of us stayed out a bit longer.

On Sunday we had a whole day to spend since our flight was at late afternoon, first to Copenhagen and then Helsinki. We arrived home in Tampere around 2 in the morning so we ended up spending awfully long time on the road for just one show in Germany. Live and learn.

Next stop: Pellavarock.

On the edge

So we're late again. The bus driver was saying that he's sorry and had to sleep but we told him not to worry. We had a load-in time already quite early in the afternoon but we just called the organizer and told him that we're going to be late for about an hour and a half. No problem there.

Northeim show was a bit different show for us. Apart from the festivals we've never really played as a support band. And I don't count Paganfest either since it was like a touring festival. This time we were clearly supporting In Extremo and Die Apokalyptischen Reiter. We've met Reiter already many times but In Extremo was a new experience. We were also a bit nervous because Jonne and myself are fans of them and we had this idea that this was actually sort of a showcase thing because there's been some talk about us supporting In Extremo on several shows later this year. So we thought we should try to give a really good impression to them. Being late doesn't really help.

Being late was not really a problem after all because when we finally arrived In Extremo was still doing their soundcheck so basically everything was running late anyway. The venue was Waldbühne which is a really nice open air amphitheatre built in the 1930's. We walked in and In Extremo singer waved for "hello" from the stage. Nice gesture. We didn't really much to do so we got our keys to the nearby hotel which we were using as a dressing room. At one point I wanted to get a new In Extremo hoodie and went with Jonne to check their merchandise. I asked if the support band will get any discount and they gave Jonne and myself hoodies for free. Nice discount.

It was really interesting to do the soundcheck since we could see all the stuff that In Extremo has on the stage, pyros, flame throwers etc. Smoking was NOT allowed on stage and this time even Hittavainen agreed on that! We were wise this time and moved my rack to the center of the stage and eventually I had no wireless problems this time.

Our show was surprisingly good considering the fact that we were sort of an extra band on the bill and the audience apart from a few members was clearly there only for In Extremo. We played a good solid set and got some movement in the audience so it was a good show. Reiter played next and were really entertaining as usual. I think their vocalist is among the best performers there is. Great show. Next was the headliners. They were nice enough to pose for pictures and everything before the show. I was taking a picture of the others and accidentally stepped on their drummers feet. Sorry. Once again they were really good. I've seen them a few times already but this was the first time after Summer Breeze 2005 when I actually had time to see the entire show. Both bands should actually be bigger internationally but I guess the German language is a problem with some people. Rammstein managed to get huge internationally and they sing in German. Why not In Extremo? Finnish festivals - book them. Tuska 2009?

After the show when I was already getting quite drunk I actually had a small chat with In Extremo singer "Das letzte Einhorn". Seemed like a nice bloke and the fact that he was still talking to us was a good sign I guess! At one point he actually said that he had heard that we are going to do some shows together later this year so maybe he knows more than we do. There was also a person from the local radio trying to do some kind of an interview with him and us as well, but I don't think he really got much out of it.

That was the mini tour. Next morning we were already flying back to Finland. Now we've heard that the shows with In Extremo are "almost 100% sure" so it's going to be an interesting end of the year for us.

"Today your love, tomorrow the world." No, that wasn't right. Tomorrow: Kuopio.

Evolution

So we are in Milan. Oh no we're not. We're lost. Just a little though. We're close. The promoters send a guide car to drive in front of our bus and we find to the area. It was a park-like place with one big stage and dressing rooms built behind it from these container things. Nothing spectacular but definitely ok. Especially ok when we realized that the dressing rooms were air-conditioned. Cool! Literally.

We were once again playing quite early in the afternoon. I think we were the fourth band of the festival so we didn't really have much time to waste since we were late already. The crew started to get our stuff in immediately and the driver parked the bus and went to sleep in the hotel. We started to get ready for show which meant basically a few drinks. At one point during the band before us it sounded like the audience was singing "Kooooorpiklaaaani." I heard it again a bit later and went closer to listen. Indeed the audience was singing our name. Kind of cool but not so nice for the other band.

