Dortmund & Antwerpen & Spinal Tap

15:30 backstage of Hog Ter Lo in Antwerpen. Slept too little and tried to sleep a bit down here but there's too much people coming and going so I started to play 1980's Kiss albums on shuffle just because Marko of Moonsorrow has a new Eric Carr tattoo. This venue is in the middle of nowhere. It would probably be wise to get out of here and go somewhere but I am just too tired. I went to bed around 4 last night. There was a huge Reiter grill party behind the venue after the show so I decided to spend a night out. I got a bit drunk in the end too. Now this starts to feel like a tour again. We are sharing a dressing room with Moonsorrow, there's Kiss on the speakers, beers or Smirnoff Ices in our hands and voices are getting louder already in the afternoon.

Yesterday was our best show of the tour. Maybe not musically but the athmosphere was just so damn good. We had a marvellous audience and we had lots of fun on the stage. We didn't even have a set list. We had a list of 22 songs and we just decided on stage which ones to play. Jonne even draw one number out of his sleeve: "You Looked Into My Eyes". He just suddenly started the intro riff and in two seconds he realized that he doesn't know how it goes. The band joined him and the first few seconds were a bit chaotic but it was soon corrected.

We a small Spinal Tap situation before the show. We lost Kalle. Everything was set up and we were just waiting the intro to start. First Kalle was there but then when Mon was trying to give him his guitar he was nowhere to be found. We searched for him quite long actually. Finally he was found right next to the stage in the crowd trying to get to the backstage without his backstage pass. The security wouldn't allow him in. Finally we managed to get him in. He had tried to go to a toilet quickly before the show but all the backstage toilets were occupied so he went out to the public side and the door behind him closed so that he couldn't get back in!

After the show we had a dance party in our dressing room. We even managed to get the Reiter guitarist join the twisting! It was indeed a good day.

Erfurt, Dortmund

12:40 at the backstage of FZW, Dortmund. The network isn't working. They are fixing it. "They" being Germans I believe it will not work today. The venue itself is really nice. Really luxorious compared to many others in Germany. Plenty of dressing rooms with their own showers and toilets. Of course there are not enough of them since today is the first of the few "extended Paganfests" with Moonsorrow and Einherjer included on the bill. I am really looking forward to meeting with Moonsorrow dudes again. There will be lots of shouting and bad behaviour later in the evening.

I slept late again. I've been up for about an hour. I got up at around 7 though and went to relieve myself and saw Jonne up. In fact, he's been up since that and was actually the first to enter the venue and the local crew thought that he was the bus driver. By the way, Kalle just went to get our speakers from the bus and now we're playing the entire Thin Lizzy discography on shuffle. Nice. City centre is supposed to be close as well. We may pop in there as well.

Yesterday was good show. I think we played our best show apart from Matson who always plays worse when his fiancee is present... It isn't easy to follow Die Reiter. They have an excellent stage show and they are just so big in Germany. I watched their show from the balcony for a while and was actually a bit scared after I heard the audience's reactions. During the change over there was no one inside the venue which really didn't make it any easier. However, Hittavainen told me that it's been like that during all the change overs. The 800 Germans just disappear in a bar or go out for a cigarette. So we ended up having a full house after all. Nice.

Oh yeah. Yesterday was the hottest show of the tour. Everyone was just so fucking sweaty. Terrible. And the bus starts to smell like a tour already...