Ok, I now officially hate Deutsche Bank. Yesterday in Hamburg:
- "Hello! I need to open an account in your bank."
- "You have to have a German address to do that."
- "No, I don't. I already confirmed that from you earlier."
- "Ok. But you can not open an account today anyway."
- "No on vittu aika touhua teillä!"
Yesterday was a pretty good day. We were playing at Markthalle, Hamburg. We've been there twice before but never in the big hall. We actually started our first ever European tour there in August 2005. Yesterday the guys from Unleashed told that they also started their first ever tour there. However, they did it in 1991! For example Mike from Swashbuckle was 4 at the time and our Juho was 5. Generations man, generations.
Earlier during the day Jonne, Matson and myself took a subway to St. Pauli. We were not really looking for anything special but we just wanted to check the familiar neighbourhood of Reeperbahn and the surrounding streets... I ended up buying new leather pants.
The show was decent at least. The audience was a bit strange though. They were like in Japan. Completely silent between the songs. That feels really strange on stage. Apart from the encore we did the same set as the night before. We were too lazy to do a new set list. Today is different. The venue is brilliant. I love these places in Belgium and the Netherlands. These new ugly concrete cubes that are built for hosting concerts like this. You can drive your bus in the venue. Really. Two buses with trailers are in the venue right now! You just get off the bus and take an elevator up to the catering and dressing rooms. Tomorrow it's going to be back to the basics again though. The venue is crap. But I now have an appointment with Deutsche Bank at 15.00.
Oh, yes. Today we're in Haarlem, Netherlands. The venue is called Patronaat. I am writing this in the dressing room that we're sharing with Swashbuckle. It's good to have them here since they don't complain about our musical theme days. It's now 15.30. We already went to the town centre and found a flea market with lots of vinyl albums for sale. I ended up bying 7 Saxon LPs...
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Broken buses and shitty banks
Tuesday, 9:30 in the bus. I forgot to tell you something. How can you tell that this is a Paganfest? Because the buses keep breaking down! On the first Paganfest the other bus had to be changed in the beginning of the tour. Can't remember the reason for that though. Then our bus breaks down in the middle of the highway exit in Slovakia on our way to Hungary. That was the charger I think. In the USA the other bus broke down and Moonsorrow and Primordial had to be packed in our bus a for a while. Yesterday morning when I was still in bed between sleep and being completely awake I heard a really loud explosion and then a moment later this flaf-flaf-flaf sound. I thought "Oh, we just lost a tire. Wait, is it a front tire? Are we going to crash now? No, it doesn't seem like that. Phew!" Anyway, we were on the German autobahn with a flat tire, but luckily the other bus of the tour was there too so everybody travelled to the venue with that bus since it was just too dangerous to have 20 persons wandering on the autobahn between all the cars passing us.
We played at least a decent show last night. It wasn't as good as the day before but better than the first two. The venue wasn't really my favourite but it had a shower so I guess it was ok. Although it was located in the public side of the venue. The place was already mostly empty though so it wasn't a problem.
Today I will go to a bank. I need to open a German account. I don't want to walk around the continent with all that cash we're getting. I went yesterday already in Nürnberg but they told me that I'd need to make an appointment for tomorrow.
- But I will be in Hamburg tomorrow!
- Go to the bank there then!
- Ok.
At least the venue is closer to the city centre today so it shouldn't be a problem to find a bank.
We played at least a decent show last night. It wasn't as good as the day before but better than the first two. The venue wasn't really my favourite but it had a shower so I guess it was ok. Although it was located in the public side of the venue. The place was already mostly empty though so it wasn't a problem.
Today I will go to a bank. I need to open a German account. I don't want to walk around the continent with all that cash we're getting. I went yesterday already in Nürnberg but they told me that I'd need to make an appointment for tomorrow.
- But I will be in Hamburg tomorrow!
- Go to the bank there then!
- Ok.
At least the venue is closer to the city centre today so it shouldn't be a problem to find a bank.
Monday, 14 September 2009
Sight-seeing
Catering room of Hirsch, Monday at 17:40.
Today we did a loooooooong walk with Matson. We walked to the old city centre and castle. Quite nice place actually. We've been here before but I don't think we everleft the venue that time. We were out for 4 hours and basically walked the whole time. We even climbed to the tower in the castle. My feet are killing me now.
Yesterday we were in Berlin. I acted as a tour guide and took some of our guys to the city centre. Cane was a having a difficult day. He almost passed out in the subway. Excessive alcohol abuse is not necessarily good for you. It was a decent day as well. It was Sunday so basically nothing was open but we managed to spend some hours out there anyway. That is always a good thing. The days are long enough anyway.
The venue was good last night. Not enough dressing rooms so we had to share but once we started blasting Topi Sorsakoski & Agents the others just left. I guess our singing helped to clean the room as well. Now I am actually playing Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison and the place is getting empty again...
We did a good show last night. We indeed are a better band when we're sober. Or soberish. Like yesterday. It was a solid set. I liked it and had good time. Earlier during the day Hittis actually did a soundcheck of his own and finally got the monitor issues cleared with Stijn the monitor dude so I guess he had a good night as well. And I managed to spot a colleague from work in the audience.
Me goes.
Today we did a loooooooong walk with Matson. We walked to the old city centre and castle. Quite nice place actually. We've been here before but I don't think we everleft the venue that time. We were out for 4 hours and basically walked the whole time. We even climbed to the tower in the castle. My feet are killing me now.
Yesterday we were in Berlin. I acted as a tour guide and took some of our guys to the city centre. Cane was a having a difficult day. He almost passed out in the subway. Excessive alcohol abuse is not necessarily good for you. It was a decent day as well. It was Sunday so basically nothing was open but we managed to spend some hours out there anyway. That is always a good thing. The days are long enough anyway.
The venue was good last night. Not enough dressing rooms so we had to share but once we started blasting Topi Sorsakoski & Agents the others just left. I guess our singing helped to clean the room as well. Now I am actually playing Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison and the place is getting empty again...
We did a good show last night. We indeed are a better band when we're sober. Or soberish. Like yesterday. It was a solid set. I liked it and had good time. Earlier during the day Hittis actually did a soundcheck of his own and finally got the monitor issues cleared with Stijn the monitor dude so I guess he had a good night as well. And I managed to spot a colleague from work in the audience.
Me goes.
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Paganfest
Resurrection! The blog is alive!
It's 8:35 in the bus and we're on tour. I just put some Neil Young in the DVD player and started to write this. One of the Alestorm guys is sleeping next to me. I guess he never managed to get to his bed last night. The Neil Young DVD is by the "Weld" from 1991 that was never even released on DVD! I had to download a DVD copy of a Japanese laser disc! Release it and I will buy it!
Anyway, the first date of European Paganfest is over. That was Münich, Germany. The venue was Backstage where we've been a few times before already. Excellent venue. It is nice to show these European venues to the guys of Swashbuckle after the shit holes of the North American tour. We have six bands on tour. That's a bit too much. All the guys seem to be quite nice but it's a terrible job to headline a tour like this. Last night seemed to go on forever before it was our turn to get on the stage.