The show was like the others before it. No big changes in anything. The audience was small but at least all of them were really into the show so it was still really nice. Once again I had a wireless problem but this time I realized the reason behind all the problems I've had lately. For some reason my wireless transmitter has lost it's range. It should work well for 100 metres but nowadays the bigger festival stages are too much for it. When I realized that I just moved closer to the receiver and stayed there for the rest of the show. I should get a new transmitter before next weekend's shows. I hope that solves it. If not it's back to square one.

After the show we had a photo shoot for Italian Metal Hammer and we also did a couple interviews with the local media. One of the interviewers was quite annoying though. He seemed to demand that we should BE everything that the bands has ever sung ABOUT. Whatever it was that we had done was wrong according to him. If a metal band sings about rape, torture and murder, does he also demand that they should go and kill someone before they are allowed to do that? What a wanker.

The bus driver had said that we will leave at 2 in the morning so we had plenty of time. We did the usual. Met friends and got drunk. Sonata Arctica was there and so was already familiar Evergrey so we had plenty of people to drink with. I tried to watch some bands as well but as usual I was not so interested in any of them. Probably the funniest thing of the evening happened during the headliner's set. Whenever they, Cavalera Conspiracy, had a break between the songs I could still hear the audience singing. "Kooooorpiklaaaani! Kooooorpiklaaaani!"

After midnight the festival was basically already over for the day and the organizers were trying to get us out from the area. I think we were the last ones to leave. We really had nowhere to go yet, so we were just hanging around the festival area and meeting old and new friends. At 2 we started our journey to Northeim, Germany. I had been counting earlier that it was too late but the driver had to sleep, so there was nothing that we could do. The tour continues. 920km to go.

Masters Of Rock

Back in Germany. We arrived early Wednesday morning to Laudenbach, our manager's home town. We had a hotel booked for the day so that we could sleep a few hours before hitting the road again. We had a big breakfast first and then went to bed. It was again me and Matson in the same room. We got up around noon, took a shower and generally refreshened ourselves. Some of us were already sitting around the table in the "biergarten" and we joined them for a cold beer. However, the hotel's landlady had to close the bar since she was going to buy meat for our dinner later. We finished the beers and went for a walk to find some more. We accidentally passed our manager's house. We tried to be quiet but he noticed us anyway. We were invited to their garden where his father grows all kinds of vegetables. So we ended up drinking his poor father's beers and eating his cucumbers and tomatoes. Maybe he was thinking that this is getting too expensive and decided to take us to a monastery up on the hill. They make beer up there. It was a nice trip.

After the dinner at the hotel we packed our stuff and drove to a parking lot of Lidl to meet the nightliner. We loaded ourselves in the bus and started the journey to Masters Of Rock in Czech Republic. We'd been driving like maniacs already a while and this trip didn't make any difference. 750km. Bus had two drivers so it wasn't really a problem though. The bigger problem was that although the bus had a nice back lounge with TV and surround audio system, it didn't have a CD/DVD player! We sat in the back for a while, some of us were drinking quite heavily, but I went to bed quite early only to wake up quite soon to realize that the bad luck with buses continues. This one had a leaking fuel pipe. This time I decided to not to worry and continued to sleep. Since the sleep rhythm was a bit off I woke up again at about 4.30 in the morning. My bed was in the front of the bus. The bus is quiet and I turn my head to look at the back of the bus. I was not wearing glasses so I didn't see that clearly but I was thinking "Is that a leg?". I just had to get up and take look. After just a few hours the back of the bus looked like the hurricane had struck it. There were two band members sleeping under the table. The other tried to raise his head and say something but I really couldn't understand what it was. And I have to point out that those two were not the usual suspects! I quietly moved back to my bed.

We arrived to the festival area in the morning. The area may not be as beautiful as Metal Camp but I love the people working for Masters Of Rock. Since the first time with them we've always felt welcome and I like to think that they like us too. They have to. How many times have we been there already? Winter Masters Of Rock once, Masters Of Rock Cafe three times and Masters Of Rock twice. Plus a couple shows in.. err... umm... Plzen and Pardubice. So that is... hmm... let me count... wait... yes, many times! All in less than three years. Nice.

This was the first day of the festival so everything was still very much in progress. We had plenty of time to do nothing, just watch the other people working, get some breakfast and meet friends. Martina from the festival asked us for how long can they take pictures during the show.
- "As long as you want."
- "How many songs can we film for the DVD?"
- "As many as you want."
She said that they can film it all so we agreed on the first four from which we can then select two for the festival DVD.

