In the promised land

What is the first things that comes to your mind when you hear the name Israel? Except the constant war, I mean. For me it is the orthodox jews with their black suits, hats, beards and strange hair curls. Well, it was nothing like that.

When we were first approached by an Israeli promoter and asked to play in Tel Aviv I immediately went to check the travel notices on the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Lots of warnings and "don't dos" and "don't gos" and "not recommendeds". The promoter however didn't give up but told us that "Yes, but Tel Aviv is different. It's far from any dangerous areas." So we finally said "yes". Should've checked the map though. In a country of that size, nothing is far from anything.

The show was on Friday, October 16. Our flight was with Air Baltic via Riga, Latvia. Air Baltic means shitty luggage rules, one luggage per passenger, max. weight 20kg. And the most annoying thing: you can't count the weights together. It is 20kg per passenger, not 140kg per 7 passengers. This means that we duct taped together for example 2 guitars to make it one piece of luggage weighting 18kg. Is that now better for someone? It weights more, it has an annoying shape and it's more difficult to lift and carry.

Note to self: from now on Korpiklaani flies only with Luftwaffe, Finnair, SAS, Air France, British Airways or KLM. Preferably Luftwaffe.

Anyway, the flight was at 20:45 on Thursday 15th. This time the luggage rules were once again different. This time it was possible to sum the weights together. Not that it mattered anymore though. So, Air Baltic sucks. The Riga airport is not the nicest one either but on the other hand it does have Lulu. A cheap and surprisingly good pizzeria with vegetarian pizza on the menu as well. And of course Latvian long drinks called Safari. Whoohoo!

The schedule meant that we arrived to Tel Aviv in the middle of the night at 3AM. I switched my telephone on as soon as I walked in the terminal and it rang immediately. The promoter was asking if we've landed. Getting into country wasn't that easy and he managed to call me a couple of times more before we finally got out of the terminal. It wasn't really that difficult to get in. Just slow. And lots of idiots from one certain country that we Finns know so well. And I couldn't really understand why the immigration officers allowed them to go to the passport check the whole family at the same time. Do that in any other country and they'll start shouting at you "One at a time!"

We finally arrived our quite nice hotel at 5AM. The hotel was only 5 minutes walk away from the beach and we basically had a free day but we really weren't in the mood of enjoying that. Everybody went to bed and for example Cane and myself got up a bit before the breakfast time ended, went to eat and returned to bed!

Once we managed to finally get up we were taken to the restaurant next door for a lunch. For some it was breakfast though. From there we were taken to a signing session at a local record store. It was a bit chaotic happening. Lots of people crammed in a too small space. That was us behind the counter! Ok, the place was too crowded anyway until the organizers started to control the amount of people inside the store. There were lots of people and lots of stuff to sign but not a drop of alcohol to drink. Badly, badly organized! I also found some CDs and a Phil Lynott solo LP that I decided to buy. I got them all for free. I guess that made up for the missing alcohol.

Soundcheck was at 17. Or it was scheduled at 17 but Israel proved to be no different to any other country. We were at the venue at 17 but everything on the stage was still a mess. And the beer. It was warm! So, we were waiting for something to happen and trying to drink warm beer. Not good.

Ok, this is a point in this entry where I stopped writing originally and now I am continuing it after a year or so!. I'll try to remember as much as I can.

At the venue there was a girl who came to talk to us as if she knew us. We were being friendly and at the same time trying to figure out who the hell she was. Once we finally got to soundcheck she was there as well with her violin and Jonne remembered that she was the Russian violinist who had asked permission to join us on stage and Jonne, the nice person he is, had said "Yes, of course!"

As said, I can't remember all the little details any more. After the soundcheck we were taken back to the hotel to get ready. I can't really remember what I did to get ready but I'd guess it had something to do with alcohol.

Anyway, the support band was Iron Maiden cover band. We were actually half seriously trying to change the playing order so that we could after our show have a few beers and watch Iron Maiden. In the end that didn't happen though. They were good anyway. And played the songs that originally made me a Maiden fan in the 80's unlike the shit Maiden cover band I saw a while ago here in Tampere who played only the newer (post-92) stuff. Wankers.

I guess our show was good too. At least I can not remember it being bad so I guess it wasn't. The lady violinist was definitely on stage too. That I remember. The place was packed.

I think it is also safe now to tell the following story:
The place was full. We were "smuggled" in from the back alley. It was that full. If I remember correctly the promoter said something about 800 tickets sold. I have no idea what the actual capacity was. Apparently way less. A couple of weeks after returning to Finland I received a phone call from the promoter. "I don't want to worry you or anything but all hell broke loose here after your show. Some people have started to blame the venue because they now have a swine flu. They are blaming us for overselling the place and making people stand too close to each other. On top of that a local tabloid has started to write stories about that too. This is not your problem but if the journalist calls you and asks something about this tell him that as far as you know we sold 450 tickets." The journalist never called.
Still. What the fuck? "I have a swine flu. I know exactly where I got that from." Fuck you.

Ok, that was about all I can now write about that trip. Sorry for all the readers that there was a break like this. No excuses. Lazy bastard.

Stuttgart & Zlin

8:20 on the bus somewhere in Czech Republic. We're just driving through a city centre but since I just woke up I have no idea what city it is. I asked John, the bus driver and he said that this is Prague. I couldn't understand why we're driving through Prague but he's actually taking the second driver to the railway station so that he can get home. Time to keep my eyes open for a while and do some sight seeing then!

As the clever ones already noticed I am up quite early. There is a simple reason for that. I went to be really early. The venue had a strict curfew at 22.10 so the event started really early and our set was also 2 hours earlier than usually on this tour. The bus call was at 23.58 which of course is a reference to Iron Maiden. I was in my bed in a minutes after that. So after almost 8 hours of sleep I am up at 8 and feel great. Regardless of the fact that I had one of my strangest dreams for some time. This one included my little sister as a really small girl, my mother, myself, our old house where my sister has never lived, a haunted book that kept changing it's contents and it's writer who was living as a ghost inside the walls of that house. "Dude, that's weird" as Pat from Swashbuckle would say.

Yesterday was a boring day. The highlights were Moonsorrow as usual and our own show which always hits you with a dose of adrenaline. Moonsorrow did again the already familiar two-song set. Their epicness itself is already epic. I tried to watch Einherjer too but I couldn't really get into their world that easily. Still I think that both bands would have been a good addition on this tour. They would have taken this tour closer to what the first Paganfest was. This one is quite far from that. Then all the bands were easy to label under the word pagan and also under the label folk metal. Now we have The Four Riders of the Apocalypse which I believe is directly from the bible, Romans who were the first state to adopt christianity as their official religion really early like 200-something or so, two bands are pirates from the seven seas who all probably believed that they will burn in hell because of all their sins and only Unleashed, the vikings and us are really going for the pagan traditions. And even vikings adopted christianity quite early...

I am not saying this to put he bands down in anyway. Nice people, cool bands all in their own right. I am just saying that the Paganfest title doesn't seem that suitable as it did the first time. My personal opinion, that is.

We used to write set lists during the first few shows. Nowadays we just have a list of 23 songs on stage. Of course we usually start and finish the show the same way but the middle part keeps changing. Yesterday, we for example played Metsämies which I can't remember being played on this tour before. Maybe once. However, Matti and Juho started Paljon on koskessa kiviä. That was funny. In Eindhoven we actually played Palovana that is not even included on the 23-song list!

Gay party in Eindhoven

Backstage of Longhorn LKA in Stuttgart at 15:45. Outside of the backstage to be exact. A couple of Swedes next to me. We just witnessed Einherjer to walk out with their guitars and stuff so I guess their little encounter with the tour management in Antwerpen turned into a cancellation. I've heard two stories of the incident there and since they are quite contradictory I will not get into any details since I really have no idea what really happened.

Two days ago we played in Illingen. The place wasn't even half full. That was a bit of a disappointment. We did a good show again and the audience was into it so it was still ok. It was good to see the woman from the catering in the audience enjoying the show. They see all the shows there and yet she found us entertaining.

Next day was Effenaar in Eindhoven. That is a brilliant venue. We've been there once before on our own on the smaller stage. Paganfest was at the bigger venue of course. We had our own dressing room for a change. Nice corner room with windows from floor to the ceiling. We moved the table next to the window and I set up my office there. It was time for the accounting again which took a lot longer than usual since we got a shipment of new shirts the day before and I had to add them all to the stock. Office was nice though. We had cold Corona in the fridge too.

The smaller venue was hosting a gay party at the same time. That's where we got the idea from. We went out to buy some stuff for the evening like a mirror ball. We managed to hang that with Matson's flashlight to the ironing board. So in the evening we made the room dark with just a mirror ball lighting the room and started playing 70's disco music and dancing without our shirts on. So others joined like our bus driver John. I think we were doing that like and hour and half or so until it was our show time. Hilarious. The best night of the tour so far. And all male. We even had a sign on the door which said "No women". Although we have that rule nowadays anyway. If we're not sharing a dressing room with someone we're not allowing anyone in something like 2 hours before the show and not at all after the show. Wifes, girlfriends: learn the new rule.

The show was a blast again. We were a bit disappointed after Haarlem since The Netherlands have always been really good country for us. Eindhoven proved that they still are. It was our audience. I loved playing yesterday. Or maybe it was because of the warm up gay party... Anyway, our bus driver had a day off and even he stage dived! He did admit later that it hurt a bit. Usually people are ready to catch you, in Eindhoven they just made room for a landing man.

We had to leave early but we did have some time to continue our gay party a bit. This time even more people were present since during our show the other bands had gotten drunk enough. Good party. And Tomas from Unleashed went for food hunting and brought me an excellent vegetarian döner. Last night was a good night. In the bus I actually had a loooooong chat with Maurizio of Ex Deo/Kataklysm about music business. He runs his own management company and seems to be quite a clever person in that.