We were, or least some of us were a bit worried about the German dates since we have Die Apokalyptischen Reiter on tour and they are huge in Germany. We weren't so sure how it's going to work for us to be on the stage after them. Last night they had a huge pit and the crowd was practically eating from their hands. We were watching that and wondering if there will actually be anyone left when it's our turn. There was. We had an excellent night. Our change over took really long. I really can't understand how the fuck it can be so difficult to get the violin working. After all, the tour crew knew that we have a violin. They've had our technical rider for months and we've actually been with them like 30-40 shows before but still they don't "know" that we have a violin. Bollocks.
As I said the show was good. Excellent audience and the band was in fine form. We did quite a basic set. Same songs that we've been playing for some time now. The set list has three songs from the last album and this is the first real tour with them in the set so it wasn't just "the same old set" for the audience. I'd say the funniest moment of the night was during Crows Bring The Spring. There's a part where Juho and Hittis are supposed to trade solos. For some reason Hittis missed that and was just sitting on the drum riser drinking beer. Juho saw that and just did the whole solo by himself. Except that at one point Hittis got up and went to the vocal mike with the beer bottle and started to blow into the bottle. I don't know if he managed to get any sound out of it but it looked like an excellent solo!
The DVD player didn't want to co-operate with Mr. Young. It's Thin Lizzy time then. No one can hate the Irish. Not even a German DVD player.
10:30 in the bus on our way to Berlin. Yesterday we were in Leipzig. Or actually in Engelsdorf or something like that. The venue "Hellraiser, Leipzig" is actually located in a mostly abandoned industrial area about 20 minute drive away from Leipzig's centre. For the first time ever I have my skates with me on tour. This summer I didn't skate as much as I would have wanted and the season in Finland is pretty much over so I thought that I'd continue my season in the central Europe. Well, the small towns in the former East-Germany are not made for skating. I managed to do a pretty long trip though but it included a few near death experiences. There's not that much sidewalks to skate, streets are really narrow and the people in their cars seem to think "who the fuck is that hippie and what the hell is he doing on the street. I'll just drive over him."
We had plenty of time again and actually took a local bus to the Leipzig city centre. It was Juho and the lady, Matson, Jonne and myself. First things first: we went to Saturn store at the railway station and bought the active speaker system with subwoofer so we can finally hook up all our various mp3 players to that and blast some music in the dressing rooms. we didn't really do much sight seeing. We walked to the old centre and when I saw an Irish pub I said that I'm not going anywhere else if they have some decent cider. They had Stowford on tap. We didn't go further. There was a small Chinese restaurant next to the pub so I got myself some tofu with fried vegetables as well. We did walk a bit further later and went shopping with Jonne. It was a ladies clothing store but we managed to find really good looking hippie jackets or whatever they were. Size XL was perfect for me. How big are the East-German women?
The venue had gone through some changes since our last visit. Our dressing room was for example at the downstairs where there was no dressing rooms before. We even had TV and DVD player there. DVD player refused to play our Popeda DVD though so me and Matson sneaked into Unleashed's room and stole theirs. They still hadn't fixed the bigger issues at the venue though. They always run out of water at some point of the evening so it was a bottle water shower again. Luckily I got used to that in the US of A.
We did a pretty good set again. We are changing the set each night so that the people who come to see several shows will see a bit different show each night. Die Apokalyptischen Reiter played a good set to a really responsive crowd but I guess it was our crowd after all. That was nice. Although I remember watching Ensiferum headline the first Paganfest and thinking that it must suck to be the headliner when you have four bands before you and the audience is already getting tired. Now we have five bands before us and we haven't seen a tired audience so maybe it is something that you don't see from the stage. Or maybe the audiences have been different.
Our bus driver had his 24h rest yesterday. That meant that we actually spend the night behind the venue and left this morning at 9. It's only a three-hour drive to Berlin anyway. We should be there in a half an hour or so. I just hope that this time the venue is closer to the city centre.
It's 8:35 in the bus and we're on tour. I just put some Neil Young in the DVD player and started to write this. One of the Alestorm guys is sleeping next to me. I guess he never managed to get to his bed last night. The Neil Young DVD is by the "Weld" from 1991 that was never even released on DVD! I had to download a DVD copy of a Japanese laser disc! Release it and I will buy it!
Anyway, the first date of European Paganfest is over. That was Münich, Germany. The venue was Backstage where we've been a few times before already. Excellent venue. It is nice to show these European venues to the guys of Swashbuckle after the shit holes of the North American tour. We have six bands on tour. That's a bit too much. All the guys seem to be quite nice but it's a terrible job to headline a tour like this. Last night seemed to go on forever before it was our turn to get on the stage.
We were, or least some of us were a bit worried about the German dates since we have Die Apokalyptischen Reiter on tour and they are huge in Germany. We weren't so sure how it's going to work for us to be on the stage after them. Last night they had a huge pit and the crowd was practically eating from their hands. We were watching that and wondering if there will actually be anyone left when it's our turn. There was. We had an excellent night. Our change over took really long. I really can't understand how the fuck it can be so difficult to get the violin working. After all, the tour crew knew that we have a violin. They've had our technical rider for months and we've actually been with them like 30-40 shows before but still they don't "know" that we have a violin. Bollocks.
As I said the show was good. Excellent audience and the band was in fine form. We did quite a basic set. Same songs that we've been playing for some time now. The set list has three songs from the last album and this is the first real tour with them in the set so it wasn't just "the same old set" for the audience. I'd say the funniest moment of the night was during Crows Bring The Spring. There's a part where Juho and Hittis are supposed to trade solos. For some reason Hittis missed that and was just sitting on the drum riser drinking beer. Juho saw that and just did the whole solo by himself. Except that at one point Hittis got up and went to the vocal mike with the beer bottle and started to blow into the bottle. I don't know if he managed to get any sound out of it but it looked like an excellent solo!
The DVD player didn't want to co-operate with Mr. Young. It's Thin Lizzy time then. No one can hate the Irish. Not even a German DVD player.
10:30 in the bus on our way to Berlin. Yesterday we were in Leipzig. Or actually in Engelsdorf or something like that. The venue "Hellraiser, Leipzig" is actually located in a mostly abandoned industrial area about 20 minute drive away from Leipzig's centre. For the first time ever I have my skates with me on tour. This summer I didn't skate as much as I would have wanted and the season in Finland is pretty much over so I thought that I'd continue my season in the central Europe. Well, the small towns in the former East-Germany are not made for skating. I managed to do a pretty long trip though but it included a few near death experiences. There's not that much sidewalks to skate, streets are really narrow and the people in their cars seem to think "who the fuck is that hippie and what the hell is he doing on the street. I'll just drive over him."
