Nosturi and other stuff

Thursday, January 1, 2009, at home.
So, we arrived safely at Helsinki-Vantaa on Tuesday afternoon, got all our stuff from the belt and headed whoever to where ever. Jonne and Valohomo drove to Lahti, Hittis went to his brother's place, Juho went I don't know where and the rest of us drove to Järvenpää to spend a night in hotel. Well, I only went there to spend a few hours before my girlfriend would come from work in Kouvola and pick me up and take me home to Tampere.

The next show was of course in Nosturi, Helsinki on New Year's Eve with Kiuas and Moonsorrow headlining. I've been talking at home so much about how good start for a day is a bottle or two red wine so we started our morning with red wine and almost missed our train to Helsinki. In Helsinki we walked to Nosturi and found out that we have nothing to do. We arrived a bit after 16 and we started really working at 20:10 with the soundcheck. It was of course nice to meet the guys from the other bands again but otherwise the afternoon was quite boring. Basically just sitting at the backstage or in the hall watching others working and trying not to drink too much.

The show itself was a good one. We played exactly the same set that we did already a couple of times with InEx so it went quite well. We know how to do that already. Audience was really good as well and it was really nice to see that most if not all of them were already inside the venue when we started which is not always the case with opening bands in Finland. I could easily spot a few old friends in the audience. A special mention goes to this English girl who we've met many times around UK already, last time was in London on the Finnish Fire tour I think. Apologies to all the friends who wanted to say "hello". We left to Tampere already during Kiuas' set.

So, 2008 is now past. Was it a good year? It was. We released a good album and did about 90 shows. We travelled around the world a few times, drank a lot of alcohol and Coke Light/Pepsi Max (Juho's department), made a lot of new friends, hopefully not many enemies, did a couple of successful longer tours, dozens of festivals and ended the year on a high note with In Extremo and finally with the Finnish audience in Nosturi. Thank you.

2009. The year for us is already shaping up. The first live appearances will be around mid-March. We'll use January well and rehearse the material for the next album. Recordings will start in the beginning of February and the release date is somewhere in September 2009. And of course there's the North American tour in April-May.

Have a good year!

The final results

Düsseldorf airport at around 11. The short InEx tour is over. It was a really nice one. I wish all the tours we'll ever do will be like that. I had already lost my trust that there actually is that thing called German punctuality, but I guess I have just been working with wrong Germans. Everything worked like a clock. We only had to take care that we start on time and especially finish on time and all the rest was someone else's problem.

The last show was in Leipzig in a venue called Haus Auensee.
I have no idea when it was originally built and what for, but it was a really interesting building. The stage for example had a really beautiful ornamented arc above it. It was quite nice except that at one point there was terrible smell of shit around the entire building but I can honestly say that it wasn't me!

Our show was like the others. The audience
was apart from a few members quite unaware of us. Every time when we started our set we got this blank stare for a while, then they started tapping their feet, later they start even clapping their hands and finally they are smiling and dancing. New fans! Yeehaw! Yesterday I even managed to see the start of InEx set so it was a success in that sense as well.

We were leaving quite soon after InEx set since we had a long drive to Düsseldorf. I didn't want to go InEx's dressing room right after they had finished so I couldn't really say thank you or goodbye, but their lead singer was leaving quite soon as well and he came to our bus to say goodbye and also said something about the plans for the next summer. We'll see what happens. Now the boarding is about to start. To the Batmobile!

Hangover

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

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

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

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

Hannover

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

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

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

And now I'll head for breakfast.

Kantri tulee, kantri tappaa

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

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

Another town, another place...

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

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

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

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

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

Perfect ending

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

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

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

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

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