Today's been a boring day. I slept late and forced myself up from the bed a bit after noon. Did the accounting for yesterday and generally just hung out at the venue. It's way too hot inside but luckily the network reaches the yard too. Moonsorrow is with us again. I just like the atmosphere more when they are here. The Germans/normal people ratio is just so much better.

Einherjer just walked back in. Maybe they are playing after all. Battery is getting empty. Over and out.

Pratteln & Illingen

Today's been a boring day. This is a really small town with an excellent venue. The venue is probably the only interesting thing here. I tried to go skating since the street next to the venue looked promising. I managed to skate something like 200 metres. That street was the only piece of decent asphalt here. Then I went through all the merchandise calculations once again. Found one missing girlie shirt. The merch dude only owes us now 1020€ instead of 1035€ calculated yesterday.

Yesterday we were in Switzerland. They have their own money. Today I added yesterday's sales to my way too complicated OpenOffice chart. In the end I noticed that we had 200€ too much money when compared to what was sold. After being an idiot for a while I realized that the prices were of course changed to different currency and rounded up. Swiss people are filthy rich, you see. So I had to add even more rows and columns to my chart for Switzerland. The same will happen in Czech Republic and Hungary. Damn you non-euro countries!

Show was really good yesterday. The venue Z7 is huge and it was full. I think we kicked some German ass yesterday evening. Reiter was again the second last band after Unleashed since we were in a German speaking country. I think the crowd was ours. We had a blast.

Right now I am sitting at the backstage. It's 21:00, Unleashed are on stage and I am wondering how the hell can I stay awake till our showtime. I really don't want to start drinking vodka right now.

Lyon & Pratteln

Ok, I am starting to feel sorry for the merch guy. He seems like a nice guy and he's really trying to do a good job. For some reason he just isn't able to do the job properly. We did a shirt count yesterday and today we counted all the other merchandise we have with us. In the end it seems like we're missing a bit over 1000€ or he has some of our merch hidden somewhere in the back of the trailer. I showed him the calculations and felt really sorry for him.

Yesterday in Lyon was good. I ended up spending the entire day at the venue doing the countings and stuff which was a total pain in the ass, but the venue was really good, food was excellent and audience was brilliant. We did again a bit different show than usual. At least Pellonpekko was out and Pine Woods was in.

Even though we spent awfully lot of time doing some real work we managed to find time to watch the good old Eläkeläiset DVD again at the dressing room. We sang some humppa karaoke and even turned the laptop 90 degrees right and watched the entire "Pystykuva TV" thing. That's like the anti-wide screen mode. You have to turn TV 90 degrees right and you'll get narrow but high picture, that you can fit a man in: "a screen mode for human beings". Hilarious. For some. Other bands stopped at the door every now and then but didn't stay long...

Today I did some laundry since the venue Z7 has the possibility. A Swiss-Finnish couple that we know also offered to take us to real Finnish sauna but I think Matti was the only one who went. I was in the middle of my laundry and then I was planning to go skating. Which I did. Twice. First I decided to leave the venue the easy way, not the uphill way. I managed to skate a few kilometres and ended up in the maze of dead ends and a highway. I got back to the venue and tried to get the guitar/stage tech Mon to join me but with no luck. I went the other way this time and turned right from the first corner. Wrong move. Street work ahead. The opposite way was pretty rough at first but then I managed to find some excellent streets for skating. That was nice. I had crossed a railroad once on my way there and while returning I crossed it again. Or so I thought. Only a couple of blocks later I hit the railroad again. I couldn't understand that. After a bit of skating I had to admit that I was lost and had to dig up the GPS from the pocket. I managed to figure out that the first railroad I crossed was the real railroad and second I crossed was just a tram line. I had managed to go around the entire tram line! Anyway, I found my way back.

Now it's 20:00, Alestorm is on stage and I should go and gather my skating clothes that are drying outside.

Antwerpen, Paris & idiots

On the bus to Lyon at noon. Yesterday we played in La Loco, Paris. The venue is located right next to Moulin Rouge so it's right in the heart of Parisian tourism. Which is nice. The downside of that is that there are no parking places for tour buses so once we got there at 11:30 or so we had to get all our stuff that we would be needing from the bus to the backstage. Once all the stuff was in the the venue the buses left and arrived to pick up us and the gear again at 3 in the morning.

We had a really long day to spend in Paris since it was a late show and our show time was at 1. Which by the way sucked since those who live outside the metropolitan area had to leave before our show time or even Unleashed's show time to get home by last trains. We had a great audience anyway so in the end it didn't suck so much for us but I feel sad for the people who payed 30€ to see us and managed to see only the first 4 bands.

Anyway, the day was for tourism. Me and Matson spent 5 hours around the town once I managed to get us subway tickets from "French only" machine. We went to Notre Dame cathedral. Surprisingly, the lightning didn't strike a pagan so we survived. Next stop was the latin quarters where we found an Irish pub that had Strongbow on tap. Nice. Then we went to check if there's a huge waiting time to Eiffel tower. It didn't look so bad so we decided to go there. I've been there before but only at the second floor since the top was closed for some reason then. We ended up waiting for a fucking half an hour down there to get to the second floor and another fucking half an hour to the top from there. Then we spend 5 minutes at the top and another 30 minutes to get back down. What a fucking waste of time. Korpiklaani Travel Agency does not recommend. Ok, the structure is nice. Really nice. With a degree from civil engineering I can appreciate that. But in the end it's just a fucking observation tower and definitely not worth the two hour waiting.

At one point we decided to head back to the venue since we thought it would be a dinner time. There we realized that it was a buy out day and got 15€ for food. Didn't go to eat though. We sat a while at the venue and had a couple local beers. 25cl bottles, with 4,2% alcohol. You can drink a case of them and not get drunk. Doors opened and the people started getting in. Once they realized that it indeed was us we had to leave since our table turned into a signing and photo session. Matson was keen to see Pére Lachaisse cemetery. I had been there before but I can always go there again to say "hello" to Edith. Swashbuckle was already on stage when we left and travelled in a sweaty fully packed subway something like 13 or 14 stations there only to see that in France they close their cemeteries at 18:00. I didn't know they did that. So we just got back to venue and spent the long night there and at the Corcoran Irish pub next to it.

The show was pretty damn good. The audience was crazy. And just to make things more difficult to Andreas the light tech we keep changing the set every night. We've mostly been closing with Ii Lea Voibmi but yesterday we closed with Hunting Song. We have mostly been switching between Huppiaan aarre and Tuli kokko. Yesterday we did both. To keep things interesting or something.

The German merchandiser doing us, Unleashed and Reiter is an idiot. I'll get back to that later. Now we're at the venue and WE have to start counting our merch. Bollocks.

Ok, the merch is counted. And the merch guy now knows that we think that he's an idiot. Which I think is not unfair since all the other bands think the same. Including Reiter, his own band. The idiot is not keeping any track of what he's sold. And someone even bigger idiot booked him to do an international tour when he doesn't speak any real language.

Back to Antwerpen for a moment. I wached the entire Moonsorrow set again. They did the same as in Dortmund. 45 minutes, 2 songs. That's musical brilliance. I think they were even better than the day before. In Dortmund I remember telling Reiter vocalist Fuchs that Moonsorrow is the best band on the tour and he was watching them as well and seemed to enjoy that a lot. When the show was over I noticed that their guitarist had been watching the end of the show too. He came to me and asked "they are coming to do a third show as well, right" so I think he was hooked as well.

But we kicked some serious ass their as well. I guess I can clearly say that it was our night. It's been difficult to match Reiter in Germany and Antwerpen was the first that I can honestly that it was our show.

Dortmund & Antwerpen & Spinal Tap

15:30 backstage of Hog Ter Lo in Antwerpen. Slept too little and tried to sleep a bit down here but there's too much people coming and going so I started to play 1980's Kiss albums on shuffle just because Marko of Moonsorrow has a new Eric Carr tattoo. This venue is in the middle of nowhere. It would probably be wise to get out of here and go somewhere but I am just too tired. I went to bed around 4 last night. There was a huge Reiter grill party behind the venue after the show so I decided to spend a night out. I got a bit drunk in the end too. Now this starts to feel like a tour again. We are sharing a dressing room with Moonsorrow, there's Kiss on the speakers, beers or Smirnoff Ices in our hands and voices are getting louder already in the afternoon.

Yesterday was our best show of the tour. Maybe not musically but the athmosphere was just so damn good. We had a marvellous audience and we had lots of fun on the stage. We didn't even have a set list. We had a list of 22 songs and we just decided on stage which ones to play. Jonne even draw one number out of his sleeve: "You Looked Into My Eyes". He just suddenly started the intro riff and in two seconds he realized that he doesn't know how it goes. The band joined him and the first few seconds were a bit chaotic but it was soon corrected.

We a small Spinal Tap situation before the show. We lost Kalle. Everything was set up and we were just waiting the intro to start. First Kalle was there but then when Mon was trying to give him his guitar he was nowhere to be found. We searched for him quite long actually. Finally he was found right next to the stage in the crowd trying to get to the backstage without his backstage pass. The security wouldn't allow him in. Finally we managed to get him in. He had tried to go to a toilet quickly before the show but all the backstage toilets were occupied so he went out to the public side and the door behind him closed so that he couldn't get back in!

After the show we had a dance party in our dressing room. We even managed to get the Reiter guitarist join the twisting! It was indeed a good day.

Erfurt, Dortmund

12:40 at the backstage of FZW, Dortmund. The network isn't working. They are fixing it. "They" being Germans I believe it will not work today. The venue itself is really nice. Really luxorious compared to many others in Germany. Plenty of dressing rooms with their own showers and toilets. Of course there are not enough of them since today is the first of the few "extended Paganfests" with Moonsorrow and Einherjer included on the bill. I am really looking forward to meeting with Moonsorrow dudes again. There will be lots of shouting and bad behaviour later in the evening.

