Rocktower

The festival season of 2009 started last weekend. We played in Lübeck, Germany at Rocktower festival. We've been to Lübeck many times already but we've always played at Treibsand which is basically a squat or at least has been. I guess they nowadays have some sort of official status since they've started to renovate and have even built new backstage that is actually behind the stage. Wow. Rocktower took place in the concert hall right next to Treibsand and one of the organizers was actually this guy from Treibsand whose name I can't remember right now. Jens?

Anyway the trip to Germany was just the same as so many times before this one. We did meet Ensiferum at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport since they were coming to the same festival. We had a small chat about the visa interviews at the US embassy since they've been there before. Interesting. They told us that it's totally erratic. They'll put someone through series of in-depth questions about for example his ex-boss in 1994 and then the next interview will be about the weather. It is also really possible to fail the interview like Janne, their drummer, did the first time. The reason was the terrible hangover and the smell of alcohol.

The venue was a labyrinth. The route from stage to the dressing room was up, down, left, right, here, there, all several times in random order. The venue was really good anyway. One of those real concert or conference halls with enough rooms for bands and also good showers. Quite the opposite to the forthcoming US tour with no dressing rooms and showers in maybe 3 out of 21 venues.

We spend the day hanging around the venue. We watched a part of Paul Di'Anno's set as well. I think it was quite good. I am not sure if I like the idea that he's touring the world playing old Iron Maiden songs mostly written by Steve Harris but the show was pretty good anyway. Di'Anno was actually the only show I watched. We had a signing session during the afternoon as well.

Our show itself was again decent at least. Not our best but good. Nice audience, lots of interaction, big stage to move around, etc. Although monitor sound was extremely bad, especially the bass. I tried to ask afterwards if they were feeding the clean sound to the monitors and side fills instead of the "SansAmped" sound but they said no. Should I trust them? Hmm. Oh yeah, we played yet another new song at Rocktower. An ode to the one thing that keeps the engine running and fingers oiled: vodka. The song is surprisingly titled as "Vodka". After the show we were all complaining to Matson that the song ended prematurely. At home I listened to what we had recorded and it turned out that he was the only one right!

That's about it right now. Plans for the near future:
- Friday morning at 8 something: flight to Frankfurt
- Friday at 20: signing session at Ragnarök
- Friday at 22: showtime at Ragnarök
- Saturday after: flight back to Helsinki
- Sunday afternoon/evening: prelistening session of the new album with some journalists that Nuclear Blast flies into Helsinki
- Monday: back to Tampere
- Tuesday: visa interviews at the US embassy in Helsinki
- Tuesday evening: video shooting
- etc.