Budapest, Sofia, Serbia & Zagreb

October 12, at the venue in Budapest, Hungary, 18:05

Just returned from the city to see that the local opener is actually the same band that we toured with in May this year. Virraszok or something like that.

We went to the city to meet Cane's brother who lives here. Took a tram and tried to change to a different one to get to our meeting place. There was no tram line 16. The signs meant that it was a bus line. The symbol looked too similar to a tram symbol. Damn you graphic designers! Anyway, we managed to meet him about 200 metres away from his home after he had already traveled 3km to find us… We actually got off the tram on the wrong side of the river and crossed the river by foot. No, we were not acting like Jesus, there was a bridge. While on the bridge we saw the river boats and said "Why don't we take a romantic boat cruise on Danube?" Well, there was only four males present so our little chat turned into a really dirty talk about things what four males could actually do together. The family walking in front of us turned around and the father said in Finnish: "We are a little shamed of your language boys." They were cool though. Told us how they had just been robbed. Nice scheme the criminals had. Man came to them with a map asking for help and suddenly another man shows up dressed like Columbo introducing himself as a police officer and quickly showing the Finns some sort of official looking piece of paper. "The police" says that he suspects that they have been illegally exchanging money and needs to see and count their money. The stupid Finns let him and only later realize that some of it is gone. Idiots.

We just basically sat there on the terrace of a restaurant, ate something and had a couple of drinks. Budapest is a lovely town but I've seen it already. Wasn't really interested in sightseeing today.

Oh yes. We're criminals. It is always a pain in the ass to figure out the tram tickets etc in different towns where there's no English guide's available, so we just don't pay. On our way back to the venue we were thrown out from a tram by a ticket inspector. The lady said wanted 6000HUF from each of us but since we didn't have that money she threw us out. She could have also written us a bill to pay later but I guess she knew that the local public transport company would never see that money.

I don't like this venue. Too complex, not enough tables or seats. And no internet access.

October 13, on the bus somewhere in Serbia, 11:30

We are on our way to Sofia, Bulgaria. This is the longest drive so far on the tour, almost 800km, and we're driving through Serbia which is not a member of the European Union. We crossed the border at 5 in the morning and everybody had to get out of the bus. The officers ordered Matson and myself back in to put some pants on.

The show yesterday had a bad start. The first five or so songs were partly ruined because of Jonne's guitar not working properly. Although I am pretty sure that the problem was not the guitar but the shit new wireless the guitarists are using. They simply suck. My old Shure system works and will work after the World War III too. Technical problems suck. They just take all the fun out of the show even if they happen to someone else and are eventually sorted out.

Attendance yesterday was 741. Just had a little chat with the manager and the booking agent. It seems that with this package we're actually beating the recent Heidenfest in every city that are the same. The shows we've already done sold better and the forthcoming shows have better pre-sale numbers already. In your face, Flanders! We were actually thinking that maybe people actually like this kind of package just better because the bands are playing longer sets. The headliner on those 5-band festivals like Heidenfest or Paganfest plays 60 minutes the others way less, starting from the first band's 30 minutes. Now were both doing a 75-minute set so for an Eluveitie or Korpiklaani fan this is a better deal. And of course the ticket prices are a bit lower on this tour. A few euros can make a big difference especially in the eastern Europe. The ticket price in Budapest was about 18€ when Heidenfest about 4€ more expensive.

Now that we're on the subject of money, I can start complaining about the Italy. Most of the Italian venues like the one we're going to play on this tour take a huge commission of merchandise sales, 25% and they are also being quite strict with the VAT of 20%. So that means that from a 20€ t-shirt they are taking 9€ from the top! The bands are only left with two bad options basically. Sell with higher prices than elsewhere or just not sell anything.

October 14, on the bus behind the venue in Sofia, Bulgaria, 1:15

Ok, a confession, we sucked yesterday. A certain member basically fell asleep during the show. It wasn't even funny anymore. Today we were a different band. We were ALL sober and were so tight and kicked so much ass that it was just excellent. The venue had a strict curfew at 23:30. The venue was a sports hall that had a huge clock on the wall so it was easy to follow the time. We finished at 23:29. After the final salutes we head to the dressing room and get ready for the showers. At least myself and Kalle were already fully naked when the tour manager runs in and tell us that "They need more, get back on the stage." I guess the curfew was not so strict. We did two more songs. This was basically wrong. This is a co-headlining tour which means that neither us or Eluveitie should play over 75 minutes. Sorry guys. And gals.

