Day 5 - Le Divan Du Monde, Paris, France

This was a very stressful day! We arrived in good time, but our equipment did not. It's hard to play a concert without instruments and when the doors were supposed to open we were still waiting for the equipment to arrive. This lead to a bit delay and limited sound checks. Anyway, we feel we did a good job and after a few songs, some metalheads forced their way to the front and started headbanging.

Rigging rigging rigging.

While waiting for our equipment we scouted the area for music shops and there were hundreds of them! But for some reason all of them were closed. We found one, though, that was open because some people were filming some tv-report inside the shop. We went in only to find that the shop was filled with vintage guitars and amps.

Check out the strange leather-guitar behind Ulrik.

We went back to the venue as the truck with our equipment was supposed to arrive shortly, but the driver was stuck in traffic due to an accident and was therefore stuck in the Paris traffic 6 kilometers away.

Ulrik, Bjørn and Isak then went for some sightseeing at the beautiful Sacre Coeur cathedral.

Bjørn and Ulrik after the 300 steps

Random picture of tower

... aaand it was raining.

The venue was big and had a gallery overlooking the scene. Both the gallery and the floor were packed with people, the venue was close to sold out!

Day 4 - Progpower, Baarlo, Netherlands

We woke up to a fantastic sunny day here in beautiful Baarlo. The bus drive was only about 90 km from Cologne so the night was very quiet until the sound of church bells at 9 am forced us to get up from bed.

Today is a day off for us so we have the whole day to explore the tiny town and drink coffee on the little cafe located 20 meters from the bus.

We are very excited about tomorrow as we'll be playing in Paris and last I heard it was close to being sold out. Besides, the French are supposed to be a crazy crowd, in a good way of course.

Day 3 - Euroblast, Cologne, Germany

A goal has been met. When we formed the band, our primary goal was to play at the EuroBlast festival some time in the future. Today we did just that and what a show it turned out to be!

The day started off a little stressful due to all the logistic issues from yesterday; however, after a really long bus drive we finally arrived at the festival and were pleasantly surprised by the warm German autumn-sun.

We did not have much time to get on stage, but luckily, everything went smoothly and the crowd was awesome! 
After the show we met a lot of nice people, some of them were old acquaintances others heard us for the first time and had to share their enthusiasm. One pleasant surprise was the vocalist of Monuments, Chris Barretto, who told us that he really enjoyed the show (we grew a couple of inches at that moment).

There were several tents with food, equipment end guitars for display around the festival area. Marius was especially interested in the 9-string Ibanez, although the rest of the band might not be too stoked of the idea. 

Day 2 - Forbrændingen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Last night we went to bed rather early or at least most of us did, Marius and Bjørn had a few beers before joining the rest of us in a wave-induced sleep aboard the ferry.

We woke up in good time to have a coffee before Øystein and Isak headed for the rental car. As the venue was supposed to be in Copenhagen, we thought it would be easy to drop off the gear and return the car to the docks in no time; however, it appears Copenhagen is a bit bigger than Oslo and the venue is located 35 minutes outside the city center. 

But with the help of our lord and savior Google Maps and some failing cellular network, we managed to find the venue, drop off the gear and return to the docks in time.

Now, here we are backstage at the venue called "Forbrændingen". We've met with the other bands, the tour manager and the rest of the crew. They all seem like very nice people (not that we'd write anything gossipy online only for them to find), but they really do seem like a good bunch.

Over to the bus. It is a bit older than we anticipated and the trailer is less than half the size ordered, thus, we will need to stuff most of our gear inside the bus for the first few days.

Following are a few pictures of the venue, backstage and lunch table (for some reason).

This is the food we got when we got here, we also got fruits, dinner later on and a fridge full of beer, water and soft-drinks.

Disregard the doomed plate.

Sound and lights-table

Stage seen from above (obviously)

Exactly where we're writing this from. Backstage. (Isak took the picture).

RIGGING RIGGING RIINRIGNINRIN

Day 1

The day started with everybody saying goodbye to their loved ones and heading out to the rehearsal studio to pack the gear into the rental van.

Boarding the ferry from Oslo to Copenhagen, the first mission was to harvest all necessities from the the tax free.

All the restaurants were fully booked, so we had to kill some time in the room, tasting some whiskey and telling a lot of really bad jokes.

We finally had a good buffet at 8 pm, stuffing our faces with the most expensive things we could find on the tables.

At last we rolled out of the restaurant, found a bar with a cold pint and wrote this post. Hope tomorrow will run smoothly and the show will be successful.
Stay tuned!

Countdown - D minus 1

We are actually leaving tomorrow! And luckily things seems to finally get sorted.

600 $ worth of bass strings arrived today, in the nick of time! Just one of those .175 strings weighs almost the same as one guitar... almost!

New sound card has been installed. A new rack case has been assembled and tested.

Today it is time to worry about typical normal luggage issues. How many boxers do you need for a month long trip? How often can we do laundry? Do we have everything we need for a soar throat? Do we need clothes for really cold weather? Guess late October in Helsinki might get chilly...

Countdown - D minus 2

Typically! Just before the tour, Bjørn (the drummer), got an injured toe. Luckily it's nothing serious, and he might be well enough to play again today or tomorrow.

Everybody in the band try to be very cautious these days. Don't use sharp knifes, don't do sports or any risky activities. But you never now...

The merchendise has finally arrived the correct destination. One less thing to worry about.

White special edition t-shirt

Black tour t-shirt - front

Black tour t-shirt - back

A big thanks to Eric Kirchner Art who designed these. He always delivers quality work!

Tonight is our last rehearsal before the tour....