I slept late again. I've been up for about an hour. I got up at around 7 though and went to relieve myself and saw Jonne up. In fact, he's been up since that and was actually the first to enter the venue and the local crew thought that he was the bus driver. By the way, Kalle just went to get our speakers from the bus and now we're playing the entire Thin Lizzy discography on shuffle. Nice. City centre is supposed to be close as well. We may pop in there as well.

Yesterday was good show. I think we played our best show apart from Matson who always plays worse when his fiancee is present... It isn't easy to follow Die Reiter. They have an excellent stage show and they are just so big in Germany. I watched their show from the balcony for a while and was actually a bit scared after I heard the audience's reactions. During the change over there was no one inside the venue which really didn't make it any easier. However, Hittavainen told me that it's been like that during all the change overs. The 800 Germans just disappear in a bar or go out for a cigarette. So we ended up having a full house after all. Nice.

Oh yeah. Yesterday was the hottest show of the tour. Everyone was just so fucking sweaty. Terrible. And the bus starts to smell like a tour already...

Happy customer

Whoohoo! Yesterday I finally managed to open myself an account. Now I don't have to wander drunk around Europe with band's millions under my bunk mattrass. It was a difficult job but it was worth it. It is really nice to walk into a bank looking like this and tell them that I'd like to make a deposit and then hand them a plastic bag with 13260€ like I did today.

Matson walked with me to the bank. It was 2-3km from the venue. We couldn't take a tram there since we had no idea when to get off. We did that when we returned to the venue. And then we took a subway to the old centre of Frankfurt. That was a bit of a disappointment. I mean, it all was nice but it was quite small. We had a dinner there anyway. The venue's backstage and catering are so small that the dinner times are scheduled per band and we would have missed our dinner there anyway. The dressing room was actually run in festival style, meaning that each band had a their own in and out times.

Yesterday's show was sold out. The place is a dump but we had a really good show. Amazing audience. And my bass sound was finally, for the first time on this tour, perfect. I was having really big problems the day before and yesterday afternoon I told Stijn the monitor tech that "if I plug my preamp to any power amp and Ampeg 8x10 cab, the sound is perfect, so the signal from my preamp is perfect." "So, we should try a flat EQ?" "Yes, we should." And it was good.

I slept late today. I got up at around noon. I was awake at 8 something but since the bus was still moving I decided to sleep more. Probably a wise decision. After that it was time for some business. I am basically doing the accounting for the tour, it seems. I also got the band's second payment of the tour which I had to take to a bank. After finding a local Deutsche Bank I met with Matson and Jonne in a nice city centre of Erfurt. I remembered walking there last year with Kaisa of Battlelore when we found a small shop of old books and vinyl albums but I couldn't find it anymore. Now Matti couldn't start his vinyl shopping spree. We did find an Irish pub and got myself some Stowford cider. It's been a nice day with the sunshine and everything.

Now we're at the backstage of Stadtgarten, Erfurt, Alestorm is on the stage and I have to move somewhere to find the network and get this posted.

Haarlem & "Frankfurt"

10:15 in the bus at the venue. Get in time is at noon so I have to figure out how to use the next couple of hours before breakfast. The tour book says that the venue is Batschkapp, Frankfurt. Bollocks. This place hasn't even seen Frankfurt. Or perhaps it has seen it once in the TV at the 70's. This is a small village whose name I can't right now remember and can't get online to check.

We've been here before. The first European Paganfest finished here. I remember it was a good crowd and the show itself was good, but the venue isn't really my favourite. And the backstage is way too small for a crew of 40. Way too small. If only all the venues were like yesterday in Haarlem.

The show wasn't the best yesterday though. The same thing happened as has happened a couple of times before as well. The local promotor makes the show start too late so that during the third last bands performance people start to leave since they have to catch the last trains home. That's not really nice for the last bands. We had a decent crowd anyway and once we got them warmed up we had a few good group dances as well. My bass sound on the stage was strange. And for some reason it seemed to keep changing the whole time as well. Suddenly the low end was gone and then a minute later it was all just low end mumble with no higher frequencies. I have to remember to check my preamp today.

And today I go to a bank. I have an appointment set and I will hopefully be able to finally open an account. We'll see.

Shittier banks

Ok, I now officially hate Deutsche Bank. Yesterday in Hamburg:
- "Hello! I need to open an account in your bank."
- "You have to have a German address to do that."
- "No, I don't. I already confirmed that from you earlier."
- "Ok. But you can not open an account today anyway."
- "No on vittu aika touhua teillä!"

Yesterday was a pretty good day. We were playing at Markthalle, Hamburg. We've been there twice before but never in the big hall. We actually started our first ever European tour there in August 2005. Yesterday the guys from Unleashed told that they also started their first ever tour there. However, they did it in 1991! For example Mike from Swashbuckle was 4 at the time and our Juho was 5. Generations man, generations.

Earlier during the day Jonne, Matson and myself took a subway to St. Pauli. We were not really looking for anything special but we just wanted to check the familiar neighbourhood of Reeperbahn and the surrounding streets... I ended up buying new leather pants.

The show was decent at least. The audience was a bit strange though. They were like in Japan. Completely silent between the songs. That feels really strange on stage. Apart from the encore we did the same set as the night before. We were too lazy to do a new set list. Today is different. The venue is brilliant. I love these places in Belgium and the Netherlands. These new ugly concrete cubes that are built for hosting concerts like this. You can drive your bus in the venue. Really. Two buses with trailers are in the venue right now! You just get off the bus and take an elevator up to the catering and dressing rooms. Tomorrow it's going to be back to the basics again though. The venue is crap. But I now have an appointment with Deutsche Bank at 15.00.

Oh, yes. Today we're in Haarlem, Netherlands. The venue is called Patronaat. I am writing this in the dressing room that we're sharing with Swashbuckle. It's good to have them here since they don't complain about our musical theme days. It's now 15.30. We already went to the town centre and found a flea market with lots of vinyl albums for sale. I ended up bying 7 Saxon LPs...

Broken buses and shitty banks

Tuesday, 9:30 in the bus. I forgot to tell you something. How can you tell that this is a Paganfest? Because the buses keep breaking down! On the first Paganfest the other bus had to be changed in the beginning of the tour. Can't remember the reason for that though. Then our bus breaks down in the middle of the highway exit in Slovakia on our way to Hungary. That was the charger I think. In the USA the other bus broke down and Moonsorrow and Primordial had to be packed in our bus a for a while. Yesterday morning when I was still in bed between sleep and being completely awake I heard a really loud explosion and then a moment later this flaf-flaf-flaf sound. I thought "Oh, we just lost a tire. Wait, is it a front tire? Are we going to crash now? No, it doesn't seem like that. Phew!" Anyway, we were on the German autobahn with a flat tire, but luckily the other bus of the tour was there too so everybody travelled to the venue with that bus since it was just too dangerous to have 20 persons wandering on the autobahn between all the cars passing us.

We played at least a decent show last night. It wasn't as good as the day before but better than the first two. The venue wasn't really my favourite but it had a shower so I guess it was ok. Although it was located in the public side of the venue. The place was already mostly empty though so it wasn't a problem.

Today I will go to a bank. I need to open a German account. I don't want to walk around the continent with all that cash we're getting. I went yesterday already in Nürnberg but they told me that I'd need to make an appointment for tomorrow.
- But I will be in Hamburg tomorrow!
- Go to the bank there then!
- Ok.
At least the venue is closer to the city centre today so it shouldn't be a problem to find a bank.

Sight-seeing

Catering room of Hirsch, Monday at 17:40.

Today we did a loooooooong walk with Matson. We walked to the old city centre and castle. Quite nice place actually. We've been here before but I don't think we everleft the venue that time. We were out for 4 hours and basically walked the whole time. We even climbed to the tower in the castle. My feet are killing me now.

Yesterday we were in Berlin. I acted as a tour guide and took some of our guys to the city centre. Cane was a having a difficult day. He almost passed out in the subway. Excessive alcohol abuse is not necessarily good for you. It was a decent day as well. It was Sunday so basically nothing was open but we managed to spend some hours out there anyway. That is always a good thing. The days are long enough anyway.

The venue was good last night. Not enough dressing rooms so we had to share but once we started blasting Topi Sorsakoski & Agents the others just left. I guess our singing helped to clean the room as well. Now I am actually playing Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison and the place is getting empty again...

We did a good show last night. We indeed are a better band when we're sober. Or soberish. Like yesterday. It was a solid set. I liked it and had good time. Earlier during the day Hittis actually did a soundcheck of his own and finally got the monitor issues cleared with Stijn the monitor dude so I guess he had a good night as well. And I managed to spot a colleague from work in the audience.

Me goes.

Paganfest

Resurrection! The blog is alive!

It's 8:35 in the bus and we're on tour. I just put some Neil Young in the DVD player and started to write this. One of the Alestorm guys is sleeping next to me. I guess he never managed to get to his bed last night. The Neil Young DVD is by the "Weld" from 1991 that was never even released on DVD! I had to download a DVD copy of a Japanese laser disc! Release it and I will buy it!

Anyway, the first date of European Paganfest is over. That was Münich, Germany. The venue was Backstage where we've been a few times before already. Excellent venue. It is nice to show these European venues to the guys of Swashbuckle after the shit holes of the North American tour. We have six bands on tour. That's a bit too much. All the guys seem to be quite nice but it's a terrible job to headline a tour like this. Last night seemed to go on forever before it was our turn to get on the stage.

We were, or least some of us were a bit worried about the German dates since we have Die Apokalyptischen Reiter on tour and they are huge in Germany. We weren't so sure how it's going to work for us to be on the stage after them. Last night they had a huge pit and the crowd was practically eating from their hands. We were watching that and wondering if there will actually be anyone left when it's our turn. There was. We had an excellent night. Our change over took really long. I really can't understand how the fuck it can be so difficult to get the violin working. After all, the tour crew knew that we have a violin. They've had our technical rider for months and we've actually been with them like 30-40 shows before but still they don't "know" that we have a violin. Bollocks.