The first official program was the signing session at 16.20. Lots of people once again to meet us. Quite a lot of familiar faces again. I don't really remember anyone though. I always, not just with band, but always have the same problem. I meet a person who says "Hello" in this friendly way that suggests that we know each other but I have no idea who he/she is or from where I should know him. That's annoying. Probably for both. Sorry.
Photographing is usually forbidden during the signing sessions. The reason is that if everyone stops at each band member to take a picture it will take forever and in 30 minutes only a handful of people will get an autograph or whatever it is they want. Problem with us is that Jonne is too nice and can't really say no when someone asks to take a picture. Security tells people to move on, Jonne doesn't care and just poses and fans take pictures so basically everybody is annoying somebody!

The showtime was 17.45-18.45. There was a lot of extra stuff on the stage. We couldn't really for example get an eye contact to our monitor tech. On the other side of the stage there was a huge pile of road cases covered with an ugly green tarp. Later it turned out that their function was just to take space from other bands and make their stage set look worse. The cases were all empty and they were taken out of the stage just before Ministry. That's what it looked like at least. Maybe they belonged to Ministry. Or maybe they were Def Leppard's and Ministry realized that and demanded them to be taken away. Don't know.

We were waiting our intro to begin when we hear Paukku's voice in the monitors. "No intro today. No miniplug connectors here." So we walk to the stage and 1-2-3-4 Wooden Pints. Juho had problems with the accordion's wireless for the first one and a half songs until he was switched to a cable, so it was quite easy to pick the songs for the DVD. Numbers 3 and 4. Cottages and Tuli kokko. Once again it was a good show. I can never really tell if we play well or not but I can always tell when the show is good. The audience is a very good indicator and then again the audience is quite often the thing that makes a show really good. That's always been the case in Czech republic. Always. Thank you.

After the show we didn't have much time hang around. After showers and some food it was time say the goodbyes to all the nice people and hit the road again. The next stop was Evolution festival in Milan, Italy. We were there a couple of years ago as well but at that time the festival was somewhere up in north. for some reason it had been moved to Milan which meant that we had even longer drive in front of us. 1050km. It also meant that in was in the area where in the two-week period they had two big metal festivals (Gods Of Metal, Evolution) and Metallica concert. You can't get people to all of them.

In the bus it was the usual thing. Few drinks, chatting but also music from the "new" CD/DVD player that Paukku had "borrowed" from the bus company's other bus when they had stopped in their garage at night to fix the leaking fuel pipe. Cool. I was once again among the first ones to go to bed. The next morning was really nice. I woke up early and went to sit in the front lounge just to watch the scenery. We were just driving through Brenner pass. Beautiful. It was also hot. It was something like 10 in the morning and the thermometer outside said +38C. What do you in the situation like that? Stay in your underwear, get in the back lounge, set the air condition to full blast, put "Live After Death" DVD on and start drinking vodka with orange juice. That's what Tuomas and I did.

Next stop: Milan.

To be continued...

Camping trip

Metal Camp in Tolmin, Slovenia. The most beautiful festival site ever. We were playing on Sunday, July 6, so we left on Saturday afternoon and flew to Frankfurt. Yes, it is a strange place to go if you're going to Slovenia but you'll understand this later. We drove to Tolmin in a van through the night. It's about 850km and took about 11 hours. Matte had reserved some alcohol, 6 bottles of vodka to be precise, so we were comfortably numb after a while.

We arrived to the site early in the morning and had to wait a while before the festival manager arrived. He was by the way the same David with a difficult last name that was the tour manager for the Paganfest earlier this year. So we had about an hour or two to kill and we headed to the beach bar, shook some hands, posed for pictures, had a few beers and when the bald one finally arrived we managed to book in to the hotel. We spent the mid day hours by meeting old friends that we have a lot in Slovenia and generally just chilling out. It was hot as usual. We had a short press conference and TV interview that we did with Jonne and Cane but otherwise the real program for the day started a bit before 18. And that's when the problems started.

