European Tour: In France 13.11.

Hiya,

Still alive it seems. At the moment we're in Lille,France...appeareantly Tony & Tommy were here 12 years ago on the Stratovarious tour.....laying the groundwork. Let's see how tonight will turn out. Since my last entry we did a killer show in Tilburg and consequently checked out Europe at the Matrix in Bochum the next day and...yeah you guessed it...got totally blasted. Europe put on a really good show and it was really amazing to hear some of my old favourites as well as their newer stuff. The next day it was Fathers Day (at least in Finland) so we celebrated it by getting a cake. (actually our TM Lars got it....thanks man !!!). The shows in Bochum and Ashaffenburg were cool. In Bochum we also had time to talk a bit to Ralf who did our monitors on the South-American Tour back in....2010 I think ? You've probably seen him in the South-Am. Tourdocumentaries....Masa an old friend and star in the new European Tour Documentaries also showed up and spread his joy to all of us. That pretty much brings us up 'til tonight and were we're at right now. After tomorrows show in Paris we'll be halfway through the tour.....time flies it seems like. By the way in addition to the old 80's party music and this falls hit Lana Del Ray I've also been enjoying a tv-series called Eastbound & Down...might not be for everyone but if you're not too sensitive..check it out. We also played a couple of games of NHL12 in the front Lounge with Ville our MON guy a couple of nights ago so the entertainment part of my days are starting to take over. I brought some Bukowski books out as well but so far I've only looked at the cover....and I think it might stay that way.....nice cover anyways :-)

.....gotta go and have dinner now, just back from dinner, at some point a friend of mine suggested that I'd make comments about our dinners during the tour...well, since 90% of the time or more there's chicken and pasta or rice so....eventually it ends up being too much :-)

Got a bunch of pics from Tommy, will upload them tomorrow if the internet is faster than today. Keep

your thumbs up !!!

cheers,

Henkka

European Tour: In Belgium 8.11.

Hola,

Almost one week into the tour. So far most of the things have been smooth, the shows are rocking and everyone is happy. We've actually been able to walk around every now and then as opposed to just sleep all day like it used to be before. I'm sure you all have seen the tourdocumentaries that Tony is making, keep on checking them out (youtube.com/sonataarctica) those will pretty much give you an idea about what goes on. Our first off-day in Hamburg was a bit on the wild side and we actually managed to check out a band called The Coronas...which was cool. I just got a bunch of pics from Tommy, so here you go:

Our mixing dudes: Mikko-FOH and Ville-MON

Tapsa the Drumtech going for Pizza in Warsaw

Peki the truckdriver chilling with his clothes on.

Some of the other bands that have played at the Progresja Club

As an old DT fan this warmed my heart (Warsaw)

Finnish inside jokes part 1: Onko Kahvia ?

Walking around in Berlin: Tempelhof

...and then there was a Police museum of some kind,

which of course was closed....(Berlin)

Finnish inside jokes part 2: Hausmylly ?

Aus Berlin......

So that's pretty much were we're at right now, I'll post some more pics from Hamburg, Cologne and so on, as soon as I get them....if there's anything worth publishing....or decent enough......just crossed my mind that I might have some stuff on my phone as well.........I'll be right back, cheers and beers and tonight we'll rock out at the Trix.

cheers,

Henkka

European Tour: Marching Out !!

Friday 2.11. -  Travel Day

Flyday, Kemi-Helsinki-Warsaw....Ya wanna hear about how we got on the plane,

had a few drinks, waited for the luggage and took the next plane, got to the bus

had some drinks...dinner...sleep....Fucking Hell, at least I'm bored already....and it's 

not of the touring, but the storytelling in this blog is starting to repeat itself. Maybe 

because that's how our days are on tour. Always different but still the same. To

make it clear, this is what the next month will look when we have a showday:

10:00-16:00 Wake up, hangover or feeling great,eating. chilling backstage

or taking a walk...hell there might even be some physical excersises.

around 16:00 soundcheck

after that dinner

and then... interviews or a nap 

showtime 21-23 or something ....then some drinks, aftershowfood and meeting fans. or

not.

0200-morning the bus leaves for the next show

Anyways what I'm getting at is that I really don't want to tell you the same fucking story 20 times for this tour....the offdays are of course and exception. They'll probably look like this

0900-1500  got up and checked into a hotel

1500-midnight rested had dinner and drinks.