We had plenty of time again and actually took a local bus to the Leipzig city centre. It was Juho and the lady, Matson, Jonne and myself. First things first: we went to Saturn store at the railway station and bought the active speaker system with subwoofer so we can finally hook up all our various mp3 players to that and blast some music in the dressing rooms. we didn't really do much sight seeing. We walked to the old centre and when I saw an Irish pub I said that I'm not going anywhere else if they have some decent cider. They had Stowford on tap. We didn't go further. There was a small Chinese restaurant next to the pub so I got myself some tofu with fried vegetables as well. We did walk a bit further later and went shopping with Jonne. It was a ladies clothing store but we managed to find really good looking hippie jackets or whatever they were. Size XL was perfect for me. How big are the East-German women?
The venue had gone through some changes since our last visit. Our dressing room was for example at the downstairs where there was no dressing rooms before. We even had TV and DVD player there. DVD player refused to play our Popeda DVD though so me and Matson sneaked into Unleashed's room and stole theirs. They still hadn't fixed the bigger issues at the venue though. They always run out of water at some point of the evening so it was a bottle water shower again. Luckily I got used to that in the US of A.
We did a pretty good set again. We are changing the set each night so that the people who come to see several shows will see a bit different show each night. Die Apokalyptischen Reiter played a good set to a really responsive crowd but I guess it was our crowd after all. That was nice. Although I remember watching Ensiferum headline the first Paganfest and thinking that it must suck to be the headliner when you have four bands before you and the audience is already getting tired. Now we have five bands before us and we haven't seen a tired audience so maybe it is something that you don't see from the stage. Or maybe the audiences have been different.
Our bus driver had his 24h rest yesterday. That meant that we actually spend the night behind the venue and left this morning at 9. It's only a three-hour drive to Berlin anyway. We should be there in a half an hour or so. I just hope that this time the venue is closer to the city centre.
Monday, 13 July 2009
Hungary, Czech & Germany - Part I
Once again we're back from some festivals where I've once again been able to catch something that ain't making me feel any good. Oink. Oink.
This time we started from Hungary. We left Tampere again in the middle of the night. Our destination was Rockmaraton festival near or basically in Pécs, Hungary. A few years ago we played in Pécs at the indoor festival called Rocktriatlon. Maybe this was the same festival, just a bit bigger and longer now. At least this one lasted for a week.
We were greeted at the airport by our hostess Zsófia and a fellow who's name I didn't catch. We had again a bit of driving ahead since Pécs is about 200km south from Budapest airport. The driver was a lunatic. Some of us were afraid that they won't survive the trip. And then when we finally stopped to have some drinks he was really pissed off because we were losing time. He didn't speak a word of English but this is what Zsófia explained to us. We were quite quickly in the car ready to leave but the wanker just stands outside eating his whatever it was. Idiot. Of course when you start drinking beer you soon have to stop to relieve yourself. That was the next problem. The idiot just wouldn't stop. He was asked to stop many times but he just kept driving. Finally I raised my voice from the back so that he definitely heard that too. Zsófia translated that to him, probably included all the swear words as well, since the idiot stopped the car immediately!
In Pécs we checked ourselves in the hotel, quickly had a look at the rooms and decided to head to the festival area immediately. Except Hittis. He had learned something from the infamous Ukraine trip when he only got to Warsaw, Poland and told us that "the festival will be boring and I'll only end up drinking at the backstage the whole afternoon which will not end well."
We indeed spent the afternoon at the festival drinking beer. It was a hot day, you know. We checked out some of the bands playing and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere. At some point we were also informed that some of us will be "needed" to judge the wet T-shirt contest. We were headlining on Wednesday and our buddies My Dying Bride were headlining on Thursday. They arrived already on Wednesday and got in the festival area just before the contest. So I just grabbed Andy, their guitarist:
- "Let's go, follow me. It's going to be fun."
- "Where are you taking me?"
- "You are going to judge a wet T-shirt contest."
- "No way. Really?"
- "Yes way. Really!"
- "Let's go."
We were put to sit on a bench on the stage next to a children's plastic pool while the local announcer was getting the volunteers from the audience. We couldn't really follow that or anything else what was going on. Zsófia of course tried to explain as much as she could. Anyway, soon they had 8 or 9 girls on the stage all dressed in white t-shirts. At this point we learned that we were also supposed to be the ones pouring the water on them. Oh, well. It's shit job but someone's got to do it.
I won't go much into details since this was NOT the main event of the festival. Or was it? Once all the girls were wet we got a load of new instructions in Hungarian. Zsófia explained that we were supposed to pick three of them for the final. The first two were easy to pick since two of the girls had already exposed their boobs anyway. The third one was difficult. We couldn't really agree on that. Luckily one of the girls, a really small one, decided to take matters to her own hands and showed her boobs so the trio was ready for their final show. Which was nice. I don't know who won. The audience I'd say.
At one point during the contest Andy and myself had a short conversation. I asked him:
- "What do you think, aren't we like really dirty old men using these girls as objects right now?"
- "Yeah, we are. Excellent. I love it!"
After the competition I heard one of the nicest, if not THE nicest, things anyone has ever said about our band. Andy was talking to his band mates and said something along the lines "I just love those guys! I'd been here like a minute and they took me there! There's always something going on when they're near!"
Anyway, back to the real business. Since we were headlining we had a bit longer set than usually during the summer festivals. It was 70 minutes, so we had to play some songs that we don't do that often this summer. I can't really remember the set list that well anymore though. Our original idea now that the new album is out was that we'll replace "Tuli kokko" with "Huppiaan aarre" in the set but for example in Hungary I think we did both. "You Looked Into My Eyes" made a comeback to the set as well. I think the encore was maybe four songs so it was a decent set for the Hungarians. We have to give our best. We are related, you know!
The rest of the evening was already planned quite well too. The last band of the day was a local Iron Maiden cover band so we spent the evening watching them, drinking alcohol and behaving badly. That was nice. The band was actually pretty good. The singer sounded a lot like Bruce Dickinson. Not the current Bruce, the 1980's Bruce when he was still good.
We had 4 rooms from the hotel, all for three persons. Three of them were full and I was the lucky one to have a room of my own. In the morning I heard quite a lot of noise from the corridor and realized that it was our guys but I was just too tired to get up. Once I got up and took a shower I just wrapped a towel around me and went to search for them. Since we basically never close doors it was easy to find them. Or at least those who were up. At least Jonne and Cane were sleeping, some were out, but most of us were sitting in one of the rooms where we had taken huge amounts of alcohol from the festival previous night. I took a beer from the fridge and joined.
Tuomas and myself hadn't been up early enough for the hotel breakfast so we went downstairs to get lunch instead. When the waitress approached us I asked if she speaks English to which she replied something like "A little. Menu?" We said "Yes, please" since we thought that she going to bring us the menu from where we can order something but it turned out that we had just ordered their entire lunch menu. Well, the soup was actually really good and they actually understood when I said that I need something vegetarian. I don't know what it was but it was good as well. And it cost as 1260HUF together so it was practically free. For me at least since Tuomas paid. Ha! Sucker.
