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.

Hangover

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

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

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

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

Erfurt, Bochum

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

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

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

Blaah blaah whatever

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

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

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

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

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