As I said the show was good. Excellent audience and the band was in fine form. We did quite a basic set. Same songs that we've been playing for some time now. The set list has three songs from the last album and this is the first real tour with them in the set so it wasn't just "the same old set" for the audience. I'd say the funniest moment of the night was during Crows Bring The Spring. There's a part where Juho and Hittis are supposed to trade solos. For some reason Hittis missed that and was just sitting on the drum riser drinking beer. Juho saw that and just did the whole solo by himself. Except that at one point Hittis got up and went to the vocal mike with the beer bottle and started to blow into the bottle. I don't know if he managed to get any sound out of it but it looked like an excellent solo!

The DVD player didn't want to co-operate with Mr. Young. It's Thin Lizzy time then. No one can hate the Irish. Not even a German DVD player.


10:30 in the bus on our way to Berlin. Yesterday we were in Leipzig. Or actually in Engelsdorf or something like that. The venue "Hellraiser, Leipzig" is actually located in a mostly abandoned industrial area about 20 minute drive away from Leipzig's centre. For the first time ever I have my skates with me on tour. This summer I didn't skate as much as I would have wanted and the season in Finland is pretty much over so I thought that I'd continue my season in the central Europe. Well, the small towns in the former East-Germany are not made for skating. I managed to do a pretty long trip though but it included a few near death experiences. There's not that much sidewalks to skate, streets are really narrow and the people in their cars seem to think "who the fuck is that hippie and what the hell is he doing on the street. I'll just drive over him."

We had plenty of time again and actually took a local bus to the Leipzig city centre. It was Juho and the lady, Matson, Jonne and myself. First things first: we went to Saturn store at the railway station and bought the active speaker system with subwoofer so we can finally hook up all our various mp3 players to that and blast some music in the dressing rooms. we didn't really do much sight seeing. We walked to the old centre and when I saw an Irish pub I said that I'm not going anywhere else if they have some decent cider. They had Stowford on tap. We didn't go further. There was a small Chinese restaurant next to the pub so I got myself some tofu with fried vegetables as well. We did walk a bit further later and went shopping with Jonne. It was a ladies clothing store but we managed to find really good looking hippie jackets or whatever they were. Size XL was perfect for me. How big are the East-German women?

The venue had gone through some changes since our last visit. Our dressing room was for example at the downstairs where there was no dressing rooms before. We even had TV and DVD player there. DVD player refused to play our Popeda DVD though so me and Matson sneaked into Unleashed's room and stole theirs. They still hadn't fixed the bigger issues at the venue though. They always run out of water at some point of the evening so it was a bottle water shower again. Luckily I got used to that in the US of A.

We did a pretty good set again. We are changing the set each night so that the people who come to see several shows will see a bit different show each night. Die Apokalyptischen Reiter played a good set to a really responsive crowd but I guess it was our crowd after all. That was nice. Although I remember watching Ensiferum headline the first Paganfest and thinking that it must suck to be the headliner when you have four bands before you and the audience is already getting tired. Now we have five bands before us and we haven't seen a tired audience so maybe it is something that you don't see from the stage. Or maybe the audiences have been different.

Our bus driver had his 24h rest yesterday. That meant that we actually spend the night behind the venue and left this morning at 9. It's only a three-hour drive to Berlin anyway. We should be there in a half an hour or so. I just hope that this time the venue is closer to the city centre.

Hungary, Czech & Germany - Part I

Once again we're back from some festivals where I've once again been able to catch something that ain't making me feel any good. Oink. Oink.

This time we started from Hungary. We left Tampere again in the middle of the night. Our destination was Rockmaraton festival near or basically in Pécs, Hungary. A few years ago we played in Pécs at the indoor festival called Rocktriatlon. Maybe this was the same festival, just a bit bigger and longer now. At least this one lasted for a week.

We were greeted at the airport by our hostess Zsófia and a fellow who's name I didn't catch. We had again a bit of driving ahead since Pécs is about 200km south from Budapest airport. The driver was a lunatic. Some of us were afraid that they won't survive the trip. And then when we finally stopped to have some drinks he was really pissed off because we were losing time. He didn't speak a word of English but this is what Zsófia explained to us. We were quite quickly in the car ready to leave but the wanker just stands outside eating his whatever it was. Idiot. Of course when you start drinking beer you soon have to stop to relieve yourself. That was the next problem. The idiot just wouldn't stop. He was asked to stop many times but he just kept driving. Finally I raised my voice from the back so that he definitely heard that too. Zsófia translated that to him, probably included all the swear words as well, since the idiot stopped the car immediately!

In Pécs we checked ourselves in the hotel, quickly had a look at the rooms and decided to head to the festival area immediately. Except Hittis. He had learned something from the infamous Ukraine trip when he only got to Warsaw, Poland and told us that "the festival will be boring and I'll only end up drinking at the backstage the whole afternoon which will not end well."

We indeed spent the afternoon at the festival drinking beer. It was a hot day, you know. We checked out some of the bands playing and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere. At some point we were also informed that some of us will be "needed" to judge the wet T-shirt contest. We were headlining on Wednesday and our buddies My Dying Bride were headlining on Thursday. They arrived already on Wednesday and got in the festival area just before the contest. So I just grabbed Andy, their guitarist:
- "Let's go, follow me. It's going to be fun."
- "Where are you taking me?"
- "You are going to judge a wet T-shirt contest."
- "No way. Really?"
- "Yes way. Really!"
- "Let's go."

We were put to sit on a bench on the stage next to a children's plastic pool while the local announcer was getting the volunteers from the audience. We couldn't really follow that or anything else what was going on. Zsófia of course tried to explain as much as she could. Anyway, soon they had 8 or 9 girls on the stage all dressed in white t-shirts. At this point we learned that we were also supposed to be the ones pouring the water on them. Oh, well. It's shit job but someone's got to do it.

I won't go much into details since this was NOT the main event of the festival. Or was it? Once all the girls were wet we got a load of new instructions in Hungarian. Zsófia explained that we were supposed to pick three of them for the final. The first two were easy to pick since two of the girls had already exposed their boobs anyway. The third one was difficult. We couldn't really agree on that. Luckily one of the girls, a really small one, decided to take matters to her own hands and showed her boobs so the trio was ready for their final show. Which was nice. I don't know who won. The audience I'd say.

At one point during the contest Andy and myself had a short conversation. I asked him:
- "What do you think, aren't we like really dirty old men using these girls as objects right now?"
- "Yeah, we are. Excellent. I love it!"

After the competition I heard one of the nicest, if not THE nicest, things anyone has ever said about our band. Andy was talking to his band mates and said something along the lines "I just love those guys! I'd been here like a minute and they took me there! There's always something going on when they're near!"

Anyway, back to the real business. Since we were headlining we had a bit longer set than usually during the summer festivals. It was 70 minutes, so we had to play some songs that we don't do that often this summer. I can't really remember the set list that well anymore though. Our original idea now that the new album is out was that we'll replace "Tuli kokko" with "Huppiaan aarre" in the set but for example in Hungary I think we did both. "You Looked Into My Eyes" made a comeback to the set as well. I think the encore was maybe four songs so it was a decent set for the Hungarians. We have to give our best. We are related, you know!

The rest of the evening was already planned quite well too. The last band of the day was a local Iron Maiden cover band so we spent the evening watching them, drinking alcohol and behaving badly. That was nice. The band was actually pretty good. The singer sounded a lot like Bruce Dickinson. Not the current Bruce, the 1980's Bruce when he was still good.

We had 4 rooms from the hotel, all for three persons. Three of them were full and I was the lucky one to have a room of my own. In the morning I heard quite a lot of noise from the corridor and realized that it was our guys but I was just too tired to get up. Once I got up and took a shower I just wrapped a towel around me and went to search for them. Since we basically never close doors it was easy to find them. Or at least those who were up. At least Jonne and Cane were sleeping, some were out, but most of us were sitting in one of the rooms where we had taken huge amounts of alcohol from the festival previous night. I took a beer from the fridge and joined.

Tuomas and myself hadn't been up early enough for the hotel breakfast so we went downstairs to get lunch instead. When the waitress approached us I asked if she speaks English to which she replied something like "A little. Menu?" We said "Yes, please" since we thought that she going to bring us the menu from where we can order something but it turned out that we had just ordered their entire lunch menu. Well, the soup was actually really good and they actually understood when I said that I need something vegetarian. I don't know what it was but it was good as well. And it cost as 1260HUF together so it was practically free. For me at least since Tuomas paid. Ha! Sucker.

At some point of the afternoon we carried all our stuff to the nightliner that had arrived from Germany to pick us up. This may have been around 16 or 17. Then the driver went to sleep. I think we agreed to leave at 3 or 4 at night or so. Back to business ie. to the hotel room to drink. At some point we sent Valohomo shopping since he had been out and told us that he found a shopping centre. I gave him 4000HUF and asked him to bring me 10 Bacardi Breezers. He arrived later and brought those and some vodka and orange juice.

At some point of the afternoon we had already emptied the fridge and moved to the "technicians room" where they still had the fridge full. That room was right opposite of mine and both doors were fully open. At 19.00 I had to do a phone interview to Germany. I went to my own room to do that since I wanted to hear something. The sun was shining directly to my room and it was hot as hell in there so I decided to take my pants off. I was wearing only a t-shirt. The last question was "How does it look like in a typical Korpiklaani party?" I just walked across the corridor to the other room and described what I saw. Funny thing is that while changing the room I realized that the room next to ours wasn't an actual hotel room. It was a conference room with glass walls and it was full of people. Ok, I'm sure they had seen penises before. Valohomo had been out somewhere and arrived a moment after that. I told him what I did so he decided to take his pants off as well and walk past the conference room. I mean I only crossed the corridor but he walked passed the room. And did Michael Jackson style moonwalk back!

The rest of the day was quite normal festival day. I think we were taken to the festival area at around 20. We watched the shows, drank and spent time with the locals. And then it was time to pack ourselves in the bus and start the trip home. I mean, Masters Of Rock festival feels like home to us already and people working there probably meet us more often than some of our family members. Well, that basically just tells you more about my family than about Masters Of Rock...

