Oravia. Oravia kaikkialla.

Thursday, August 30, 7:55, tour bus between Montreal and Toronto.

Had to get up from the bunk since the AC had stopped working. No air at all. And hot as hell.

Back to Quebec City. So found the venue finally. It was the Impérial as usual. It is one of the nice venues that we usually go. Even it was the first show on the tour there still were no fuck ups or any bigger delays while setting up the circus. Strange.

I went to see at least a bit of all bands from the audience (sans the local opener). Everyone had a nice audience. To me it seemed that they were a bit reserved and slightly coldish in the beginning of Metsatöll's set but soon warmed up. However Markus, their lead singer, said afterwards that he was happy with how the audience was fully into the show right from the beginning. Things look different from stage.

Tyr was as usual. Solid set. I think that they've actually changed their set so that there is a row of these faster songs like "Hold The Heathen Hammer High" at the end of their set. Seemed to work quite well.

Moonsorrow was definitely as usual. One of my favourite bands, never fail to deliver the goods. I've seen them countless times, many times also with one or more members completely wasted on stage, and they never played a bad show. Quebec was no exception. "Taistelu Pohjolasta" was a nice addition. A song from their first cassette demo in 1998 or something. Not my favourite song of theirs but a nice thing to dig up, polish a bit and play live.

Nervous people at the backstage before our set. Jonne worried if he can actually perform without a guitar or will just end up looking like a complete twat, Kalle worried if he will able play a flawless set, since there was now only one guitar in the band and all the mistakes would be only his and me worrying 'cause the other two were worrying. We have nice set lists printed out. However they were meant for the Mexico City show that was supposed to be long. On this tour our set time is supposed to be 75 minutes so we were already forced to drop some songs and now with no second guitar we have to drop some certain. We went through the set list and agreed on what to drop. Didn't print out new lists though. So we hit the stage with "Tuonelan tuvilla", a great opener by the way, Jonne runs up there a few seconds after the others, grabs his new mic stand, makes a few rock'n'roll moves and there it was. I knew that we were going to do well. All those years watching Popeda's now world famous Ratina Live 2008 DVD on our buses and dressing rooms finally payed off.

We did have a few awkward moments because of the set list changes though. Especially when Jonne skipped "Kipumylly" that wasn't supposed to be skipped. So Kalle didn't know that we were supposed to play "Metsälle". After that he was expecting "Kipumylly" again but instead Jonne announced "Sumussa hämärän aamun" which Kalle didn't hear. So he missed the beginning again. Nice.

Side note: Just passed the other bus parked at the side of the highway, called them, and now we're going back to pick all people from that bus since it obviously broke down. Nice. Have to pack this computer away now.

Outside of the venue on the bus, 18:00, Popeda on the stereo, Ville Sorvali on the beer.

It is hot. It is fucking hot. Inside the bus it is ok though.

Anyway, back to the Quebec's set. As I said, it had a few flaws but it was a good set. I think we sounded really good. We skipped the encore entirely since there was supposed to an instrumental and an almost instrumental, so not much to do for a guitarless Jonne.

After the Quebec show we tried to find ourselves a bar. Bus call was as late as 9 in the morning so we had plenty of time. We found one bar and it sucked. It had karaoke. I left early and went to bed and pretty much got up when we started to drive to Montreal.

It is a short drive and we arrived early at the lovely Club Soda. Seriously, the venue is really nice. The alley where the crew entrance and bus parking are hosts a bunch of crack houses and related lovely characters. Drug dealers and whores. Drug dealers don't really bother you, but the whores are a bit... straight forward. Whatever. I went online and searched for used record stores and found "The biggest vinyl store in Montreal". It was 3km away so I decided to have a nice walk in sunny Montreal. I passed through a nice park with lots of people enjoying the day, but the most striking feature were the squirrels. Squirrels, squirrels everywhere. Honestly, the record store wasn't THAT big. Poor Montrealiens. <- I just invented a new word there. And I did manage to find some decent vinyls as anyway. Two Ozzy 12" singles, one from Lynyrd Skynyrd, one from W.A.S.P. and also a W.A.S.P. shaped picture disc 7". Not bad.

I didn't watch any of the bands except part of Metsatöll's with Ville. They sounded really good and had a brilliant audience. The most strangest thing happened during Moonsorrow's set. I was sitting on the toilet at the backstage when they started "Sankaritarina". They made a mistake in the beginning! Moonsorrow! A mistake. Unbelievable. What next? You tell me that Elvis is dead?

We played the same set as the day before. Actually the same songs, this time in correct order. We had a lot of fun during the show. Paul from Blackguard had a good show. His stage diving was remarkable. Speed and somersaults. Gotta love the guy. Terje and Paul actually did some vocals on "Boozer" too.

Ville and myself actually founded a band during Metsatöll's show. Not with ourselves in it though. We were listening to Lauri's vocals and decided to found an acapella boy band with Lauri, Terje, Juho and Mitja. We would be the managers, producers, songwriters and those to get rich. This morning we came up with the name and the title for the first hit single. Hammer Boys: "I'd like to nail you with my hammer, sir". Can not fail.

Bus call was earlier in Montreal, at 3, but we still had time to visit the traditional Cafe Chaos. Didn't like that place either and left early. So did most of the others too. It was another early bed time. So now you're pretty much up to date since I started this entry from waking up this morning. Except for the stuff I've done today. First of all, we did a bit drunk early in the afternoon since we had a bus full of people and lots of beer. Later we (Matson, Ville, Marko, self) walked to a book store in the centre of Toronto, which is about 2,5km from venue. I got myself two Neil Peart books. I think that's the thing to do in Toronto. Now I'll go inside the venue and see if I can post this.