Canada

Good morning from Canada! It's 8.30 in the morning and we just crossed the border to Canada. After about five hours of sleep I feel surprisingly fresh. Maybe it's just Pirkka-Pekka Petelius CD that is lifting the spirits. We spend almost 24 hours traveling from Tampere to New York. The pilot did two unsuccessful approaches and finally got us another runway which made us to arrive an hour late. On the positive side: we got to stay an extra hour on the plane for the same money! Immigration was basically quite easy but it took awfully long. British Airways had lost Cane's clothes as well, but we should get them delivered to one of the venues. Hopefully. Otherwise he will start smelling quite badly.

The buses were parked at the hotel few kilometers away from JFK. When we finally got all the gear we had to take an airport shuttle there. We said quick hellos to everyone and got in the buses. Swashbuckle and merch people are on our bus. Seem like nice people.

13.30 in Toronto. The gear is in the venue and we just returned from a long walk. Three Spoonmorrow guys and three of us just went out to get some drinks. We had to ask for a way twice but we finally found a liquer store. It is surprisingly difficult to find any alcohol in Canada. Or maybe it's just Ontario. Since we don't get our full rider from the venues I guess I will have a lot more to report on that subject while the tour continues.

Today's venue is The Opera House, www.theoperahousetoronto.com. Seems like a decent venue with the capacity of 825. Would be nice if the others were even close to this kind of place but I guess I'm hoping too much.

14.45. We just learned that we were after all supposed to bring our own symbals. We asked it before the tour and were under the impression that the tour organizer Rock The Nation brings them. So, Spoonmoron's Marko will kindly lend Matson hi-hat and ride and off to crash shop we go. Viuh.

16.15. The first soundcheck is done. It was long and slow as usual. And Cane's guitar was acting up. As usual. The interesting thing was to see the whole band up, sober and soundchecking in a good mood. Strange.

13.45 on Thursday. Yes, Thursday. I haven't been able to write anything for a while since my laptop has been missing. The other bus with Soonborrow and Primordial broke down and the guys have been riding on our bus and someone just moved my laptop case somewhere. And now I found it from the sofa again. We're still all in the same bus but today they should get a new one. We only had about 250 kilometres to drive today to Quebec City but since the idiot tour manager left his laptop in Montreal we have to drive that twice and we're late.

16.45 at the venue in Quebec. The network is shite. Don't know when I will be able to post this. Anyway, the two shows we've done so far have been really good. Places have been mostly full, we've played moderately well and all the venues have had showers and warm water. Can't really complain. Except that our bus is meant for twelve persons and we have 25.