Tuska and Україна

First of all, I got something from Ukraine. I don't know what that is but at least it ain't making me feel any good.

We were on at Tuska festival on Saturday at 17 but my festival trip started already on Friday afternoon when I packed my luggage and myself in the proletarian tube (i.e. train) to go to do a live interview with Jonne at Yleisradio. We were supposed to be there at 20. The actual interview time was 20.15. The train I took was supposed to be at Pasila station at 19.45 which should've been early enough. However the departure time came and went and we were still sitting at the Tampere railway station. Finally we hear the announcement that "There's too much traffic on the tracks and we'll wait here for another 10 minutes." Then after about a minute another announcement says that "No, we're actually leaving right now." And we did. The train moved something like 100 metres and stayed there the next 10 minutes. So finally we were about 15 minutes late from the radio interview, thanks to VR.

Immediately after the interview we met Sampo from Amfisound (www.amfisound.fi) who was bringing me my new bass. That indeed is a beautiful piece of work. I ended up using that at Tuska but didn't take it to Ukraine since I still don't have a decent flight case for it. The bass is just too long to fit in any standard case so I guess it's time to use the services of SmartCase again.

I checked in my hotel and still went to see the last notes of the first day of the festival. I met a lot of old friends, both musicians and "normal" people. Really nice. Since some of them were going to see the bands at the club called Virgin Oil I decided to go there too. I managed to get my American friends there too. I had a festival pass so I had no problems getting in even though the place was sold-out. The girls had no tickets but I was still at that point sober enough to tell the people at the door a sad story about the poor Americans who'd come all the way from Cleveland just to be left out. That worked. It was a nice evening although Turmion Kätilöt were waaaaay too loud. Really, painfully loud.

On Saturday we were supposed to meet Paavo Väyrynen, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development and his Brazilian guests. Or that's what the Finnish representative for Nuclear Blast told us. Scheduled time for that was 14.00. Well, as usual with Nuclear Blast, nothing happens on time but 2-3 hours late if ever. And they weren't Paavo Väyrynen's guests, they were Alexander Stubb's, Minister for Foreign Affairs. So all our other guys arrived to the festival area four hours before they were needed and they didn't even get to meet Paavo. Must've been boring. At least Jonne and myself were doing some interviews to kill time.

One of the bands was actually late. I guess it was Faceless. They knew already a few days earlier about that and we were actually offered their slot on the main stage. It would have been 15 minutes longer but also at the same time as the originally scheduled meeting with Väyrynen & co. so we said no. Well, after all we would have been able to that slot as well.

Last year we had to cancel our Tuska appearance since some of our gear was still in Germany. This time we were coming directly from Tampere so we were not expecting any problems like that. We were wrong. The festival claimed that they had not received any of our riders, including backline rider, so they were expecting us to bring everything including drums and guitar cabs which we of course didn't have with us. Dauntless, the previous band on the same stage were kind enough to lend us all we needed so that all went well. However, it was a bit strange that the festival who had not received ANY of our riders were still able to fill the catering rider exactly...

The show was not our best. The audience was brilliant. The tent was packed and afterward I heard people complaining that they couldn't get in or see or hear anything. I guess we were a bit nervous. Tuska just is a special festival for us. It took years to get to be part of the main event. The stage sound was not perfect. After about 4-5 songs it turned even worse since there suddenly was this really loud mid-frequency rumble that was making it really hard to hear anything precisely. I hope the audience enjoyed the show anyway. At least they got to hear two new songs, Juodaan viinaa and Huppiaan aarre.

Our flight to Ukraine was leaving at 6.55 next morning which meant that we'd have to be at the airport around 5.00. Most of us went to spend the evening at Nosturi but Hittavainen decided otherwise. He did promise to be at the airport at 5.00 though. Well, everybody else was there on time but he wasn't. And didn't answer our phone calls either. We took all his stuff from the van and checked in. The first time we heard about him was when the boarding had just started. He called from outside and asked for his passport which was in one of his bags. Why doesn't he carry it with him? Beats me. Anyway, I informed him that he can get on the flight with just his ID, since the first flight was to München anyway. But of course he couldn't get to the plane since the check-in closes exactly the same time the boarding starts. Well, we boarded anyway and though that he still has like a day and a half to get to Ukraine. How difficult can that be? Well, impossible to some.

We are in contact with him again from München airport. We try to organize it so that we can leave his passport at Lufthansa desk so that he can book the same flights for the next day but that doesn't work out with Lufthansa. Paukku tested it and managed to get through the passport control with just ID, so basically it would be possible to get to the Ukrainian soil without the passport. Ukrainian immigration would be the first one asking for that.

Ok, I have to admit that at this point this becomes a bit blurry since we arrive to Ukraine and it's mostly Paukku who is in contact with Hittis. Arriving there was interesting. Usually we have to get through the customs and immigration by ourselves and only after that there's someone at the arrival hall with a piece of paper saying "Korkiplaani", "Korplikaani" or whatever. In Ukraine they were actually standing right next to the plane when it stopped. Gogol Bordello, a crew of 15 persons, were actually on the same flight. The locals took us all apart from the other passengers, took care of our luggage and guided us through the immigration. It was slow but still probably easier that way. The terminal was interesting. It looked nothing like a terminal. It just like any other old federal building in the former Soviet Union. I guess they don't get that much international traffic there.

We were taken to a really nice hotel near the city centre and then to a restaurant to eat and drink. It was a bit difficult to order vegetarian food but I managed after all. Fried salty cheese is always good.

Now back to Hittavainen. He was trying to book him the same flights for the next day. The local organizers told us that they will be waiting there at the airport with his passport which would be alright for the immigration. However since his final destination was outside the Schengen area they were demanding to see his passport at the Helsinki airport when he was trying to book the flights. Passport number was not enough. Why not, I don't know. You can book that flight on the internet with just the passport number. Why didn't he use the internet? I don't know. Too drunk? Why didn't we tell him to use the internet? Too stupid?

The next idea was to get him to Warsaw, Poland since Poland is part of the Schengen area and passport is not needed. Warsaw is only about 500km from Lviv. Someone from Ukraine would drive there with his passport to pick him up. Hittis then later informs us that he's booked a flight that will be in Warsaw at 21.15 so we organize the driver to pick him up.

In the meantime we hang around the town, check the festival area and just generally enjoy life in the extremely hot Lviv. For a while it looks like everything is good and we'll have a violinist for the show. Until in the evening Hittis calls us and tells that he was denied from boarding the plane because he was too drunk and that he definitely has no money to book any more flights. So we of course do the only wise thing and call the driver back since there's no point in making him drive all the way there for nothing.

The rest of the evening went as usual. Nothing that special to report. However, in the morning we hear from Hittis once again. He's calling from Warsaw and asking where the hell is the driver! He had managed to exchange his booking to a different flight but didn't think it was necessary to inform us. So we started to figure out the ways to get him to Lviv. At that point it was not going to be easy anymore. It was 10 in the morning, showtime at 17 and a 1000km drive. The only way to do that was to get him somehow to Medyka, the Polish border town and at the same time someone would drive to get him from there. After a lot of talk, expensive phone calls, etc. I finally told him: "Hittis, go back to Finland." He couldn't really find any way to get there. So, it was going to be a show without a violinist.

For some reason we were taken to the stadium really early. Hours before they let the audience in. Not that it really mattered though. The catering was excellent and the weather was beautiful. I was a bit concerned if the success of the festival would be like it was in Romania a couple of weeks ago (=disaster) but luckily it wasn't. The turn out was quite good. That's always really difficult to estimate, but a few thousand people I'd say.

We played a good show. Although we were a bit different than basically all of the other bands on the bill we still got a really good response from the crowd. The organizers were the whole time really concerned about the schedule and kept telling us that we should play exactly an hour, not a minute more. We did that and got off the stage. Paukku put the outro on. I was already at the backstage packing my bass when they came to us and said "You've got to play more, you can't just leave an audience shouting like that!" So we had to go back and play some more. The schedule was not a problem anymore. Next morning we also heard from our manager that the promoters were already booking more shows in the area so I guess we were ok. Even without the violinist.

We stayed at the festival till the end. Gogol Bordello kicked ass. The rest of the night is a bit blurry. I guess I was a bit drunk. But I do remember talking to some Gogol Bordello guys outside of a night club. And then later falling asleep at the hotel bar.

Next day we were taken to the airport. It was a terrible hassle with the local airport crew. They didn't seem to know what to do with our gear. I don't really know if the problem was the locals or the Polish airline. It all seemed highly unorganized. We managed to board the plane anyway and to our surprise all our gear ended up at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. Even after the stopover in Warsaw.

Interesting weekend it was.

j.

Principality of Transylvania

So, last weekend it was time for Romania again. Our last time there wasn't really that successful trip. That was the kind of festival that you just want to forget. This time time it was more promising already from the start since they had bands like In Extremo and Stratovarius which meant that it just can't be anything like the previous time.

We left Tampere already around 5 in the Friday morning and flew to Bucharest. We were playing on Saturday so we were able to drink lots of free alcohol while in the air. Well, not that much since they weren't bringing it to us fast enough, but some at least. We arrived to Romania some time after noon and managed to be on the road in a local van by 13. The distance was less than 300km but remembering the last time driving to Iasi we knew that it was going to take long. The roads in Romania are not exactly German autobahns and especially around Bucharest they seem to be extremely congested as well. We stopped a few times to buy more alcohol and I think the whole trip took about 6 hours.

The hotel was really nice and conveniently located only 200m from the venue, Stadionul Municipal. The local promoter had organized a pre-party/dinner/whatever in the restaurant on the top floor. I think we were basically the first ones to arrive there. We ate too much and drank at least enough. There were even enough choices for vegetarians. Nice. In Extremo arrived a bit later. It was really nice to see them again and they seemed generally happy to meet us again as well so I guess our small tour with them went well. After eating too much and drinking a bit of red wine I decided to call it a day and hit the bed. According to the stories I heard next morning some of the others had an interesting night though. Including a local karaoke bar. And someone trying to get others to go to the local pub that he knew. Of course he didn't know any local pubs but he was really convinced that he was still back home in Finland...