At some point of the afternoon we carried all our stuff to the nightliner that had arrived from Germany to pick us up. This may have been around 16 or 17. Then the driver went to sleep. I think we agreed to leave at 3 or 4 at night or so. Back to business ie. to the hotel room to drink. At some point we sent Valohomo shopping since he had been out and told us that he found a shopping centre. I gave him 4000HUF and asked him to bring me 10 Bacardi Breezers. He arrived later and brought those and some vodka and orange juice.
At some point of the afternoon we had already emptied the fridge and moved to the "technicians room" where they still had the fridge full. That room was right opposite of mine and both doors were fully open. At 19.00 I had to do a phone interview to Germany. I went to my own room to do that since I wanted to hear something. The sun was shining directly to my room and it was hot as hell in there so I decided to take my pants off. I was wearing only a t-shirt. The last question was "How does it look like in a typical Korpiklaani party?" I just walked across the corridor to the other room and described what I saw. Funny thing is that while changing the room I realized that the room next to ours wasn't an actual hotel room. It was a conference room with glass walls and it was full of people. Ok, I'm sure they had seen penises before. Valohomo had been out somewhere and arrived a moment after that. I told him what I did so he decided to take his pants off as well and walk past the conference room. I mean I only crossed the corridor but he walked passed the room. And did Michael Jackson style moonwalk back!
The rest of the day was quite normal festival day. I think we were taken to the festival area at around 20. We watched the shows, drank and spent time with the locals. And then it was time to pack ourselves in the bus and start the trip home. I mean, Masters Of Rock festival feels like home to us already and people working there probably meet us more often than some of our family members. Well, that basically just tells you more about my family than about Masters Of Rock...
This time we started from Hungary. We left Tampere again in the middle of the night. Our destination was Rockmaraton festival near or basically in Pécs, Hungary. A few years ago we played in Pécs at the indoor festival called Rocktriatlon. Maybe this was the same festival, just a bit bigger and longer now. At least this one lasted for a week.
We were greeted at the airport by our hostess Zsófia and a fellow who's name I didn't catch. We had again a bit of driving ahead since Pécs is about 200km south from Budapest airport. The driver was a lunatic. Some of us were afraid that they won't survive the trip. And then when we finally stopped to have some drinks he was really pissed off because we were losing time. He didn't speak a word of English but this is what Zsófia explained to us. We were quite quickly in the car ready to leave but the wanker just stands outside eating his whatever it was. Idiot. Of course when you start drinking beer you soon have to stop to relieve yourself. That was the next problem. The idiot just wouldn't stop. He was asked to stop many times but he just kept driving. Finally I raised my voice from the back so that he definitely heard that too. Zsófia translated that to him, probably included all the swear words as well, since the idiot stopped the car immediately!
In Pécs we checked ourselves in the hotel, quickly had a look at the rooms and decided to head to the festival area immediately. Except Hittis. He had learned something from the infamous Ukraine trip when he only got to Warsaw, Poland and told us that "the festival will be boring and I'll only end up drinking at the backstage the whole afternoon which will not end well."
We indeed spent the afternoon at the festival drinking beer. It was a hot day, you know. We checked out some of the bands playing and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere. At some point we were also informed that some of us will be "needed" to judge the wet T-shirt contest. We were headlining on Wednesday and our buddies My Dying Bride were headlining on Thursday. They arrived already on Wednesday and got in the festival area just before the contest. So I just grabbed Andy, their guitarist:
- "Let's go, follow me. It's going to be fun."
- "Where are you taking me?"
- "You are going to judge a wet T-shirt contest."
- "No way. Really?"
- "Yes way. Really!"
- "Let's go."
We were put to sit on a bench on the stage next to a children's plastic pool while the local announcer was getting the volunteers from the audience. We couldn't really follow that or anything else what was going on. Zsófia of course tried to explain as much as she could. Anyway, soon they had 8 or 9 girls on the stage all dressed in white t-shirts. At this point we learned that we were also supposed to be the ones pouring the water on them. Oh, well. It's shit job but someone's got to do it.
I won't go much into details since this was NOT the main event of the festival. Or was it? Once all the girls were wet we got a load of new instructions in Hungarian. Zsófia explained that we were supposed to pick three of them for the final. The first two were easy to pick since two of the girls had already exposed their boobs anyway. The third one was difficult. We couldn't really agree on that. Luckily one of the girls, a really small one, decided to take matters to her own hands and showed her boobs so the trio was ready for their final show. Which was nice. I don't know who won. The audience I'd say.
At one point during the contest Andy and myself had a short conversation. I asked him:
- "What do you think, aren't we like really dirty old men using these girls as objects right now?"
- "Yeah, we are. Excellent. I love it!"
After the competition I heard one of the nicest, if not THE nicest, things anyone has ever said about our band. Andy was talking to his band mates and said something along the lines "I just love those guys! I'd been here like a minute and they took me there! There's always something going on when they're near!"
Anyway, back to the real business. Since we were headlining we had a bit longer set than usually during the summer festivals. It was 70 minutes, so we had to play some songs that we don't do that often this summer. I can't really remember the set list that well anymore though. Our original idea now that the new album is out was that we'll replace "Tuli kokko" with "Huppiaan aarre" in the set but for example in Hungary I think we did both. "You Looked Into My Eyes" made a comeback to the set as well. I think the encore was maybe four songs so it was a decent set for the Hungarians. We have to give our best. We are related, you know!
The rest of the evening was already planned quite well too. The last band of the day was a local Iron Maiden cover band so we spent the evening watching them, drinking alcohol and behaving badly. That was nice. The band was actually pretty good. The singer sounded a lot like Bruce Dickinson. Not the current Bruce, the 1980's Bruce when he was still good.
We had 4 rooms from the hotel, all for three persons. Three of them were full and I was the lucky one to have a room of my own. In the morning I heard quite a lot of noise from the corridor and realized that it was our guys but I was just too tired to get up. Once I got up and took a shower I just wrapped a towel around me and went to search for them. Since we basically never close doors it was easy to find them. Or at least those who were up. At least Jonne and Cane were sleeping, some were out, but most of us were sitting in one of the rooms where we had taken huge amounts of alcohol from the festival previous night. I took a beer from the fridge and joined.
Tuomas and myself hadn't been up early enough for the hotel breakfast so we went downstairs to get lunch instead. When the waitress approached us I asked if she speaks English to which she replied something like "A little. Menu?" We said "Yes, please" since we thought that she going to bring us the menu from where we can order something but it turned out that we had just ordered their entire lunch menu. Well, the soup was actually really good and they actually understood when I said that I need something vegetarian. I don't know what it was but it was good as well. And it cost as 1260HUF together so it was practically free. For me at least since Tuomas paid. Ha! Sucker.