Our showtime was at 18.15 and the change over was supposed to start at 18.00. The previous band stopped at 18.10. At festivals you just don't do that. You do not play over time. Even if you start late you finish in time. Simple rule. Then for the next 15 minutes it seemed like nothing was going on and when I asked from the stage manager about that he said they never got our new channel list after we changed to "preamp only" setup so they didn't have cables for us. Of course I asked our manager if that's true and he said that the festival has received it but he of course can't be sure if they've read it. Back to the stage manager. "Yes we have it but we didn't know that your preamps would be behind the monitor desk so our cables are in the wrong place." Different reason this time! Our set was supposed to be 45 minutes. Then we were told that if we get started in 5 minutes we'll have time for 35 minutes. I think it took a bit more than 5 minutes but we did a 35-minute set anyway. Both band and the audience were disappointed in the situation but otherwise the show went on well except for some minor wireless problems again. Audience was excellent as always in Slovenia. They kept demanding more after the show but there was nothing that we could do.

The next band (can't remember who) on the stage again had all the time in the world. They spent at least 15 minutes just with the fucking drums and no one was rushing them. Maybe, I am not saying that this is a fact, but maybe all this has something do with the fact that both bands around us are managed by the same organization that is behind the whole festival but we haven't really been interested in their offer... Don't get me wrong, it's not the bands' fault.

After the show I walked to our hotel to take a shower, rest a bit and drink a little wine. During that a thunderstorm started and after about a two hour break in the program Helloween finally hit the stage. Can't remember much of them. It was muddy and wet and I went to bed.

Our next show was Masters Of Rock in Czech Republic but that wasn't until Thursday, July 10. At one point there was an idea that at least some of us would fly back to Finland for a couple of days but since we couldn't get any decent flights we all decided to stay in Tolmin. Around the noon on Monday when we woke up we started with some red wine and went to see our Slovenian-Croatian-Italian-whatever friends in the bar quite close to the hotel. They were already having a party and Jonne, Cane and myself joined in. We got quite drunk during the afternoon but it was a lot of fun. It was really cool to meet again the same people that we met already on our first visit to Maribor in 2005.

Back at the festival area later the same evening I actually stopped drinking. Don't know why though. Had enough perhaps. Still didn't really watch much bands. Although I managed to see or at least hear probably the worst band I've ever seen. I am not saying the name but the same band also played at the festival in Finland and I read some really good and praising reviews of them, so I was slightly interested in seeing them. In my opinion that was the biggest pile of shit ever. Then again some people surely say the same thing about us, so who am I to judge.

We met one of our Russian friends at the festival as well. He was there with his family. I don't know where his wife was then in the evening but he and his son were with us in the festival tent where they also had strippers performing in an after show party. He wouldn't let his son see them so when he looked away I showed his son naked pictures of my girlfriend. C'mon! We are a rock band! We are supposed to destroy the youth!

I was again getting tired and decided to go back to the hotel. At the hotel yard I met our FOH man Paukku talking with the festival's main promoter and some hippie. I told promoter who I already knew from the Paganfest about the biggest pile of shit ever, the band, and he, being politically correct, said that "Yes, I've seen them do better." So I wasn't alone.

We were supposed to drive back to Frankfurt area on Tuesday. Since the possible drivers had both been drinking last night we were not leaving very early. After waking up I sent a message for my Italian-Slovenian-whatever friend to ask where I could get some breakfast. She and her boyfriend were again in the same bar so they were easy to find. She escorted me to the grocery store, helped with the language and I got a big bag full of food and took it to the hotel. I thought it was a lot but me and the roommate Matson ended up eating almost all of it at once. I guess we were hungry. The rest of the day went slowly. A few occasional drinks, checking the CD booths, checking the bands. And meeting the same people again. One of the bands was quite interesting. I believe they were Slovenian and called Inmate. They were playing really interesting instrumental technical thrash. Since they don't have a singer they've probably been forced to make the music more interesting. I heard that they just signed a record deal so we will hear about them more in the future.

Once again we meet the old buddies Eluveitie again. I believe they'd driven from Switzerland to Slovenia in a van so we weren't the only ones driving insane distances. It's always nice meeting them. And we'll meet again at Summerbreeze. We can't get rid of them even if we wanted to! Well, it's more likely the other way around anyway.

Finally in the evening we started our journey back to Germany. Some people got drunk again. I didn't really. I tried to sleep which wasn't really that easy. Have you ever seen anyone sleepwalking in a van? I have.

To be continued...

Rock'n'roll!