The venue for today was supposed to be a club whose name I cannot really remember. The capacity of the club was 800. The pre-sale was around 750 a week ago so they moved the show to this sports hall whose name I can't remember either. The other reason may be that the ceiling of the original venue had collapsed… Welcome to Bulgaria!

Today was a rough day after all. The drive took longer than planned and when we already thought that we were close we ended up in the traffic jam and the last 10km took almost an hour. Or maybe it was just normal local traffic. Anyway we were here really late and tomorrow is not going to be any better. There is a strange law that I learned today. Even though we have now two drivers on board we still have to have a 9-hour break tonight. So we are just basically sitting here till 3. Then we start the journey to Zagreb, Croatia which will be even longer than the trip here and with a border crossing and smaller roads will take even longer. Easily 15 hours which means that we'll arrive around 17 counting in the hour we're saving with the different time zone. Today we lost an hour, tomorrow or today actually we'll gain one.

Back to the important topics. Food. Today we were given the papers with lists of appetizers, starters, main courses and desserts to choose from. I chose a greek salad, "breaded yellow cheese", and grilled vegetables skipping the dessert. Seemed like a very well organized dinner for a change. After about an hour and half we were taken to a restaurant near the venue to eat. The whole thing was so badly organized in the end that some Eluveitie guys left without eating since they just lost their temper with that. It was really bad. I can not understand why the fuck they asked what we wanted to eat if it didn't matter in the end. An example: the first thing they did was that they asked Juho to change his choice of schnitzel to something else since they didn't have them. After 2 minutes they started carrying us schnitzels that no one had even ordered. Idiots.

After all the day was good. A good show in front of an excellent audience makes up for a lot of shit. In the end that is the reason why we are here. I guess it is time to call it a day and wish that I will sleep late tomorrow. Waking up at 7 in the morning with 10 hours to go is terrible.

October 14, on the bus somewhere in Serbia, 12:20

The good things for today is that I did manage to sleep longer than I thought. Just got up a while ago went to ask driver if we can stop for a real toilet. We stopped almost immediately, I paid 50 cents to see the toilet that I didn't want to use. Good thing was it also scared my system and I don't need to go to the toilet anymore.

Every tour has something wrong the routing. The only exception has been the North american tours. They've always been logical. Here we are now doing 800+ km drives and twice(!) through Serbia that is not part of the European Union so we even have to get up in the middle of the night for border control. Of course first to exit the EU and then to enter Serbia and of course the other way around at the other end of the country. Twice. Remember.

The border control is really thorough with our equipment. It takes ages to get through the customs and still we don't even know what we're supposed to do. Language problem too. Luckily we have Meri of Eluveitie who speaks the local language. She's originally Croatian me thinks. Anyway, the customs are worried that we're going to sell some of our stuff in Serbia so they put an extra man on board to make sure that we don't do that. We have to pay him. We're pretty sure that this is just their clever money making scheme. I just don't think that the old fart sitting there in front is any kind of an official. If they are worried about that we're going to sell or get rid of some our equipment why isn't he sitting in the trailer with the equipment then? Another thing is that this bus is full. It is highly illegal to have more than the legal number of passengers on board. The fine for the driver would be several thousands of euros. Maybe that was 5000€. But that is the EU. Maybe these third world countries are different.

Hmm. It seems that we're passing the capital now and just crossed a river. Was that again Danube? Probably not. My knowledge of this part of the world is a bit hazy. You see, I was born and raised with Yugoslavia. I was already way pass my European geography studies when the split happened… Perhaps I should update my data.

Will Zagreb provide a web access? Hopefully.

October 14, on the bus about 70km from Zagreb, Croatia, 18:30

We are so fucking late and this day has been so fucking looooooooong! It'll still take at least an hour until we're at the venue. The doors were supposed to open at 20:00 but we're postponing that for at least an hour. We were really late yesterday too but the crew managed to set up the stage in about an hour. I just fucking hate being awake in the bus for 7-8 hours. This is so boooooring. Haven't even been really able to concentrate on reading. The book is excellent but requires a good amount of concentration to stay focused. Adrian Goldsworth's "In the Name of Rome: The men who won the Empire."