Saturday morning I still met most of us at the breakfast so I guess the previous night wasn't that bad after all. We decided to head for some sightseeing in the city centre that was about 15 minutes walk away. We went to the old main square, took some pictures and decided that it's enough of tourism and went for a beer. We ended up spending the next two-three hours in the beer garden of a local bar. Everyone else stayed in the shade except me. Now my nose is loosing it's skin.

The festival was supposed to open it's doors at 13 and the Wacken Open Air Metal Battle thing whatever was supposed to start at 13.30. We had to take our merch there anyway so we decided to go check the place out quite early. I guess it was like 14.30 when we arrived and the stadium was empty. I'd say there was like 20-30 people. And there were no bands playing yet, so the signs were not good. The thing was like an hour and a half late already in the beginning. Nice.

We basically ended up hanging around at the venue for the entire afternoon. Not much to do. They did fill our catering rider exactly so we at least had a lot to drink. We were getting a bit bored there and after about an hour of planning Cane and myself finally did something. There was a huge amount of extra fences next to the stage and we went and built a giant pussy on the lawn.

When we finally started our show the festival was late only like 45 minutes. For the whole afternoon the local promoter kept telling us that the "audience will come" but they never did. I'd guess there was perhaps 300-400 people. Nice amount for a club but not for a football stadium. Because of the wind we couldn't use our side or back drops and since the stage was also open on all four sides we must have looked a bit strange. After we got through the first couple songs with just horrible stage sound it got better and we actually did a pretty good show. The audience was small but good and the band was quite good as well. The sound was definitely not perfect on the stage and sometimes it was really hard to follow where we actually were. I think we messed up the last section of Pine Woods but I don't think anyone in the audience really cared or even noticed.

I watched the entire In Extremo show from the stage. They were good as usual. Seemed to have lots of problems with bass gear though. And the show started a bit strangely because they were already all on stage but left again since there were some problems with the drummer's gear as well. I asked them earlier if they're going to have the full German production with all the pyros and stuff but they told me that they'll only have some local Romanian pyros. I of course saw that stuff while we were on stage and though that they looked a bit "home made". The funniest moment of the show was when the first ones went off. It was not a bang. It was not a boom. It was more like "pfffffffst". The guys on stage were looking at each other and their monitor guy was laughing his ass off. That WAS funny.

After the show we headed back to the hotel for showers and stuff and finally later in the evening ended up in the local metal bar in a cellar. Smoking was also allowed there so the "atmosphere" was quite dense. I didn't really like that and when I realized that there basically was only us left in the bar I decide to get back to the hotel.

We left Sibiu around noon. The drive back to Bucharest was faster since we didn't have to stop for the drinks that often. Once again we had overweight over 50kg. I was dealing with the airport personnel as usual and was as charming as ever. When she said that "You'll have to pay, you know that?" I replied "Yes, we know and we're prepared to do that, but usually the nice people of Finnair give us quite a good discount..." She did one phone call and said "OK, you don't have to pay anything." That was nice.

Now I guess it's time for the Midsummer celebrations. And next weekend it's going to be Tuska and Ukraine. I guess we'll be able to play Tuska this time. Ukraine? Who knows.

Been there, done that

LAX at 11.30. The shows are over, tour is not. We still have to drag our asses and gear to Finland. That means huge overweight costs and 11+ hours on a plane to London and then 3 more to Helsinki.

Last night was exactly the anti-climax I expected. After all, the last three bands did full length sets. Moonsorrow had probably the biggest audience of the evening, Primordial didn't have that much, we had quite the same as Moonsorrow although we did have quite a pit sometimes. So, basically the shows were good but everyone was tired and emotionally had already finished the tour in Hollywood and after all the shit that went on during the day last night really wasn't anything you want to write home about.

Anyway, I'm done. No boobs.

Idiots of all idiots

18.50 in the bus. Of fuck this shit! The place is fucking dump and then they are also complete fucking idiots.
- the show has been advertised as "all ages"
- their advertising has said "Doors at 7PM"
- their website says "Doors at 8PM"
- they told us they will throw every minor out at 22
- we were thinking about cancelling the whole thing since there's no point in throwing half of the audience out in the middle of Primordial's set.
- however, we decided to do the show so that every band will play a short set and Swashbuckle starts really early, so that the minors will see all bands
- Swashbuckle started at 18.15 and played of course to an empty hall
- then we realized that now they are not letting the minors in at all
- so, all schedule changes were for nothing
- what a fucking bunch of idiots

No boobs but a huge d**k

11.00 in the bus outside the venue in San Marcos, CA. We should've ended the tour last night. That would have been a perfect ending for the tour. Brilliant venue, House Of Blues, excellent location on the Sunset Boulevard, excellent audience and great shows from the bands. Tonight will just be sort of an anti-climax after last night. Although I didn't get any boobs photographed so even if the tour will probably end with an anti-climax I personally still have a chance of ending it on a high note.

Yesterday was a blast. The whole day was. Just hanging around Strip, getting a lot of sun and beer. In the morning Jonne, Cane, Matson and myself went for a breakfast to a bar close to the venue. Can't remember the name though. Ranch something. Anyway, we were sitting outside drinking our breakfast when a tourist bus passed by and they started taking pictures of us. Probably the tour guide was saying: "And there you can see a few local residents, famous rock musicians, who have probably just woken up from the gutter and dragged themselves to the bar to get drunk again. So sad. Take pictures."

As I said, the venue was just brilliant. Looks really cool outside and everything inside is just excellent. Including the local crew. Or at least the part that I met meaning basically backstage hostess and security. Presale was about 500 so I'd say there was about 700 people in including huge amount of record label people and journalists.

After the show basically everyone from the tour went to Rainbow Bar & Grill to have a drink. I guess that's sort of a must to go there when you're in Hollywood. We also saw there my all-time favourite actor Ron Jeremy. Nice. I was slightly disappointed that I wasn't wearing my "Ron Jeremy Fan Club" shirt though.

Oh, yeah. There was an earthquake during Moonsorrow's set. I didn't even notice that but some were saying that it was actually shaking the buildings.

14.45 in the bus. Crappy venue that apparently has the rule set by the local police that every minor under the age of 21 has to leave after 22.00. This would mean that some of our audience would have to leave before we even start. As Swashbuckle guys would say: "That sucks, bro." The tour damager is trying to sort things out, extending the time with the police or something. And of course there's always a possibility of cancellation if we basically can't play.

Huge knockers

8.00 in the bus in a car wash. I stayed up until 3.15 or so last night and today I am up again at 8. Fuck. And the bus is turning into a sauna again. Fuck.

San Francisco last night was a good show. Jonne said that it was his best of the tour, I on the other hand didn't feel that well about the show, so I guess it's safe to say it was ok. The venue was packed and the audience was probably the loudest of the tour. The city is known as the hippie and gay capitol of the world so I was afraid that there really isn't much audience for our kind of music but San Francisco managed to surprise me. The venue was basically decent. A huge backstage area with a toilet is always a plus. It didn't have a shower, so it was a shithole. I didn't really mind that since the toilet was big and clean and had a big sink as well. On this tour I've learned to wash my hair and other parts in the sink and was prepared to do that last night as well. While I was going there with my towel Markus asked me where did I think I was going.
- "I'm going to take a bath in the sink."
- "Good luck. There's no warm water."
No hair washing. Just have to wear the cowboy hat. Which by the way smells like a hay barn now.

My boob picture project was continued last night as well. After the show on the street next to our bus was this woman in a Korpiklaani shirt with a huge rack. She was actually talking with some Primordial guys but I went there and explained her the thing about the pictures for girlfriend and she was totally up to it. So I took a couple of pictures of those huge knockers. I mean like really huge. Definitely not my girlfriend's type but she didn't really complain last night when I sent them to her. I have a brilliant girlfriend by the way.

Boobs and cowboy hats

8.15 in the bus in Weed, CA. Yep, Weed, high on the Californian mountains. They even sell shirts with a mountain and a text "I'm high on Weed, California".

I stayed up relatively late last night, was a bit drunk as well and I still woke up exactly at 7.29. What the hell is wrong with me? Ok, it's a good thing to be up at these hours since we're still on our way from Portland, WA to San Francisco, CA and the scenery is just amazing. Justin from Swashbuckle is also up. Nice guy, doesn't talk much though.

Yesterday was a really nice day. Apparently that area of Portland was called Hawthorne that is known for it's hippie communes and weed consumption. It was reall nice neighbourhood. I wouldn't mind living there. The venue was on Hawthorne Bldv and you found basically everything you needed from the same street. We for example found the best record shop of the tour. Ok, the place was mess but the enormous selection of old vinyl and really cheap prices made up for it. I've basically decided that I won't buy 12" vinyl from the tours since they are really difficult to get home safe. Yesterday I had to make an exception since they had Jethro Tull's "Living In The Past" 2LP from 1972 with the hard book-like covers, inserts and everything in near mint condition and they only asked $8 for it! That's like 5€! Nothing. And I also got the Skynyrd's "Street Survivors" from 1977 with the original cover art where the guys are in flames. You all of course know that quickly after it's release it was drawn back from the stores since a few members of the band died in a plane crash and apparently burned. That was $8 as well. A bargain.

Now I am alone again, Justin went back to bed. I am sitting in a tour bus through sunny California and listening to Skynyrd's live album "One More From The Road" wearing a cowboy hat. Now I am going to go and see if there's any cold beer in the fridge. C'mon, you're all jealous!

Yes, there was. Yeehaa! I'll be back soon.

So, the first beer of the day is gone. I wrote a few days ago about the privileged position we're in. This moment right now right here is just so unbelievably beautiful that I can't even describe the feeling. Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Gimme Three Steps", sunshine, Californian mountains, ice cold beer.

