A witty headline

Saturday, September 1, in the bus behind the venue in Joliet, IL.

It is raining. We now have all the ingredients for mojitos but the weather is not a mojito weather.

Opera House in Toronto, is still an ok venue. Not as lovely as the previous two, but still decent. The biggest problem is the complaining neighbours which means that you can only enter backstage during the changeovers or through the audience. It was painfully hot day and the backstage was like a Swedish sauna so we weren't really sitting there anyway. I hung my stage clothes to dry outside of the venue earlier in the day. When they were dry I carried them to backstage and they got wet again. Moist.

Audience was great. 620 attending. Nice. The set was the same but this time with the encore of "Wooden Pints" and "Pellonpekko". We didn't do any encores on the first two shows, but that doesn't mean that there was something wrong with the audiences. Basically it all goes back to the hand injury...

Aftershow party wasn't that much of a party. Some fans were buying alcohol for Moonsorrow and us in the nearest possibly bar. At least it was good to meet some old friends. We had a border crossing ahead after like a 2-hour drive or so. I wasn't sure if I should stay up drinking till that or go to bed. I did half and half. Had some drinks and then went to sleep closer to the border. That's idiocy for you, kids. Waking up after an hour like that is terrible. Border crossing was sort of smooth anyway. However, they did lose my immigration paper that was between my passport. Good thing that I checked my passport before we left. I had to go back to the immigration to get a new one issued. The officer tried to charge us money for re-issue until one of the other officers said to him: "Isn't that a bit wrong so it was actually us who lost it?" We didn't pay.

If Toronto was hot, Cleveland, OH was a fucking inferno. It was so hot outside that you actually WANTED to get in Peabody's. Peabody's is a shithole that should be blown up. Usually the smelly basement has been the backstage but now the whole basement was closed so there wasn't even a toilet for the bands available! What a dump. Again it was one those days spent everywhere else except at the venue.

We had a radio interview with Mitja and Heri. We were picked up from the venue and driven to the WRUW studio where we learn that it is not just an interview but a 2-hour show we're guesting. Metal Meltdown with Dr. Metal. "Dr. Metal, eh? And from which university is your degree again?" Not that bad for Mitja and myself but Heri had a show to catch. It was a rather relaxed event and Heri managed to get to his show on time. All good there.

The show was as usual, including the encore. Not big fuckups except that in the beginning Kalle couldn't really hear himself at all. That was soon fixed though. In general I'd say that the show was a routine show. Luckily our routine shows are still rather good.

At least the venue had booked a hotel room for us for the after show showers, which was nice. The aftershow party was pretty much standing on the sidewalk next to the buses with some local people. I drowned at least a million Bud Lights. I will never ever again try to get drunk with that shit. It is impossible. Just makes you full as hell.

In general I'd say that it was a pretty standard Peabody's show. Bands are good, audience is good, venue both sucks AND blows. Yes, it IS physically possible to suck and blow at the same time. But it was definitely good to see old friends, especially half of Forged In Flame with whom we toured earlier. Nice blokes, brilliant band.

I went to bed pretty much as soon as we left Cleveland. The excess amount of that horrible Bud Light had it's side effects so I had to get up 3 times in the next 2 hours or so. Every time there was the same person sleeping in the front lounge. First time, he was sitting on the couch, second time lying on the couch and third time lying on the floor with several full beer cans around him. I would like to hear THAT story.

And now we are at MoJoes in Joliet, IL. No backstage, no shower. Nothing. Gotta love America.