At some point of the afternoon we carried all our stuff to the nightliner that had arrived from Germany to pick us up. This may have been around 16 or 17. Then the driver went to sleep. I think we agreed to leave at 3 or 4 at night or so. Back to business ie. to the hotel room to drink. At some point we sent Valohomo shopping since he had been out and told us that he found a shopping centre. I gave him 4000HUF and asked him to bring me 10 Bacardi Breezers. He arrived later and brought those and some vodka and orange juice.
At some point of the afternoon we had already emptied the fridge and moved to the "technicians room" where they still had the fridge full. That room was right opposite of mine and both doors were fully open. At 19.00 I had to do a phone interview to Germany. I went to my own room to do that since I wanted to hear something. The sun was shining directly to my room and it was hot as hell in there so I decided to take my pants off. I was wearing only a t-shirt. The last question was "How does it look like in a typical Korpiklaani party?" I just walked across the corridor to the other room and described what I saw. Funny thing is that while changing the room I realized that the room next to ours wasn't an actual hotel room. It was a conference room with glass walls and it was full of people. Ok, I'm sure they had seen penises before. Valohomo had been out somewhere and arrived a moment after that. I told him what I did so he decided to take his pants off as well and walk past the conference room. I mean I only crossed the corridor but he walked passed the room. And did Michael Jackson style moonwalk back!
The rest of the day was quite normal festival day. I think we were taken to the festival area at around 20. We watched the shows, drank and spent time with the locals. And then it was time to pack ourselves in the bus and start the trip home. I mean, Masters Of Rock festival feels like home to us already and people working there probably meet us more often than some of our family members. Well, that basically just tells you more about my family than about Masters Of Rock...
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Tuska and Україна
First of all, I got something from Ukraine. I don't know what that is but at least it ain't making me feel any good.
We were on at Tuska festival on Saturday at 17 but my festival trip started already on Friday afternoon when I packed my luggage and myself in the proletarian tube (i.e. train) to go to do a live interview with Jonne at Yleisradio. We were supposed to be there at 20. The actual interview time was 20.15. The train I took was supposed to be at Pasila station at 19.45 which should've been early enough. However the departure time came and went and we were still sitting at the Tampere railway station. Finally we hear the announcement that "There's too much traffic on the tracks and we'll wait here for another 10 minutes." Then after about a minute another announcement says that "No, we're actually leaving right now." And we did. The train moved something like 100 metres and stayed there the next 10 minutes. So finally we were about 15 minutes late from the radio interview, thanks to VR.
Immediately after the interview we met Sampo from Amfisound (www.amfisound.fi) who was bringing me my new bass. That indeed is a beautiful piece of work. I ended up using that at Tuska but didn't take it to Ukraine since I still don't have a decent flight case for it. The bass is just too long to fit in any standard case so I guess it's time to use the services of SmartCase again.
I checked in my hotel and still went to see the last notes of the first day of the festival. I met a lot of old friends, both musicians and "normal" people. Really nice. Since some of them were going to see the bands at the club called Virgin Oil I decided to go there too. I managed to get my American friends there too. I had a festival pass so I had no problems getting in even though the place was sold-out. The girls had no tickets but I was still at that point sober enough to tell the people at the door a sad story about the poor Americans who'd come all the way from Cleveland just to be left out. That worked. It was a nice evening although Turmion Kätilöt were waaaaay too loud. Really, painfully loud.
On Saturday we were supposed to meet Paavo Väyrynen, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development and his Brazilian guests. Or that's what the Finnish representative for Nuclear Blast told us. Scheduled time for that was 14.00. Well, as usual with Nuclear Blast, nothing happens on time but 2-3 hours late if ever. And they weren't Paavo Väyrynen's guests, they were Alexander Stubb's, Minister for Foreign Affairs. So all our other guys arrived to the festival area four hours before they were needed and they didn't even get to meet Paavo. Must've been boring. At least Jonne and myself were doing some interviews to kill time.
One of the bands was actually late. I guess it was Faceless. They knew already a few days earlier about that and we were actually offered their slot on the main stage. It would have been 15 minutes longer but also at the same time as the originally scheduled meeting with Väyrynen & co. so we said no. Well, after all we would have been able to that slot as well.
Last year we had to cancel our Tuska appearance since some of our gear was still in Germany. This time we were coming directly from Tampere so we were not expecting any problems like that. We were wrong. The festival claimed that they had not received any of our riders, including backline rider, so they were expecting us to bring everything including drums and guitar cabs which we of course didn't have with us. Dauntless, the previous band on the same stage were kind enough to lend us all we needed so that all went well. However, it was a bit strange that the festival who had not received ANY of our riders were still able to fill the catering rider exactly...
The show was not our best. The audience was brilliant. The tent was packed and afterward I heard people complaining that they couldn't get in or see or hear anything. I guess we were a bit nervous. Tuska just is a special festival for us. It took years to get to be part of the main event. The stage sound was not perfect. After about 4-5 songs it turned even worse since there suddenly was this really loud mid-frequency rumble that was making it really hard to hear anything precisely. I hope the audience enjoyed the show anyway. At least they got to hear two new songs, Juodaan viinaa and Huppiaan aarre.
Our flight to Ukraine was leaving at 6.55 next morning which meant that we'd have to be at the airport around 5.00. Most of us went to spend the evening at Nosturi but Hittavainen decided otherwise. He did promise to be at the airport at 5.00 though. Well, everybody else was there on time but he wasn't. And didn't answer our phone calls either. We took all his stuff from the van and checked in. The first time we heard about him was when the boarding had just started. He called from outside and asked for his passport which was in one of his bags. Why doesn't he carry it with him? Beats me. Anyway, I informed him that he can get on the flight with just his ID, since the first flight was to München anyway. But of course he couldn't get to the plane since the check-in closes exactly the same time the boarding starts. Well, we boarded anyway and though that he still has like a day and a half to get to Ukraine. How difficult can that be? Well, impossible to some.
We are in contact with him again from München airport. We try to organize it so that we can leave his passport at Lufthansa desk so that he can book the same flights for the next day but that doesn't work out with Lufthansa. Paukku tested it and managed to get through the passport control with just ID, so basically it would be possible to get to the Ukrainian soil without the passport. Ukrainian immigration would be the first one asking for that.
Ok, I have to admit that at this point this becomes a bit blurry since we arrive to Ukraine and it's mostly Paukku who is in contact with Hittis. Arriving there was interesting. Usually we have to get through the customs and immigration by ourselves and only after that there's someone at the arrival hall with a piece of paper saying "Korkiplaani", "Korplikaani" or whatever. In Ukraine they were actually standing right next to the plane when it stopped. Gogol Bordello, a crew of 15 persons, were actually on the same flight. The locals took us all apart from the other passengers, took care of our luggage and guided us through the immigration. It was slow but still probably easier that way. The terminal was interesting. It looked nothing like a terminal. It just like any other old federal building in the former Soviet Union. I guess they don't get that much international traffic there.
We were taken to a really nice hotel near the city centre and then to a restaurant to eat and drink. It was a bit difficult to order vegetarian food but I managed after all. Fried salty cheese is always good.