A quick update:
Ensiferum, Týr and Korpiklaani all got fined for 200€ each for flooding the Bang Your Head backstage and destroying some rented exotic plants. Yeehaw! Rock and roll!

Two out of three

It was again time for three shows in a weekend, this time in Germany, Belgium and Finland. The first time we heard that we are booked on these festivals the idea was that Finland is on Saturday. Now THAT would have been strange. To fly back to Finland to do one show and fly back to Belgium again. Luckily it was changed to better order which, as it turned out on Sunday, didn't really help much in the end.

The flight on Thursday, June 26th was at 18 something so I got picked up by everyone else directly from work. We were supposed to pick up a rackmount 4-channel DI box on our way to the airport but didn't have the time so our monitor guy's mother picked that up for us and brought it to the airport. Family business. We installed that in a rack at the airports lobby bar and got some funny looks from the bypassers. The rack case included now three wireless receivers, two guitar preamps, DI and a drawer for other stuff. The weight was over 47kg. We were told that 40kg is the limit and 45kg is the "absolute limit" so we had to move some stuff to different cases at the check-in. Live and learn.

For some reason Cane and Jonne had the idea that we're gonna drink gin & tonic in the airplane. We one and half rows in the plane. We were wise enough to put Jonne, Cane and myself together. And then we started with the g&t. I think the trio managed to drown one and half bottles of gin. I think we would've done more but they ran out of tonic and we had to continue with vodka and red wine. Oh well. Nice trip.

We packed ourselves in the van again at Frankfurt airport. Once again the drive was pretty much the same as described in the previous blog entry. It wasn't that long though. We arrived to the hotel in a small town whose name I can't remember a bit after midnight. Bang Your Head festival had a pre-party at the club somewhere but it would have been another drive and everyone was getting tired so we went to bed. Most of all at least. There still seemed to be some shouting outside the hotel. Next morning we heard from our manager that he'd heard someone shouting over and over again in the middle of the night in the hotel lobby something like "Korpiklaani! Alles gut?". We were suspecting Terji from Týr, but when we asked later he didn't confess.

After the breakfast we left to the festival area. Bang Your Head is quite a big festival and probably because of that the whole thing was very nicely organized. Great backstage with restaurant, showers with warm water, swimming pool, drunk people. Quite nice. We were the fourth band on the bill with 45 minute set. I didn't see the first band but managed to see most of our old friends' Týr set. It was still early in the morning but there was already a big crowd and actually some movement in there as well. During the third band me and Matson went quickly to check out the metal market. I didn't buy anything. I was proud of myself. But that was about to change. Wait until we get to the pool part.

For the first few bands the festival had only 10 minute changeover times which really isn't much. The band before us stopped maybe 5 minutes before their time so we managed to start on time at 11.55. We had a good show. Lots of audience and quite a lot of fists up in the air despite the early stage time. The stage had a catwalk probably for Queensrÿche but our guitarist couple used it quite shamelessly to get some action in the audience! We had to drop a couple of songs that we had on the set list because we couldn't fit it all in 45 minutes. Note to self: Black stage surface in the direct sun burns bare feet.

After the show we got drunk. At least I did. Like really drunk. And we had a pool party. There was a plastic/rubber/whatever pool at the backstage and in the end there was quite a lot of Finns and a few Fareose as well. I was trying to behave and was wearing underwear but Terji decided that I didn't need them and stole them. Judging by the number of photographers around the pool we will be featured on every music magazine next month. It was really a lot of fun. Floating there in the sun, cold beer in hand. I think my sunglasses are still in that pool. Oh yeah, if you lean on a plastic pool wall it will bend and you will flood the backstage. Live and learn.

We spoke about the pool later with our record label's promotion lady and she said that the pool has been there every year and it has always been only the Finns using it. The tradition lives on! Except for the Faroese.

Like at most festivals the bands with early stage time had to leave their dressing room early and make room for other bands. We had to do that as well and we sent our gear to hotel and moved our personal stuff and alcohol to another container that was reserved for that. Our dressing room was then given to White Lion. However Jonne somehow missed the whole thing and later went to their dressing room and told quite generously that "You can sit here, I am just taking our booze." And he really got the alcohol. It definitely wasn't ours but White Lion didn't object.

