October 11, on the tour bus in Slovakia, 10:45
Yep, this is turning into another episode of Jarkko-does-not-sleep-on-tour -series. Not fun. Went to bed early after the show but also woke up early. Tried to stay in the bed and see if the Sandman would show up again, but no. Got up and downstairs and have now been having a long business conversation with the booking agent and manager. Productive! Whoohoo! Talking for example about the forthcoming shows in Russia in December and the shit quality of some shirts we have here for sale.
The Poland section is over. Three shows, three success stories. Everybody's been really happy with the attendances. Yesterday the capacity was 1100 and according to the Polish promoter he sold "over 1000 tickets." The place seemed full too.
I think we did our best show so far too so this tour follows the same path as the previous ones. The fact that we do not rehearse the old songs means that after a longer break between the shows the first couple of shows are a bit shaky. Yesterday we definitely felt tighter. The set list has been different everyday. Or technically the list on the floor has been the same on every show but we have just played different songs from the list. Yesterday's changes included for example dropping "Let's Drink" and adding "Midsummer Night". I actually liked those changes. I like "Midsummer Night". It is good song and it is also fun to play. And fans love that. It is always nice to hear the roar after the first few accordion notes of the intro.
The local opener as strange. Three guy with painted faces, small black angel wings on their backs playing a strange mix of metal. I could hear lot of Primus in them. At one I heard them do Deep Purple's "Child In Time" too. Not entirely though, just the cool screaming part.
Kristof just read through the pre-sales for the remaining shows and it looks quite nice. Even the southern France shows have decent figures already. At least compared to the capacities. I am always a bit skeptical about the French shows. Especially the shows anywhere except Paris which have always been good. Elsewhere you never know what you're going to get. "France is like a box of chocolate…"
Showing posts with label Poland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poland. Show all posts
Monday, 11 October 2010
Sunday, 10 October 2010
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."
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."
Friday, 8 October 2010
Tour with the Swiss, Part 1
October 7, on board of Air Berlin.
So the tour is starting. I am definitely looking forward to it. It'll be our first tour with Eluveitie for a long time. We've known them for a long time. They were supporting us in Switzerland on our first ever European tour in August 2005. Since then we've met them so many times that I've lost count years ago. And they've lost so many members during that time that I've lost count on that too. If I remember correctly they had 11 member when we first met them. Now they are down to eight.
Anyway, this should a nice tour. The week and a half tour we did in May this year was a nice change since we toured in places that we haven't been that often and this tour seems to continue from there. We're starting with three shows in Poland and from there we continue south to Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary and then to Spain through Italy and France. Spain will be interesting. We've had a few nice festival shows there but the only club shows we did there didn't go down so well. Well, Madrid did, but the others sucked. Although that tour was so badly organized anyway so I am quite confident that this time it will be better. With southern France it is actually quite the same situation. We'll see.
October 8, on tour bus somewhere in Poland, 7:45.
I already spent the last few hours awake in the bunk so once the bus seemed to stop I was already ready to get up anyway. We are parked in front of a small gas station in Poland. No idea where. I could check with my phone GPS though but that would require me climbing back upstairs and I am too lazy to do that. And I just put Leonard Cohen on so I really can't leave this seat now.
What did we do yesterday? Well, we landed at Tegel, Berlin a bit after 14 and the tour bus finally arrived at 23:30 so we indeed had to do something in between. I actually had agreed to take care of the support bands business. The band is called godnr.universe or something like that. It is actually a band of the two Eluveitie chicks so we don't really have any extra persons on tour because of the support bands. The chicks had thought that they'd be in Berlin and have time to pick up their CDs from there but since in the end they didn't have time to do that they asked me to pick them up. I did that. What else?
