Poland

October 9, dressing room in Lodz, Poland, 13:35

We finally found our way to yesterday's venue. The club was at the university area of Torun, I think the club was called "Od Nowa" or something like that anyway. It was a nice venue. Stage was not really that big though, at least it wasn't really deep enough. We were maybe 2km away from the city centre. I was thinking about taking a walk there with Matson, but it was the first day of the tour and we basically had to stay at the venue the whole just in case we were needed. It was again a bit boring day. Just sitting at the dressing room waiting for something to happen. We did the soundcheck though. So did Eluveitie after us. I don't think the local opener had much time for their check since we were running really late. Doors were supposed to open at 18:00 and Eluveitie check was still going on at 18:15 when I checked the time.

The local opener was not half bad, they were half good! They even did a Nightwish cover. You can judge yourself if that was good or bad…

The second band was godnr.universe. Eluveitie chicks backed up by a couple of Eluveitie dudes. The audience clearly didn't know what to think of them. Honestly, me neither. Maybe I should really give their CD a listen or two.

I didn't really watch Eluveitie. Judging by the noise the audience liked them a lot. Our show was decent. Not the best we've played but decent. The audience was really nice too. Lately we've been playing mostly festivals with short or really short sets so it was nice to play a bit longer set and not to worry about exceeding a time limit. It still wasn't very long but way over an hour, maybe 80 minutes. We did some some songs that haven't really been played that much during the summer, like "Huppiaan aarre".

The place was pretty full. Not sold out but full. I don't know the final figures but the pre-sale was 550 so in that sense the tour started on a positive mood.

The bus call was at 5 so we had a lot of time after the show. Some local Finns took us to a bar in the centre but I wasn't really in the mood to enjoy that. Too tired. Basically started to fall asleep there at the bar. Time to get back to the bus.

This is an excellent venue. Modern, big (capacity 2000), clean. Excellent. Just had some breakfast. That is nice too. Oh yes, yesterday the vegetarian food had tuna in it… not nice.

Now I will have to finish an interview for a Polish magazine that I was supposed to do before these shows in Poland.

October 9, dressing room in Lodz, Poland, 20:00

We're running late again. No strict curfew though so not a big problem. It is a bit sleepy atmosphere here. I am playing the six Johnny Cash's "American" albums on random on the speakers, Kalle is sleeping on the sofa and Jonne on the floor next to the sofa. Rock'n'roll!

Jonne, Kalle and myself did a TV interview earlier. The journalist had a brilliant idea to do that at the venue's bar. Interview was short and went well, but the aftermath wasn't that easy. The fans attacked with their pens and papers as soon as the journalist said "Thanks for the interview guys!" It took a while to get out of there. Not that I complain about meeting fans but I'd rather pick the place and time myself.

Earlier we went to see the city. There was nothing to see. Or maybe we went to a wrong place. We took the tram and got off at the stop closest to the place where my GPS said was the centre. We managed to find a shopping centre though so Juho got his shampoo. We really didn't spend much time there. And now that I start to think about it I am sure that we were in the wrong place. It is just not possible that that place was the city centre. Damn you Nokia Maps!

We committed a crime too. We didn't pay for the tram. It was nice to see the always law abiding Juho getting nervous. "What if we get caught? Are you really doing that? I'm not following you guys!" He did anyway.

No network today. I hope I can post these tomorrow.

October 10, on the bus near Krakow Poland, 9:10

I really hope that this morning is not a sign of the future. I only slept perhaps 5 hours and woke up really fresh as if I had a good rest. On one of the US tours I for some reason slept only maybe 4 hours a night on average and that was definitely too little. Every morning was just like this. I woke up a few hours before anyone else and just couldn't sleep anymore. It was ok for a few days, after that I really started to feel like a zombie.

Yesterday was a good day after all. The show was really good. That band was in a good shape and we had an excellent audience. David the manager didn't have the final figures's either but he said that the attendance was a bit over 1000. Excellent. The success of the first two shows has surprised our booking agent too. He's a bit pissed because he made a flat fee deal on all of the Polish shows…

It was only the second show but Gump who's doing the monitors already seems to know exactly what to do. The stage sound was close to perfect already from the beginning. Why is the man called Gump? No idea. I think his real name is Philip. What was really surprising yesterday was the fact we were not just on time but we were ahead of the schedule! We started 5 minutes before our time! Even Hittis was ready on time even though the got lost on his way to the stage. Tour manager just happened to find him from the dressing room.
- "Shouldn't you be on stage already?"
- "Yes, but I couldn't find it!"

The set was a bit different than the day before. I wrote earlier that we played maybe 80 minutes on the first show. Yesterday we heard that it was over 90 and that is unacceptable since this is a co-headlining tour and none of the bands should exceed their 75 minutes. Yesterday we tried to keep the show tighter and shorter. We left our some songs but also added at least one song that hasn't been done for a while. At one point during the show I went to ask Gump how much time we had left since I thought that we must be close to the end already and we were close to the end our set list.
- "You have 40 minutes left."
So the last part of the show was spent figuring out what to play next. We finished the main set with "Beer Beer" that we've been lately using to finish the entire show, so once we got back on stage to do the encore we actually finished with "Ii Lea Voibmi", a song that used to be regular in the set but hasn't really been played for months now. Not even at the rehearsals. "What rehearsals?" one might ask… Anyway, the beginning was funny. Jonne played the first note that didn't really sound right to me so I go talk to Juho:
- "What key is this one in?"
- "A minor."
- "Is that what Jonne is playing in A minor?"
- "Not even close."
- "Ok."