Loads of places

October 19, in the bunk of the new bus in Austria, 1:15

Ok, I admit, it's been a while since I've written anything. I can explain that though. I had a really shit day on 17th. Before, during and after the show in Passau I drank so much Red Bull and the local substitute that I didn't sleep that night. The next day we played in Master Of Rock Cafe in Zlin, Czech Republic and I spent most of the day trying to sleep on the backstage sofa with no luck. I was so fucking tired and I still couldn't sleep. And my hands were shaking. And my stomach was hurting. It was terrible. The people of Pragoconcert are the coolest you can find in the business, we are basically their house band and I probably came out really rude since I just wasn't in the mood of talking to anyone. At least earlier during the day. It got easier once I managed to rest a bit and eat something. An old dog will not learn new tricks but I am really quitting Red Bull forever. Why haven't I written anything today (or yesterday the 18th to be precise) then? I'll get back to that later.

Anyway, the shows. We have been pretty good and constant. The sets have been varying a bit but nothing new to write home about. The Passau show wasn't that nice. We were ok, but we were headlining a really long festival day in front of an audience that was not there to see us. I think bands like Belphegor were more to their liking. The only three bands to have decent dressing rooms were actually Eluveitie, Belphegor and us. We were sharing the dressing rooms. We had Juho's accordion inside there being charged and one of the Belphegor guys came to ask if it was possible to move that since it'll be covered in (real) blood when they start preparing for their show. I asked if it was possible that they would not spill the blood around and he smiled at me and said "no". Our tour manager took care that they were not allowed in the dressing room anymore and that the stage was cleaned after their show. Although I still had to pull some glass out of my foot on stage… Not our best shows anyway. We were ok, it is just not that easy to suck the energy out of a yawning audience.

Czech was different as usual. We've never had a bad show there and we still haven't. The place was sold out and it was hot like hell. Oh yes, Eluveitie was actually headlining. We were good and the audience too. I personally wasn't at my best since my hands were still shaking and I was sweating so much that my hands were slipping on the bass. Damn you Red Bull. And just for those in doubt, I haven't been drinking alcohol much at all. In Czech not a drop and today for example a glass of wine and a beer or two.

Once I got myself to a certain working condition I did spend some time chatting with the Pragoconcert people. They seemed happy to see us again there. We were comparing about this tour and the last time we were there which was the Paganfest with Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, Unleashed, etc. That time we sold only 350 tickets and this time we filled the venue with 600. Why? George and I figured out a few reasons. First of all, on packages like Paganfest there are the first two bands that don't real draw any people in. The bigger names work for their favour and not vice versa. The headliner plays 60 minutes and the rest something varying from 30 to 50 minutes which means that if there is only one you like you just don't really want to pay 25-30€ for 45 minutes of your favourite band. Now we have two bands both playing 75 minutes and with at least partially a common audience. And we're cheaper. Simple. Or then we were just plain wrong and the real reason was the star positions. Or the fact that some of the Paganfest bands like us had just a few months before played at the Masters Of Rock festival in front of 20000 Czechs…

What about today then? Last night I really tried to stay up late since I knew we had a terribly long drive in front of us again. It's better to sleep late those days. Since I hadn't really been sleeping much I couldn't stay up that long but still managed to sit a while downstairs with Matson, Kalle & Paukku. All four of us totally sober. Something that you wouldn't have really expected to hear about this band! Anyway, I still woke up too early. Too much time to just sit downstairs. And when we finally got into the venue I really didn't like what I saw. Or smelled. Definitely not my favourite venue. And the fucking weather. Inside it was too hot and moist. Outside it was too cold and moist. Terrible. I hated everything today. The pre-sale was only 87 tickets so I wasn't expecting much from that side either.

During the day Matson and myself walked to see the city. Or a town. Or a village. Small anyway. Not much to see but at least we got some fresh air and walked about 6-7km. On our way back we took the whatever it is to the mountain. The lift/elevator/whatever that is hanging from the wires. The view was beautiful until the clouds surrounded us. Up there we could see perhaps 10 metres. There was a restaurant though so we got coffee and the glass of red wine I mentioned earlier.

After all the show was surprisingly nice. In the end around 200 people showed up. Not much compared to the over 1000 shows we've had on the tour but still decent for a Monday in the middle of nowhere.

One last thing before the sleep walks in. We changed our bus today. We had lots of problems with the electrics of the previous one and now we have a luxurious huge bus from the same company. Way bigger bus but still the same number of bunks = plenty more room!