We had to buy new speaker system. We've had different active speaker systems with us on tour and festivals for 3 years or so. We need them to play Topi Sorsakoski & Agents and Popeda everywhere. We jumped on the bus and drove to the city. Went to take care of the speakers first at Saturn. Saturn is a great store for many reasons. One of them is the fact that you can test all the speaker system. There's a "Play" button next to each set. We followed the cables, unplugged them and plugged in my phone and tested them all with Popeda's "Elän itselleni". Lovely! We got ourselves a new set now.
Alexanderplatz was full of beer huts. Seemed like some sort of Oktoberfest thing. So we sat there for a while, changed to a more convenient location, went to eat Chinese, went back for a beer and finally took a cab back to Tegel. We were trying to take a bus back too but the wanker just pulled off in front of us. We were standing next to the bus when the driver arrived. He stepped in, started the bus, but didn't allow us in. He just drove it forward maybe 50m to another bus stop, waited there 3 seconds, left again, stopped at the red lights 10m away where we caught the bus and tried to get on board. The wanker didn't allow us in. Germans. "I hate Illinois nazis."
October 8, on tour bus somewhere in Poland, 9:55
We're still in the middle of nowhere. Where the hell are we going to?
So the tour is starting. I am definitely looking forward to it. It'll be our first tour with Eluveitie for a long time. We've known them for a long time. They were supporting us in Switzerland on our first ever European tour in August 2005. Since then we've met them so many times that I've lost count years ago. And they've lost so many members during that time that I've lost count on that too. If I remember correctly they had 11 member when we first met them. Now they are down to eight.
Anyway, this should a nice tour. The week and a half tour we did in May this year was a nice change since we toured in places that we haven't been that often and this tour seems to continue from there. We're starting with three shows in Poland and from there we continue south to Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary and then to Spain through Italy and France. Spain will be interesting. We've had a few nice festival shows there but the only club shows we did there didn't go down so well. Well, Madrid did, but the others sucked. Although that tour was so badly organized anyway so I am quite confident that this time it will be better. With southern France it is actually quite the same situation. We'll see.
October 8, on tour bus somewhere in Poland, 7:45.
I already spent the last few hours awake in the bunk so once the bus seemed to stop I was already ready to get up anyway. We are parked in front of a small gas station in Poland. No idea where. I could check with my phone GPS though but that would require me climbing back upstairs and I am too lazy to do that. And I just put Leonard Cohen on so I really can't leave this seat now.
What did we do yesterday? Well, we landed at Tegel, Berlin a bit after 14 and the tour bus finally arrived at 23:30 so we indeed had to do something in between. I actually had agreed to take care of the support bands business. The band is called godnr.universe or something like that. It is actually a band of the two Eluveitie chicks so we don't really have any extra persons on tour because of the support bands. The chicks had thought that they'd be in Berlin and have time to pick up their CDs from there but since in the end they didn't have time to do that they asked me to pick them up. I did that. What else?
We had to buy new speaker system. We've had different active speaker systems with us on tour and festivals for 3 years or so. We need them to play Topi Sorsakoski & Agents and Popeda everywhere. We jumped on the bus and drove to the city. Went to take care of the speakers first at Saturn. Saturn is a great store for many reasons. One of them is the fact that you can test all the speaker system. There's a "Play" button next to each set. We followed the cables, unplugged them and plugged in my phone and tested them all with Popeda's "Elän itselleni". Lovely! We got ourselves a new set now.
Alexanderplatz was full of beer huts. Seemed like some sort of Oktoberfest thing. So we sat there for a while, changed to a more convenient location, went to eat Chinese, went back for a beer and finally took a cab back to Tegel. We were trying to take a bus back too but the wanker just pulled off in front of us. We were standing next to the bus when the driver arrived. He stepped in, started the bus, but didn't allow us in. He just drove it forward maybe 50m to another bus stop, waited there 3 seconds, left again, stopped at the red lights 10m away where we caught the bus and tried to get on board. The wanker didn't allow us in. Germans. "I hate Illinois nazis."
October 8, on tour bus somewhere in Poland, 9:55
We're still in the middle of nowhere. Where the hell are we going to?
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