Back to the business. Yesterday was a good show. For some reason the audience ignored Swashbuckle entirely and entered the venue just before Blackguard. Maybe they just wanted to spend more time outside and since the venue had this "No return" -policy Swashbuckle had to suffer. We on the other hand had a full house so we can't complain. Except that my shower was again bottled water at the backyard. You know the policy already: the venue was really nice with good bar with good cider and everything, but they had no decent backstage or showers, so it was a shithole.

Last night I also did what I was asked. I asked politely this girl if I can take pictures of her boobs for my girlfriend at home and she was up to it immediately! So I now have nice pictures of her pierced twins as well. Why the fuck didn't I start this earlier?

Sleepless in Seattle

7.30 in Portland, OR. Why the hell can't I sleep on this tour? Why am I once again up at 7 in the morning? Why is my sleeping average something like 5 hours a night?

Yesterday we were in Seattle, WA at the venue called Studio Seven. Many of us called it a shithole, but since it had a shower AND warm water I think it was a nice venue. Although there was also a mouse. I guess it was more scared of us though. Well, except maybe Juho was more scared of the mouse. As I wrote earlier the venue was really far away from the city centre but Matson and myself walked there and back anyway. That was like 11-12 kilometres all together. I actually did two phone interviews to Belgium while we were walking. The city centre was basically nice. It was a bit different than many others since it was not so flat. We went to the local market area as well (terrible fish smell, which I hate, by the way) but couldn't really find anything that interesting. Except when we were walking back along the 1st Avenue and saw that all the strip clubs are there. So we knew exactly where to go after the show.

The show itself was a really good one. We played well, stage sound was at least decent and the audience was really good. Really good movement and once again surprising sing-alongs. We really had no idea what to expect from this tour and to our big surprise in every city we've met people who know the songs by heart, sing along and after the show come to tell us how they had been waiting this to happen for 6 years and had already lost their hope of ever seeing us live. Heartwarming.

After the show we drank a few beers in the bar. I got quite easily people convinced that we really should take a cab to the strip joint but then came the strip joint expert Nick the Merchandiser and told us that in Washington it's forbidden to sell alcohol at the strip joints but you can always buy a can of Coke for 5 bucks. We didn't go. Alcohol 1, boobs 0.

Today, Portland, Oregon. The venue is again in the middle of nowhere. Well, not really nowhere, just really far from the city. This one doesn't have showers or even a backstage, so it's a shithole, but I'll still give it a few extra points since it's called Hawthorne Theatre. Yep, theatRE.

Today I will try to get more pictures of boobs. Lady at home liked the previous pair so much that she wants to get more. And who am I to argue. I like a good pair of knockers as well.

Boobs

10.00. An industrial area on the outskirts of Seattle, WA. The weather sucks and the area pretty much sucks as well. At least we're in the US again and the internet connection on the bus works again. I can see the city skyline quite nicely but it's probably too far to walk there. So I guess I'm stuck here.

Yesterday's venue was the best of the tour. Commodore Ballroom in the heart of Vancouver. The venue was huge. Presale was 350 so I'd say there was 500 people max. Way too little for a barn like that but otherwise a good amount. During all the sets, including ours, there was a girl in the front row with her boobs out. That was nice sight. A bit disturbing perhaps, but still. C'mon. Boobs. The best thing since the sliced bread.

We did a bit different show than usual. We forgot to play Happy Little Boozer and when we came off from the stage before the encore there were a couple of Primordial members asking why we didn't do that and Jonne said: "We didn't? I thought we did. Well, we'll do it now then." So we started the encore with Happy Little Boozer and they came to the stage to dance and sing the chorus. Then we did the "normal" encore opener Let's Drink and after that when everyone was prepared to finish with Ii Lea Voibmi Jonne said to the audience that "The next song is called Palovana!" so we did that too and after that we finally finished with Ii Lea Voibmi.

Afterwards I noticed the boob girl from the front row with some members of a certain opening band and thought that since she wasn't that shy about them earlier she probably won't mind if i take a picture of the twins. She didn't, so I now have pictures of her boobs. Nice.

Flat Calgarians

10.00 in the bus in the middle of nowhere. I can only hope that all touring musicians realize how privileged they really are. For myself there has been a few key moments when I realized that. One of them was a beautiful extremely hot morning when I woke up in the bus on the road from Czech to Italy. We were driving through Brenner Pass and I'd never seen anything as beautiful. I just sat in the upper front lounge and enjoyed the scenery. Today I woke up at 8.25 in the middle of massive Canadian mountain range. Since that I've just been admiring the scenery and thinking how extremely lucky we are.

Even without all the traveling experiences we still would be extremely lucky if the shows were always like yesterday in Calgary. The place was almost full, probably around 800, the same as last time, but this time they knew us better. It was definitely the tour's best concert so far. We were good and the audience was just crazy. We can only hope that the next time we come to the North America the places we've now been for the first time will all be like our second time in Calgary. Unbelievable.

There was a lot of stagediving last night. I think Mike from Swashbuckle started it. He asked from the security guy why they are marking the hands of crowdsurfers and he explained that it's allowed twice but once you get marked the third time they'll throw you out. Mike asked him what they're gonna do to him since he's from one of the bands and the security answered "Nothing. Do whatever you want." And he did. He dived a few times from the stage, Ville from Moonsorrow dived a couple of times but the funniest and at the same time scariest diver was Pat from Swashbuckle since the man must be at least 150kg. Swashbuckle guys were still in their pirate suits as well. I'm sure that there are now a few badly hurt teenagers in Calgary who have no idea what hit them.

Flat

15.00 in the dressing room in Calgary. The venue has actually been changed and it's now the same as it was the last time we were here. Macewan Ballroom at the university campus area. This is a really nice venue with real dressing rooms and showers and everything. And female university students. Nice sight for sore eyes.

Yesterday in Edmonton was quite good. We played a good set as usual with some Rainbow and Accept riffs thrown in. The audience was quite nice as well. It was a Monday night so maybe not wild as some other audiences but still nice. And after the show I took a bath as usual. Toilet sink. It's not that bad when you get used to that.

Canada is a strange country. First of all there's nothing. The country is a flat piece of land with just nothing. Then suddenly there's a city in the middle of nowhere with skyscrapers and all. Everything is really clean as well which is of course really nice. The cities look busy and for the first look you'd think that "Hey, the venue's in the centre of the city, there must be lots of interesting stuff around here" and then you realize that there really isn't anything. Or maybe we're just stupid and can't find whatever there is.

The people we've met have all been really nice. Except for the idiot bikers. Everybody's been really friendly and open, in both Canada and USA. I've heard many times the sentence: "Oh, I love your accent! Where do you come from!" and when I say "From Finland" quite many of them start telling how they've been to Finland or they're going to go there or they have relatives living in Finland. Finland. No matter how hard you try, you can never escape.

Prairie dogs, those sneaky bastards

17.30 at the backstage in Edmonton. Finally they got the internet working. Today's venue is basically a nice old theatre kind of thing in the city centre but since there's no shower, it's a shithole. Edmonton seems really strange. There's basically is a lot of stuff in the city centre but still there's not much. The river and the valley give it a nice touch though. If someone askes me to describe Canada with just one word, the word would be "flat". Edmonton is not that flat so it is probably one of the nicest looking places here. It has a river. It can't be that bad.

Earlier today we went out with Jonne, Matson and Juho. We walked around the city getting some strange looks from the locals. I guess they don't see our kind of people that often. We also found an English pub so it was breakfast time. I had two pints of Strongbow cider and a veggie burger with sweet fries. Yep, sweet. Strange. They were good though.

Yesterday was a nice day as well. The place was ok. No shower, so it was a shithole, but still. It was located at the industrial part of the town but Regina is a small town so everything was in the walking distance. Everyone went out except me who stayed in the bus a while typing. Then I went out alone and bumped into Mitja so we continued out Regina tour together. City centre didn't really have anything but the park and the reservoir around the whatever creek were quite nice. We even took a guided tour around the Saskatchewan Legislative Building.

The weather was really hot so back the venue we all just basically chilled out. Some of us played football and some played soccer. Although I don't understand why they call American football football, since it's mostly played by hands and the "ball" is not a ball. I was trying to take a picture of prairie dogs running around but those bastards were too fast.

The show was really good. Not much people but still totally different than in Winnipeg. No death threats from the bikers. Good show, nice people. After the show there was still a few hours to kill so we basically just hung aroung the buses and drank few beers.

Let's see what today brings.

Winnipeg idiots

9.00 in the bus approaching Regina, SK. Weather looks beautiful, but is actually freezing. I want to go to California!

Was yesterday's show better than cancelling it? Not really sure. The venue was shit. Gear was shit. Turnout was shit. But there were people wearing Moonsorrow and Korpiklaani shirts and they got good shows so I guess it was worth. The original promoter had probably known already for a while that he's not going to organize the show. Practically no advertizing and even the venue had posters of the Testament show happening on the same day, but not Paganfest posters. Oh well, live and learn. In Europe we've grown out from the venues like that but obviously there's still some ground work to be done in some parts of the world. Luckily the venue was in the same building with a motel. Woohoo! Shower!

Oh yeah. Not a day without an idiot. This time it was four of them. Already from the early evening there were also four motorcycle gang members in the venue. Or some other gang, maybe not motorcycle but still wearing the gang vests. When we were about to start our show and Cane walked in wearing his "Happy Little Boozers - Beerland" vest those idiots surrounded him and started to push him around asking about the gang he's in. They couldn't understand that it's not a gang, it's a band. Suddenly one of them approached him from behind and just tore the vest off. I can only admire Cane keeping cool. In the same situation, someone attacking me, I would've gone berzerk. I am a nice, calm person, but touch me and you're dead. Maybe with the four idiots it would have been me dying so it was good it was Cane. All this added a nice little touch to the show. Are we going to be beaten up after the show? Later I heard that they had been harrassing also our merchandiser Nick because of our common "Korpiklaani - Finland" skull t-shirts. What a bunch of wankers.