...so what should we do ? There will absolutely be a lot of amazing moments on this tour. There'll be some downers as well. Waiting for those moments between I ate and I took a shit is a waste of everybodys time so I think we should go a different route this time. I'll be sure to mention any anormalities to the days but otherwise, let's focus on honouring the late Dr.Thompson, Hunter S. that is. Let's go deep down into the pain and explore something else, the world bubbling underneath. Scared ? Yeah,me too, let's see what happends......the tickets are free but the ride is not. I hereby declare the hunting season opened. What ? Exactly. Duck motherfucker :-)

cheers,

Henkka

Loud Park, Japan 23.10-28.10.

                                                   One of Elias new guitars, he's with ESP now :-)

Tuesday 23.10. - Travel Day, Kemi-Helsinki

So by taking the nightrain to Helsinki we started this weeks work efforts which are mainly everything else than playing. Which of course sucks ass. Had a few beers but nothing spectacular.

Wednesday 24.10. - Spending time in Helsinki

The reason why we left already last night, was that we had to go to the US embassy to do interviews in order to get our visas for the upcoming tour. That task took all morning and for the rest of the day we had no plans. Until we discovered that some of the gold albums were still at our managements office, so we headed out to catch up with some of the dudes involved with the making, in order to give them their albums. Which of course led to the Bäkkäri Bar and too many drinks.

Thursday 25.10.-Travel Day, Helsinki-Tokyo

We left for the airport in the afternoon so there was enough time to get proper sleep which always is nice.I used my flightmiles to upgrade my ticket to business class for the first time ever. That of course was totally awsome.....the grass was greener and I managed to sleep for quite some time on the plane as well. 

Friday 26.10. -Jetlag Day, Tokyo

We arrived in Tokyo just before 0800 in the morning. The catch is to try to stay awake the whole day and thus get right into the correct rythm. So, during the day we went to some music stores, mainly ESP guitar related ones....I guess it was ok but a bit on the boring side... Dinner and a stop at the grocery stores where also on the to do list. Later a party-patrol went to Roppongi and ended up at the Lexington Queen (actually the name has changed to Lex-bar or something like that). Sometime around 0200 it was time to get back to the Hilton Tokyo hotel and sleep.

Saturday 27.10.- Loud Park, Tokyo

Again a chance to sleep long, except for the fact that since your biological clock is totally fucked up so I woke up several times during the early morning hours. Finally around noon it was time to get up but of course I was dead tired by that time. It's funny how these jetlag-fixing-scemes never work out no matter how hard you try :-)  Nevertheless we went to the festival, met up with label people, promoters, merch people and a whole bunch of familiar faces. At 1640 it was our time to fire it up for a 60min festival show. We naturally had a blast and afterwards we did a quick signing session before we had the time to catch up with our friends from Dragonforce. Checked out some songs from COB and talked to a million people it seemed. When we got back to the hotel it was time for dinner and drinks, once again.

                                          Tokyo by night.....watch out !!!

Sunday 28.10.-Travel Day, Tokyo-Helsinki-Kemi

So up at 0800, far to early for a change :-) Pretty much straight from the hotel to the airport and a few quick beers with the COB guys before we invaded the aircraft. No business class this time but I still slept some good hours. Back in Helsinki we had a nice 5 hour wait for the late flight to Kemi and home. This trip was a quite exhausting one but enjoyable nevertheless. Of course when you're away for almost a week and just get to play 60min it feels a bit crazy.

On Friday we're leaving for the European Tour so we have 4 whole days at home to try to get into some reasonable sleeping pattern before we leave again. I doubt it works but it is what it is and as long as everything goes well, our next show is on Saturday in Poland. Until then......silence.

The couple of pics used in this post are the only ones we could use since the rest of the pics were a bit.....hmm....off the charts, so to speak.

cheers,

Henkka

Finnish Club Tour: Kuopio, 12.10.-13.10.

Friday 12.10.- Kuopiohalli, Kuopio

So here we go probably the last show on home soil before the festivals next summer. The day started out really great, got picked up at my house around 0520 in the morning. Didn't sleep too well before that so it wasn't hard at all to pass out in my bunk in the bus. We arrived in Kuopio around noon, chilled downstairs in the bar with Tommy, waiting for Elias to arrive. At around 1500 we're leaving for the venue and soundcheck and after that it's time for another signing session at the local Levykauppa ÄX. 

                                              Just got done signing stuff :-)

I'll let you know how it goes in a bit. btw just listened through Devin Townsends Epicloud, some great shit ideed. Wasn't too surprised though, after all the man is a genius. Lately it's been a lot of Lana Del Rey, I really like the Born to Die album.... :-) Anyways I'll continue this a bit later when something happends, right now it's me, Lana and my computer with Marko sleeping in the other bed in our room. Maybe not a bad idea to charge up for the night....well.... The signing session was cool, on all of these occasions we've had a really great turnout so it's been nice.