The evening went quite nicely and around midnight we finally got a shuttle back to hotel. After a mere four hours of sleep we started our journey to the next festival, Graspop Metal Meeting in a small town of Dessel, Belgium.

We arrived to the festival well on time after a rough ride. Graspop is probably the best festival we've ever been. It is really nicely built up and everything works exceptionally well. And it's big. The tent we played, Marquee 1, is bigger than a normal icehockey rink. We had plenty of time to settle in and check out the area. This time we didn't go to metal market. Hooray! I got myself a new pair of sunglasses though. We also went to the Marquee 2 to say hello to the monitor tech Stijn who toured with us on the Paganfest and was now working on the festival. We met lots of other old friends as well like Sabaton and My Dying Bride. We seem to be meeting the same bands every time. No problem with that. Nice people.

At Graspop the changeover times were generous. We had about an hour for that and since we were still doing only a linecheck I was for example ready for the show over 30 minutes before show time. We had some wireless problems during the linecheck since were getting Sonata Arctica's bass on accordion's wireless. That got solved before the show though.

When I got from the backstage to the back of the stage I didn't see the audience. I started to tune my bass and when I was finishing it the intro started and I heard the crowd roar like never before. I almost fell on my ass. The noise was astounding. We hit the stage and the whole fucking tent is packed and we can see the fists up in the air all the way to the back of the area. Brilliant. Then the intro ends and Matson counts on the hi-hat 1-2-3-4 and I hit the first note. There's no sound. Shit. Suddenly there is. Phew. No. It's gone again. Then back again. Shit. Shit. Shit. I shout at Tuomas to do something about it and they check everything at the desk, receiver & preamp. Finally after 3 songs just before "Tuli kokko" they decide to change the wireless. So the drum intro starts and there should be a bass over it but there isn't. After a lot of trouble we finally get a sound out. A crap sound. They gave me a wireless suitable for guitar but not for the bass. Some wireless systems don't really transmit much lower frequencies. I hope Paukku at FOH got something out of the PA at least. There wasn't anything I could do anyway so I just started to enjoy the audience. It was a great show after all.

After the show the schedule was pretty standard. Meet friend, get drunk. When the headliner Kiss was playing I was already sleeping at our dressing room. I heard them and thought "It's Kiss. Am I interested enough to get up? No." So I got up after their show when we left in a hurry back to Frankfurt airport. We were already late from our original schedule because Kiss was about an hour late and some of us demanded that they have to see them anyway.

Our flight was at 7.30 and we arrived at the airport at about 6.20. So basically we were in a hurry but usually 70 minutes is enough. Unfortunately the combination of us being late and the check-in girl being probably quite unexperienced and at least extremely slow turned out to be fatal. Only two of us managed to get on the plane on time, Tuomas and Hittavainen. When I told the lady at the gate that maybe we were late but the girl was really slow too she immediately said "OK, I'll put you on the next flight for free", which was ok for us. We'd still be at Tuska festival on time.

The real problem was that our gear didn't follow us. The first flight had some, ours had some, but we were still missing some. The most important was the accordion. I got all my stuff, Hittis got his, Jonne got one guitar, Cane was ready to play any borrowed Les Paul but we couldn't get an accordion. We called Roland and festival organization tried to get one. No luck. 37 minutes before our showtime we were forced to cancel our show at Tuska festival. Luckily they still managed to get Before The Dawn to fill in. We were pissed. Totally. We finally get a slot at Tuska and we fucking have to cancel it. Thank you Luftwaff... hansa. The announcer Jone Nikula told us that when he went to the stage to announce the cancellation there was already a huge amount of people in a party mood packed in the front and the disappointment was easy to see and some people actually left the whole festival area.

We still did have a lot of work to do though. We had hours of interviews booked and since we now had more time our press lady Silke started to move them earlier. I don't know how many of them there exactly was but many. It was basically Jonne, Cane and myself doing them. Sometimes individually, sometimes in different combinations. At some point of the afternoon we did a signing session and met so many Finnish fans that it basically surprised us all. Thank you all for being so understanding!

When the work was done it was time to go home again. We had already received some of our missing gear delivered directly to the festival and we picked up the rest from the airport on our way home. Surprisingly we stopped also at a gas station and got some cider.

Next week: the most beautiful festival area ever, Metal Camp, Slovenia.