Hexentanz, Germany 25.4.-28.4.

Allrighty then so it's time to start the festival season, and the final 11 shows on the SGHN-World Tour. First up is Hexentanz, which we've never played before. On Thursday we took the evening flight to Helsinki, Beers & Hockey (The NY Rangers clinched a playoff-spot btw) made sure that I was really tired on Friday morning when we left for our flight from Helsinki to Frankfurt. The flight was easy but then the 2 hour drive to the festival was actually a 3+ hour drive and naturally as we arrived on site, there was no hot food and the restaurant at the hotel was closed. Well, nothing else to do than to get some sleep. Tony woke me up just before a short 30min signing session and after that we got some food backstage, despite the rain (which had been going on all day) things seemed a lot brighter now. Then the next obstacle: since we decided to be smart about it, all our gear was sent to the rental company after the UK tour in order to save money on overweights (we have some own stuff with us on festivals and some is rented). Appeareantly they thought we were going to play here tomorrow so we had no gear. The started to bring it here but they're about 4 hours away so let's see what's going to happend.No gear = No show, unless someone would like to watch us dance for 90min. At the moment the word is that the gear should be here any minute, we're supposed to be on stage in 45min but since the festival is running late, that's not gonna happend. Nevertheless I'm still at the hotel (which is about 100m away) and right now I'm gonna get dressed and ready for the show, if there is one. I'll let you know how things turned out.

...Our gear arrived about 1 hour before the show and our crew did their magic. We had to cut a couple of songs in order to make the 23:00 curfew but we got it done. Despite the shitty weather (nothing new at summer festivals btw) and the additional hassles, we enjoyed ourselves. Later on we hung out at the hotel for awhile before getting ready for the drive to the airport, the flight to Helsinki....some dinner and the night-train to Kemi. Next up Istanbul, in a few days.

cheers,

Henkka

PS. check out my other band http://silentvoices.net/ we just released some info about our upcoming album and soon we'll add some showdates in Europe as well.

Tony pitched in with a couple of pics, Thanks dude !

The dinner on our way back in Helsinki was at this establishment, those of you from Finland might

know this logo ;-)

The friendly staff at VR making sure we don't get lost.....or making sure we do,

it's hard to know sometimes...

UK Tour: London 17.4. and going home !!

Hello,

Yesterday was a lot of fun and we actually got some nice vodka after the show so all is well :-) Today we've done some inties and that's about it. Went out for lunch with the whole band and talked some business as well. At the moment I'm getting ready to play a sold out show here in London.Life is good. Atfter tonight we still have the festival season to survive and then it's time to work on some new music. All in all this tour will be the shortest one we've done since the Winterheart's Guild Tour back in 2003 when I just had joined the band....interesting. The show total will be just under 100 this time around. Regarding rumors about us going back to Latin-America later this year...we will not do that, we're gonna focus on our next album in order to get it out next spring. Keep your thumbs up that everything pans out !!! Tomorrow we have a couple of flights to get home so I'll probably finish this then and maybe get some photos uploaded as well...I guess it all depends on how bad of a hangover I'll have after the tourending party tonight.

here's some typical SA fans at the merchbooth in Manchester, pic by Laura

The show last night (in London) was really hot, great and a fucking killer.Everybody was happy and well so ..it was a win win beer situation. A quick bar stop with Punky and then off to bed. Naturally the next day started with a massive hangover.A nap on the plane and some drinks in Helsinki, Next stop Home.Bed,Lights Off and that's about all I have to say about UK.

btw Tony thinks that the Stones Grow Her Name World Tour ended here in the UK but I think that the tour actually ends when the festival season is over. We had the same debate earlier on some tours but I guess we'll never come to an agreement about this. Oh the drama of being in a band, Awesome !! 

cheers,

Henkka

Oh, and a dude name Elliot took a couple of pics of me & Elias soloing:

...and no my face is not photoshopped...scary shit man !!

A somewhat more family friendly take on the thing....

Flashback from Latin-America: The last pics....