Now back to Hittavainen. He was trying to book him the same flights for the next day. The local organizers told us that they will be waiting there at the airport with his passport which would be alright for the immigration. However since his final destination was outside the Schengen area they were demanding to see his passport at the Helsinki airport when he was trying to book the flights. Passport number was not enough. Why not, I don't know. You can book that flight on the internet with just the passport number. Why didn't he use the internet? I don't know. Too drunk? Why didn't we tell him to use the internet? Too stupid?
The next idea was to get him to Warsaw, Poland since Poland is part of the Schengen area and passport is not needed. Warsaw is only about 500km from Lviv. Someone from Ukraine would drive there with his passport to pick him up. Hittis then later informs us that he's booked a flight that will be in Warsaw at 21.15 so we organize the driver to pick him up.
In the meantime we hang around the town, check the festival area and just generally enjoy life in the extremely hot Lviv. For a while it looks like everything is good and we'll have a violinist for the show. Until in the evening Hittis calls us and tells that he was denied from boarding the plane because he was too drunk and that he definitely has no money to book any more flights. So we of course do the only wise thing and call the driver back since there's no point in making him drive all the way there for nothing.
The rest of the evening went as usual. Nothing that special to report. However, in the morning we hear from Hittis once again. He's calling from Warsaw and asking where the hell is the driver! He had managed to exchange his booking to a different flight but didn't think it was necessary to inform us. So we started to figure out the ways to get him to Lviv. At that point it was not going to be easy anymore. It was 10 in the morning, showtime at 17 and a 1000km drive. The only way to do that was to get him somehow to Medyka, the Polish border town and at the same time someone would drive to get him from there. After a lot of talk, expensive phone calls, etc. I finally told him: "Hittis, go back to Finland." He couldn't really find any way to get there. So, it was going to be a show without a violinist.
For some reason we were taken to the stadium really early. Hours before they let the audience in. Not that it really mattered though. The catering was excellent and the weather was beautiful. I was a bit concerned if the success of the festival would be like it was in Romania a couple of weeks ago (=disaster) but luckily it wasn't. The turn out was quite good. That's always really difficult to estimate, but a few thousand people I'd say.
We played a good show. Although we were a bit different than basically all of the other bands on the bill we still got a really good response from the crowd. The organizers were the whole time really concerned about the schedule and kept telling us that we should play exactly an hour, not a minute more. We did that and got off the stage. Paukku put the outro on. I was already at the backstage packing my bass when they came to us and said "You've got to play more, you can't just leave an audience shouting like that!" So we had to go back and play some more. The schedule was not a problem anymore. Next morning we also heard from our manager that the promoters were already booking more shows in the area so I guess we were ok. Even without the violinist.
We stayed at the festival till the end. Gogol Bordello kicked ass. The rest of the night is a bit blurry. I guess I was a bit drunk. But I do remember talking to some Gogol Bordello guys outside of a night club. And then later falling asleep at the hotel bar.
Next day we were taken to the airport. It was a terrible hassle with the local airport crew. They didn't seem to know what to do with our gear. I don't really know if the problem was the locals or the Polish airline. It all seemed highly unorganized. We managed to board the plane anyway and to our surprise all our gear ended up at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. Even after the stopover in Warsaw.
Interesting weekend it was.
j.
We were on at Tuska festival on Saturday at 17 but my festival trip started already on Friday afternoon when I packed my luggage and myself in the proletarian tube (i.e. train) to go to do a live interview with Jonne at Yleisradio. We were supposed to be there at 20. The actual interview time was 20.15. The train I took was supposed to be at Pasila station at 19.45 which should've been early enough. However the departure time came and went and we were still sitting at the Tampere railway station. Finally we hear the announcement that "There's too much traffic on the tracks and we'll wait here for another 10 minutes." Then after about a minute another announcement says that "No, we're actually leaving right now." And we did. The train moved something like 100 metres and stayed there the next 10 minutes. So finally we were about 15 minutes late from the radio interview, thanks to VR.
Immediately after the interview we met Sampo from Amfisound (www.amfisound.fi) who was bringing me my new bass. That indeed is a beautiful piece of work. I ended up using that at Tuska but didn't take it to Ukraine since I still don't have a decent flight case for it. The bass is just too long to fit in any standard case so I guess it's time to use the services of SmartCase again.
I checked in my hotel and still went to see the last notes of the first day of the festival. I met a lot of old friends, both musicians and "normal" people. Really nice. Since some of them were going to see the bands at the club called Virgin Oil I decided to go there too. I managed to get my American friends there too. I had a festival pass so I had no problems getting in even though the place was sold-out. The girls had no tickets but I was still at that point sober enough to tell the people at the door a sad story about the poor Americans who'd come all the way from Cleveland just to be left out. That worked. It was a nice evening although Turmion Kätilöt were waaaaay too loud. Really, painfully loud.
On Saturday we were supposed to meet Paavo Väyrynen, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development and his Brazilian guests. Or that's what the Finnish representative for Nuclear Blast told us. Scheduled time for that was 14.00. Well, as usual with Nuclear Blast, nothing happens on time but 2-3 hours late if ever. And they weren't Paavo Väyrynen's guests, they were Alexander Stubb's, Minister for Foreign Affairs. So all our other guys arrived to the festival area four hours before they were needed and they didn't even get to meet Paavo. Must've been boring. At least Jonne and myself were doing some interviews to kill time.
One of the bands was actually late. I guess it was Faceless. They knew already a few days earlier about that and we were actually offered their slot on the main stage. It would have been 15 minutes longer but also at the same time as the originally scheduled meeting with Väyrynen & co. so we said no. Well, after all we would have been able to that slot as well.
Last year we had to cancel our Tuska appearance since some of our gear was still in Germany. This time we were coming directly from Tampere so we were not expecting any problems like that. We were wrong. The festival claimed that they had not received any of our riders, including backline rider, so they were expecting us to bring everything including drums and guitar cabs which we of course didn't have with us. Dauntless, the previous band on the same stage were kind enough to lend us all we needed so that all went well. However, it was a bit strange that the festival who had not received ANY of our riders were still able to fill the catering rider exactly...
The show was not our best. The audience was brilliant. The tent was packed and afterward I heard people complaining that they couldn't get in or see or hear anything. I guess we were a bit nervous. Tuska just is a special festival for us. It took years to get to be part of the main event. The stage sound was not perfect. After about 4-5 songs it turned even worse since there suddenly was this really loud mid-frequency rumble that was making it really hard to hear anything precisely. I hope the audience enjoyed the show anyway. At least they got to hear two new songs, Juodaan viinaa and Huppiaan aarre.
