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!
Monday 28 September 2009
Saturday 26 September 2009
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.
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.
Thursday 24 September 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday 23 September 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday 22 September 2009
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.
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.
Sunday 20 September 2009
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.
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.
Saturday 19 September 2009
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...
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...
Friday 18 September 2009
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.
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.
Thursday 17 September 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday 16 September 2009
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...
- "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...
Tuesday 15 September 2009
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.
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.
Monday 14 September 2009
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.
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.
Sunday 13 September 2009
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.
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.
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