Hola, finally I got the last patch of pics from Tommy....Here we go:

The only man who can pull off wearing boots with shorts...törkeetä !!!

Fooling around at the airport somewhere.

The only time I managed to get into the swimming pool, this tour was hectic as hell...

Some weird airplane moments....

The swimming pool in Costa Rica @ the hotel.

A cool SA tatto on a fan somewhere....

Tommy @ Copacabana Beach

In Mexico Tommy got this very cool wrestling mask.

...and here's a close-up of it as well.

Getting friendly with the airport security always helps ;-)

A nice outside dinner moment...

...which also highlights Tommys love for Red Wine.

In the year 2013, we went to Paraguay and got a bottle of

excellent Polish Vodka @ the airport.....and then we drank it.

And That's all for now folks,

Cheers,

Henkka

UK-Tour: in Birmingham 16.4.

Hi there,

Let's see what's been going on lately....The Show in Nottingham was really cool and we enjoyed ourselves(as usual). Later some of us went to a nearby tavern the Marko & I found the night before. Had a few drinks but nothing too crazy. The nex morning we woke up in Machester of all places :-) Last time when we played here we managed to move our show to the nicer hall upstairs but this time we didn't have such luck. Had some food at the pub before our soundcheck. In the evening we had the hottest show in a long time, the whole band was dripping in sweat along with around 400 crazy fans. It was fun but let's try to make it upstairs the next time, shall we ? Later we went to a rock pub that we discovered on our previous visit here, this time there was also a dog called Elvis inside, it didn't seem to enjoy the noise that much so for awhile we considered adopting it and taking it with us on the bus. That would have been awesome but after some careful consideration we decided not to become dog thieves....at least not for now. 

Today I woke up kinda early (before noon) and joined Tommy, Tony and our merch-girl Laura for some breakfast. I also managed to take a short nap before me & Tony headed out to the Kerrang Radio Station for an interview. At the moment I'm waiting...for.....soundcheck. Gotta try to get some pics for this blog, I just have to figure out how to move them from my phone to the computer...since I just got a new cell...yeah !!! We'll see about that...anyhow everyone is alive and well and tomorrow we'll do London before heading home.

cheers,

Henkka

The Utrecht show and going to UK

Travel Day 11.4. 

So, I got up at 0500 and dragged myself to the airport in order to catch the 0700 flight to Helsinki.Well over there we headed for the hotel and a couple of hours of rest before we continued our travel towards The Netherlands via Copenhagen. Since our flight from Helsinki was delayed we missed the connection and ended up spending a night in Copenhagen instead. Dinner and a couple of beers before

heading to bed.....

Utrecht, Showday 12.4.

In the morning I realized I'd lost my ticket to the subway and decided to not worry about it too much, well of course there was an inspection and I got fined and almost missed the flight. Oh Shit !! To make matters even more annoying I later found my ticket in my pocket....nevertheless we got to Amsterdam, at least most of us did, and then boarded the bus for a short drive to Utrecht. I think we have played here before but I'm not sure. The day was spent just chilling, and in the evening we rocked the place in front of almost 900 crazy dutch fans. Afterwards we hanged out with our friends from the fanclub, beers and stuff ;-)

On the cover of the new fanclub magazine there is a really rare picture of Marko smiling, since I have never seen a pic where he's smiling before I asked for it from Milou who took the pic and she just sent me it so I'll post it here for all of you to enjoy !!!

Travel Day 13.4.

Woke up while we were driving towards Calais from were we took the ferry to Dover and then spent the rest of the evening driving up to Nottingham. Upon arrival (around midnight) I headed out with Marko for a couple of drinks...during our drive we also had a wine and cheese evening in the front lounge, I guess we're getting old. I'll harras Tommy for the pic a bit later.

Nottingham, Showday 14.4.

At the moment we're hanging out backstage in the club, waiting for our soundcheck to happend. I just woke up a couple of hours ago so it's yet to be determined how this day is gonna turn out. Really looking forward to start the UK tour and playing 4 shows in a row with no boring traveldays in between ;-)

cheers,

Henkka