Our flight to Ukraine was leaving at 6.55 next morning which meant that we'd have to be at the airport around 5.00. Most of us went to spend the evening at Nosturi but Hittavainen decided otherwise. He did promise to be at the airport at 5.00 though. Well, everybody else was there on time but he wasn't. And didn't answer our phone calls either. We took all his stuff from the van and checked in. The first time we heard about him was when the boarding had just started. He called from outside and asked for his passport which was in one of his bags. Why doesn't he carry it with him? Beats me. Anyway, I informed him that he can get on the flight with just his ID, since the first flight was to München anyway. But of course he couldn't get to the plane since the check-in closes exactly the same time the boarding starts. Well, we boarded anyway and though that he still has like a day and a half to get to Ukraine. How difficult can that be? Well, impossible to some.
We are in contact with him again from München airport. We try to organize it so that we can leave his passport at Lufthansa desk so that he can book the same flights for the next day but that doesn't work out with Lufthansa. Paukku tested it and managed to get through the passport control with just ID, so basically it would be possible to get to the Ukrainian soil without the passport. Ukrainian immigration would be the first one asking for that.
Ok, I have to admit that at this point this becomes a bit blurry since we arrive to Ukraine and it's mostly Paukku who is in contact with Hittis. Arriving there was interesting. Usually we have to get through the customs and immigration by ourselves and only after that there's someone at the arrival hall with a piece of paper saying "Korkiplaani", "Korplikaani" or whatever. In Ukraine they were actually standing right next to the plane when it stopped. Gogol Bordello, a crew of 15 persons, were actually on the same flight. The locals took us all apart from the other passengers, took care of our luggage and guided us through the immigration. It was slow but still probably easier that way. The terminal was interesting. It looked nothing like a terminal. It just like any other old federal building in the former Soviet Union. I guess they don't get that much international traffic there.
We were taken to a really nice hotel near the city centre and then to a restaurant to eat and drink. It was a bit difficult to order vegetarian food but I managed after all. Fried salty cheese is always good.
Now back to Hittavainen. He was trying to book him the same flights for the next day. The local organizers told us that they will be waiting there at the airport with his passport which would be alright for the immigration. However since his final destination was outside the Schengen area they were demanding to see his passport at the Helsinki airport when he was trying to book the flights. Passport number was not enough. Why not, I don't know. You can book that flight on the internet with just the passport number. Why didn't he use the internet? I don't know. Too drunk? Why didn't we tell him to use the internet? Too stupid?
The next idea was to get him to Warsaw, Poland since Poland is part of the Schengen area and passport is not needed. Warsaw is only about 500km from Lviv. Someone from Ukraine would drive there with his passport to pick him up. Hittis then later informs us that he's booked a flight that will be in Warsaw at 21.15 so we organize the driver to pick him up.
In the meantime we hang around the town, check the festival area and just generally enjoy life in the extremely hot Lviv. For a while it looks like everything is good and we'll have a violinist for the show. Until in the evening Hittis calls us and tells that he was denied from boarding the plane because he was too drunk and that he definitely has no money to book any more flights. So we of course do the only wise thing and call the driver back since there's no point in making him drive all the way there for nothing.
The rest of the evening went as usual. Nothing that special to report. However, in the morning we hear from Hittis once again. He's calling from Warsaw and asking where the hell is the driver! He had managed to exchange his booking to a different flight but didn't think it was necessary to inform us. So we started to figure out the ways to get him to Lviv. At that point it was not going to be easy anymore. It was 10 in the morning, showtime at 17 and a 1000km drive. The only way to do that was to get him somehow to Medyka, the Polish border town and at the same time someone would drive to get him from there. After a lot of talk, expensive phone calls, etc. I finally told him: "Hittis, go back to Finland." He couldn't really find any way to get there. So, it was going to be a show without a violinist.
For some reason we were taken to the stadium really early. Hours before they let the audience in. Not that it really mattered though. The catering was excellent and the weather was beautiful. I was a bit concerned if the success of the festival would be like it was in Romania a couple of weeks ago (=disaster) but luckily it wasn't. The turn out was quite good. That's always really difficult to estimate, but a few thousand people I'd say.
We played a good show. Although we were a bit different than basically all of the other bands on the bill we still got a really good response from the crowd. The organizers were the whole time really concerned about the schedule and kept telling us that we should play exactly an hour, not a minute more. We did that and got off the stage. Paukku put the outro on. I was already at the backstage packing my bass when they came to us and said "You've got to play more, you can't just leave an audience shouting like that!" So we had to go back and play some more. The schedule was not a problem anymore. Next morning we also heard from our manager that the promoters were already booking more shows in the area so I guess we were ok. Even without the violinist.
We stayed at the festival till the end. Gogol Bordello kicked ass. The rest of the night is a bit blurry. I guess I was a bit drunk. But I do remember talking to some Gogol Bordello guys outside of a night club. And then later falling asleep at the hotel bar.
Next day we were taken to the airport. It was a terrible hassle with the local airport crew. They didn't seem to know what to do with our gear. I don't really know if the problem was the locals or the Polish airline. It all seemed highly unorganized. We managed to board the plane anyway and to our surprise all our gear ended up at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. Even after the stopover in Warsaw.
Interesting weekend it was.
j.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Principality of Transylvania
So, last weekend it was time for Romania again. Our last time there wasn't really that successful trip. That was the kind of festival that you just want to forget. This time time it was more promising already from the start since they had bands like In Extremo and Stratovarius which meant that it just can't be anything like the previous time.
We left Tampere already around 5 in the Friday morning and flew to Bucharest. We were playing on Saturday so we were able to drink lots of free alcohol while in the air. Well, not that much since they weren't bringing it to us fast enough, but some at least. We arrived to Romania some time after noon and managed to be on the road in a local van by 13. The distance was less than 300km but remembering the last time driving to Iasi we knew that it was going to take long. The roads in Romania are not exactly German autobahns and especially around Bucharest they seem to be extremely congested as well. We stopped a few times to buy more alcohol and I think the whole trip took about 6 hours.
The hotel was really nice and conveniently located only 200m from the venue, Stadionul Municipal. The local promoter had organized a pre-party/dinner/whatever in the restaurant on the top floor. I think we were basically the first ones to arrive there. We ate too much and drank at least enough. There were even enough choices for vegetarians. Nice. In Extremo arrived a bit later. It was really nice to see them again and they seemed generally happy to meet us again as well so I guess our small tour with them went well. After eating too much and drinking a bit of red wine I decided to call it a day and hit the bed. According to the stories I heard next morning some of the others had an interesting night though. Including a local karaoke bar. And someone trying to get others to go to the local pub that he knew. Of course he didn't know any local pubs but he was really convinced that he was still back home in Finland...
Saturday morning I still met most of us at the breakfast so I guess the previous night wasn't that bad after all. We decided to head for some sightseeing in the city centre that was about 15 minutes walk away. We went to the old main square, took some pictures and decided that it's enough of tourism and went for a beer. We ended up spending the next two-three hours in the beer garden of a local bar. Everyone else stayed in the shade except me. Now my nose is loosing it's skin.