Today's venue is the smallest of the tour. Do they have shower? Do they have internet? I can only hope.

Internet laundry

Woohoo! Free internet! In the self service laundry. The only reason I came to do some laundry was the free internet. I have enough clean clothes for the entire tour.

The venue seems to be located in a village called Osborne. I guess it's a suburb of Winnipeg. At first sight it seems that there's nothing around here but there actually is lots of stores, small novelty shops, liquer stores and restaurants. Show's presale is really bad but at least we're doing it. Beats the cancellation.

Cancelled, not cancelled, whatever

Around 7 in the morning, approaching Canadian border. I hope all goes well there. At the border I mean. We've crossed it already twice on this tour with no problems but this crossing point is the one where Canada trains all their border control officers and is supposed to be a bit tricky. They may take any vehicle and decide to use it as training material for the most thorough search they know. We'll see.

Yesterday's show was again quite good one. As I said earlier the place was a shithole but technically pretty good and it was pretty much filled with the great audience so we have nothing to complain about the show itself. We added "Crows Bring The Spring" to the set last night. We didn't really leave anything out. We didn't do "Metsämies" but that's been on and off the whole tour.

Now we're heading to Winnipeg. For a few days there's been some speculation if the show will happen or not. The tour manager has been saying that there's a 90% chance of cancellation and when I asked why exactly he answered: "Because the local promoter is an idiot." Apparently someone has sold the tour package to local promoters when Eluveitie was still included and when they dropped out that someone jsut forgot to inform the local promoters about the change. They are now basically getting less for the same money and therefore some of them have been a bit difficult. Yesterday afternoon we got the final work: "Tomorrow's an off day." However later in the evening we got even more final word: "We're on tomorrow." So, it got cancelled already but the owner of the venue decided to have the show anyway so the local promoter was just dropped off and we're on as usual.

This bus network is brilliant but it only works in the USA so in Canada we have to rely on the venues' networks. Hopefully they have networks there too.

Small update

13.45 in St. Paul, MN. There's nothing in this town. I think we found the centre but there was basically nothing interesting. Haven't been to the venue yet. Doesn't look too good.

Yesterday was a good day from start to finish. We played a really good set in front of a really enthusiastic audience. There was two or three huge security guys trying to keep the mosh pit down. I guess they managed to do that but there still was quite a pit at times.


Why do we do soundchecks? In the soundcheck we check the most important thing to us, the monitors. Why, since they are never like that in the evening when the show starts?

Primadonnas

14.15 in the bus at Mokena, IL, suburb of Chicago. Beautiful hot weather, just been laying on the grass with some MSorrow guys. Really nice way to leave behind all the shit that went down last night. If Cleveland was bad, yesterday was just disaster. We did something that we've never done before, and hopefully never ever will. We walked off the stage after 5 songs. It was just waste of time playing there without any monitors. They were fine for a minute, then their power amp clipped and was cooling down for the next 2 minutes and the monitors were totally silent. You just can't sing or play a fretless instrument like violin like that. Since the crew didn't do anything about that we thought that why should we be there pretending that all is well and we're having a good time when everything is shit. So we left the stage. After about 15 minutes of screaming and shouting and everyone calling everyone with every possible bad name they managed to fix the problem. Why couldn't they do that during the show? I don't get it. We finished the set after all. So the audience in Covington got a really short set but an extra long encore.

As I said, today's a different thing. Beautiful weather, nice venue and showers. Don't have to wash myself in a bar's kitchen sink like last night. Let's just forget that there was yesterday.

No post without idiots though. During Groomborrow's set we suddenly noticed about 20 police cars rushing past us and stopping about 200 meters from the venue. A bit later we heard that someone had shot a police officer. Some of us decided to walk there to see what's going on. Quite idiotic, if you ask me.

Idiots

10.00 in the bus. Just visited Wal-Mart. I was going to get some vodka because last time I went to Wal-mart they had that but once I was inside I realized that it was in Mexico. No vodka, but they had Strongbow.

No showers yesterday after all. The hotel didn't allow us to use a room just as a shower. Well, they did allow that for five persons per room but that felt too expensive. So after the show I dived in a tub. The venue had a huge old metallic bath tub at the backstage full of ice and beer. of course at that point it was only ice and water. And I took a bath in that.

Back to the show. It was shit. The crew, ours or the local, don't know which one, did a shit job. Linecheck before the show was complete except for the bass, since they couldn't get any sound out of it. I finally ended up walking to the stage myself. I turned the master volume knob from 0 to 5 and there was sound. Idiots. Once we finally start all we can hear on stage is Jonne's guitar so loud that it was hurting my ears. Once we get to chorus we also realize that Cane's vocals are on Juho's monitor and vice versa. And of course so loud that it hurts. On Matson's monitor there's nothing. Except Jonne's guitar painfully loud. We got through the first two songs but then just stopped the show for a moment and started fixing it up. It got better, still not good but less bad. We continued the show but I couldn't really hear the drums so I walked to the monitor desk and asked if I can get some snare in front. The idiot started with "Yeah, but then..." and I just walked away. Idiot. That was actually our tour manager. The one who is always calling others idiots. I was sure that he would come up with an explanation or an excuse for all that. Only about a minute after we got back to the backstage he walks in and turns to me. Before he says anything I told him that "If you are going to explain your way out of that shit, I don't want to hear that." So he says nothing and just walks out again. Idiot.

Now to Covington, KY.

Vesilahtelaiset New Yorkissa

Oh, how I hate this fucking Windows Vista! Yesterday it lost it's connection to the bus network and just can not connect anymore at all.

Now it's 11.30 and we're on our way to Cleveland, Ohio. Yesterday we were in New York City. That was brilliant. Once we got to the city we went out with Matson and three Moonsorrow guys. Janne, a fellow vegetarian and New York expert, took us to a place where they prepared amazing thick cold drinks from fresh fruits and vegetables. Maybe the place was called Jamba Juice. I can't fucking check because of the fucking Windows Vista. Fuck.

Anyway, Janne had to go to the Guitar World interview and we were left alone in the big city. We decided to act like tourists and walked to Empire state Building and went up even though the $20 price felt a bit high. Well, it's only like $0,05 per metre. They take picture of every entering person in front of a green background and later add a night photo of the building to it. We went there all four together. When we were leaving we checked the photo and we actually decided to buy that since the picture was so good that we even decided to form a new band because we already had our first promo picture! That band has two drummers
and no guitarist. It will probably be better than most bands just because of that.

The venue was called Blender Theater. Why do the Americans always misspell the word "theatre"? Anyway, one of the nicest venues except that still no shower. After the show I washed my hair in the sink and actually I washed myself entirely in the sink. That worked pretty well although the floor was a bit wet after that. Build yourself a shower and it won't happen again. The show itself was a blast. We're tighter show by show. We were in New York City so did a bit of Kiss as well... The venue had signs "Moshing & crowdsurfing are prohibited" which really didn't stop the audience. There was a huge moshpit and even some crowdsurfing. Good show. Two kids from Vesilahti playing in New York City.

17.45 in Cleveland. Masa, Juho and myself just returned from the city. It's a couple of kilometres away but worth going. We went to Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame & Museum and for example bought Cane a gift since it's his birthday today. The man is sixteen. Again. We brought him a guitar puzzle. Maybe 50 pieces so I think he can manage that.

Today's venue is again a shit hole. Peabody's. No showers but we're taking a hotel room so that everyone can take a shower if they want. I guess I'll survive this tour after all.

Statler and Waldorf

Monday morning at 8.30. We're parked somewhere outside of New York City just waiting for the traffic to clear. The venue for today is in the heart of Manhattan so I would have wanted to be there earlier and go sightseeing.

Yesterday we played at Jaxx, in West Springfield, VA. The venue didn't have any kind of backstage, dressing room, shower or toilets. Well, of course they had toilets but we had to share them with the customers. All this usually gives me the right to call a venue a shithole. Jaxx just was otherwise so nice that I can't do that this time. For the first time ever I heard our sound tech say: "Well, the PA-system is so fucking powerful for the venue of this size that it just has to sound good." The venue's monitor tech was a true professional as well. And we saw one of the venue's own guys shouting to our tour manager and basically telling him to fuck off. "I work here every fucking day of the year and you come here for one day. You really think you this better?" Serves him right. He's a good tour manager but needs to be told to fuck off every now and then. He does that to everybody else anyway.

Jaxx was in the middle of nowhere about half an ride from Washington D.C. but there was still plenty of things around like Starbucks and this mall called Whole Foods that actually sells lots of different vegan, vegetarian and organic foods. I went there and filled the fridge and freezer. That was nice.

Yesterday we did a soundcheck again as well. Not really for the sound but we rehearsed Pine Woods (ie. played it once). We dropped Metsämies from the set and added Pine Woods and changed things around a bit as well. In my opinion all this made a better set. We also played our best show so far last night. As usual, we are getting so much tighter show by show when we're on tour. The venue had a sort of a balcony for the staff and bands where they could sit and watch the show. Ville and Markus of Goonmorrow sat there the whole show and looked exactly like those two owls on The Muppet Show. Were they Statler and Waldorf? Can't even check since the internet is not working here. It works with the telephone network and apparently this parking lot doesn't have the connection. Anyway, they looked like those two who always ridicule everything:
- "Did the band finish?"
- "No, but someone should finish the band!"
I am not really sure if they were owls. I thought that they were something called "huuhkaja" in Finnish and now I found out that it is Eurasian Eagle-owl in English and they only live in Europe and Asia (hence the name) so I doubt that they had them on an American TV-show. Whatever.

After all, the venue did have a shower. It was raining like hell when we finished so I just stood naked behind the bus for 10 minutes and washed myself. Didn't even get arrested.

Yesterday I again did some interviews. One for the radio and one for Washington Post. I thought that the Washington Post thing was brillian. A really long, deep interview for a fucking Washington Post. C'mon, how cool is that!

Now I'll make myself a nice vegetarian breakfast.