The festival was supposed to open it's doors at 13 and the Wacken Open Air Metal Battle thing whatever was supposed to start at 13.30. We had to take our merch there anyway so we decided to go check the place out quite early. I guess it was like 14.30 when we arrived and the stadium was empty. I'd say there was like 20-30 people. And there were no bands playing yet, so the signs were not good. The thing was like an hour and a half late already in the beginning. Nice.
We basically ended up hanging around at the venue for the entire afternoon. Not much to do. They did fill our catering rider exactly so we at least had a lot to drink. We were getting a bit bored there and after about an hour of planning Cane and myself finally did something. There was a huge amount of extra fences next to the stage and we went and built a giant pussy on the lawn.
When we finally started our show the festival was late only like 45 minutes. For the whole afternoon the local promoter kept telling us that the "audience will come" but they never did. I'd guess there was perhaps 300-400 people. Nice amount for a club but not for a football stadium. Because of the wind we couldn't use our side or back drops and since the stage was also open on all four sides we must have looked a bit strange. After we got through the first couple songs with just horrible stage sound it got better and we actually did a pretty good show. The audience was small but good and the band was quite good as well. The sound was definitely not perfect on the stage and sometimes it was really hard to follow where we actually were. I think we messed up the last section of Pine Woods but I don't think anyone in the audience really cared or even noticed.
I watched the entire In Extremo show from the stage. They were good as usual. Seemed to have lots of problems with bass gear though. And the show started a bit strangely because they were already all on stage but left again since there were some problems with the drummer's gear as well. I asked them earlier if they're going to have the full German production with all the pyros and stuff but they told me that they'll only have some local Romanian pyros. I of course saw that stuff while we were on stage and though that they looked a bit "home made". The funniest moment of the show was when the first ones went off. It was not a bang. It was not a boom. It was more like "pfffffffst". The guys on stage were looking at each other and their monitor guy was laughing his ass off. That WAS funny.
After the show we headed back to the hotel for showers and stuff and finally later in the evening ended up in the local metal bar in a cellar. Smoking was also allowed there so the "atmosphere" was quite dense. I didn't really like that and when I realized that there basically was only us left in the bar I decide to get back to the hotel.
We left Sibiu around noon. The drive back to Bucharest was faster since we didn't have to stop for the drinks that often. Once again we had overweight over 50kg. I was dealing with the airport personnel as usual and was as charming as ever. When she said that "You'll have to pay, you know that?" I replied "Yes, we know and we're prepared to do that, but usually the nice people of Finnair give us quite a good discount..." She did one phone call and said "OK, you don't have to pay anything." That was nice.
Now I guess it's time for the Midsummer celebrations. And next weekend it's going to be Tuska and Ukraine. I guess we'll be able to play Tuska this time. Ukraine? Who knows.
We left Tampere already around 5 in the Friday morning and flew to Bucharest. We were playing on Saturday so we were able to drink lots of free alcohol while in the air. Well, not that much since they weren't bringing it to us fast enough, but some at least. We arrived to Romania some time after noon and managed to be on the road in a local van by 13. The distance was less than 300km but remembering the last time driving to Iasi we knew that it was going to take long. The roads in Romania are not exactly German autobahns and especially around Bucharest they seem to be extremely congested as well. We stopped a few times to buy more alcohol and I think the whole trip took about 6 hours.
The hotel was really nice and conveniently located only 200m from the venue, Stadionul Municipal. The local promoter had organized a pre-party/dinner/whatever in the restaurant on the top floor. I think we were basically the first ones to arrive there. We ate too much and drank at least enough. There were even enough choices for vegetarians. Nice. In Extremo arrived a bit later. It was really nice to see them again and they seemed generally happy to meet us again as well so I guess our small tour with them went well. After eating too much and drinking a bit of red wine I decided to call it a day and hit the bed. According to the stories I heard next morning some of the others had an interesting night though. Including a local karaoke bar. And someone trying to get others to go to the local pub that he knew. Of course he didn't know any local pubs but he was really convinced that he was still back home in Finland...
Saturday morning I still met most of us at the breakfast so I guess the previous night wasn't that bad after all. We decided to head for some sightseeing in the city centre that was about 15 minutes walk away. We went to the old main square, took some pictures and decided that it's enough of tourism and went for a beer. We ended up spending the next two-three hours in the beer garden of a local bar. Everyone else stayed in the shade except me. Now my nose is loosing it's skin.
The festival was supposed to open it's doors at 13 and the Wacken Open Air Metal Battle thing whatever was supposed to start at 13.30. We had to take our merch there anyway so we decided to go check the place out quite early. I guess it was like 14.30 when we arrived and the stadium was empty. I'd say there was like 20-30 people. And there were no bands playing yet, so the signs were not good. The thing was like an hour and a half late already in the beginning. Nice.
We basically ended up hanging around at the venue for the entire afternoon. Not much to do. They did fill our catering rider exactly so we at least had a lot to drink. We were getting a bit bored there and after about an hour of planning Cane and myself finally did something. There was a huge amount of extra fences next to the stage and we went and built a giant pussy on the lawn.
When we finally started our show the festival was late only like 45 minutes. For the whole afternoon the local promoter kept telling us that the "audience will come" but they never did. I'd guess there was perhaps 300-400 people. Nice amount for a club but not for a football stadium. Because of the wind we couldn't use our side or back drops and since the stage was also open on all four sides we must have looked a bit strange. After we got through the first couple songs with just horrible stage sound it got better and we actually did a pretty good show. The audience was small but good and the band was quite good as well. The sound was definitely not perfect on the stage and sometimes it was really hard to follow where we actually were. I think we messed up the last section of Pine Woods but I don't think anyone in the audience really cared or even noticed.
I watched the entire In Extremo show from the stage. They were good as usual. Seemed to have lots of problems with bass gear though. And the show started a bit strangely because they were already all on stage but left again since there were some problems with the drummer's gear as well. I asked them earlier if they're going to have the full German production with all the pyros and stuff but they told me that they'll only have some local Romanian pyros. I of course saw that stuff while we were on stage and though that they looked a bit "home made". The funniest moment of the show was when the first ones went off. It was not a bang. It was not a boom. It was more like "pfffffffst". The guys on stage were looking at each other and their monitor guy was laughing his ass off. That WAS funny.
After the show we headed back to the hotel for showers and stuff and finally later in the evening ended up in the local metal bar in a cellar. Smoking was also allowed there so the "atmosphere" was quite dense. I didn't really like that and when I realized that there basically was only us left in the bar I decide to get back to the hotel.
We left Sibiu around noon. The drive back to Bucharest was faster since we didn't have to stop for the drinks that often. Once again we had overweight over 50kg. I was dealing with the airport personnel as usual and was as charming as ever. When she said that "You'll have to pay, you know that?" I replied "Yes, we know and we're prepared to do that, but usually the nice people of Finnair give us quite a good discount..." She did one phone call and said "OK, you don't have to pay anything." That was nice.
Now I guess it's time for the Midsummer celebrations. And next weekend it's going to be Tuska and Ukraine. I guess we'll be able to play Tuska this time. Ukraine? Who knows.
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