Appeareantly we're the Home Team tonight !!!

After the signing stuff we went back to the venue for dinner. Somebody had realized the beauty of black pepper. OMG. It was good nevertheless. Before long it was time to hit the stage in front of around 1500ppl. In a 6000 capacity hall it does look a bit weird but whatta hell. We had a really good time and enjoyed playing in Finland for the last time this year. Naturally we had a hell of a tourending party in Henry's Pub.

Tommy with his favourite drummer Twist Twist (Los Bastardos Finlandeses)

                                                                        Aftershow smoking at the appropriate spot.

Saturday 13.10.-Travel Day Kuopio-Kemi

Nice fucking headache !!! Sleep, food, jäger.....you do what you can to get in shape. Left Kuopio at around 0900 and was home just before 1600. Thank you Finland. Next up Japan,Europe & America before christmas. We're ready, how about you ?

cheers,

Henkka

pics by Tommy

Finnish Club Tour: Seinäjoki & Oulu, 5.10.-7.10.

Friday 5.10.- Rytmikorjaamo, Seinäjoki

According to my itenenary I was picked up from home at 10:15, picking up the guys, occasional food stops and some 3 hour nap were the main events during the ride down. Chilled in the hotel for some time with the guys before heading towards dinner & soundcheck, my favourite combo :-) 

I don't remember how many times we've played here but it's been a couple at least. Pretty cool venue, nice people and so on...we'll see what happends tonight, goddamn I can't wait to get onstage !!! A couple of our friends from Studio57 are coming down to the show as well, it'll be nice to catch up and have some....you guessed it: beers. Alrighty, friends arriving, some hours to showtime. I'll get back on this later....maybe tomorrow or whatever.

Kinda great night, the band clicked and the audience was responsive. A happy day at work so to say. The only minus is that I just got back to the hotel and it's 0230 and we have to get up and going at 0700. Doesn't sound too bad but I'm not feeling a slightest bit sleepy....shit. Good luck then and let's see what happends. Tomorrow Oulu, signing session at the Levykauppa ÄX and whatnot. It'll be great....I think.

btw we found out that our tape, marking how to play the Ameriikan Juna-DVD-menu song were still taped onto the piano backstage, so if you're ever there check it out !!!

Saturday 6.10.-Club Teatria, Oulu

What a nice little nap, wasn't it ? Be that as it may, we had some breakfast with marko before heading to the bus and sleeping most of the drive to Oulu.At the moment we just got in to our hotel and in a few hours it's time for the signing session.

...The signing session was smooth, like they have been on this whole tour. We went straight to the venue for soundcheck and dinner. I can't remember how many times we've played at Teatria but it's a very familiar place and naturally the show was really cool. During fullmoon my keyboard got caught in one of the stagelights and I tipped it over, trying to get free.....well sometimes these things happend, no biggie.

Afterwards we made a quick stop at the hotel before heading out for some drinks and dancing (haha, as if...)

This is our Bell of Doom, when you hear this sound

you'll know it's time to get the fuck up !!!!!!

Sunday 7.10. - Travel "day" Oulu-Kemi (meaning just 1,5h on the bus)

Got a bit drunk yesterday but was is shape for the 0900 breakfast and the 1000 lobby call for the ride home..... next Friday we'll have the last show of the Finnish Tour and the last show in Finland for quite some time. We're all really looking forward to get on with the "proper" touring, these weekend shows are somehow a bit confusing. It's a bit hard to get into any groove with just a few shows in a row and at home it's hard to get into any decent rythm in just a couple of days. Blah blah, as said, one more and then we'll go and play for everybody else :-)

cheers,

Henkka

pics by Tommy & Henkka

Finnish Club Tour: Helsinki,Tampere & Lahti 24.9.-30.9.

Monday 24.9. Travel Day, Kemi-Helsinki

...just jumped on the train in the evening for an overnight run down to Helsinki. Marko

joined me from Oulu. Pretty uneventful ride since we slept most of it.

Tuesday 25.9. Tavastia, Helsinki

We go lucky with the hotel and could check in just before 10 in the morning. Most of the day was spent sleeping and watching movies. We did a signing session at the Levykauppa ÄX in the afternoon and before long it was time to do the show. The acoustic thing is starting to work better and better by the night but during the last song Tony cracked me up and I spent the rest of the song trying not to laugh the whole time. Well, we're a bunch of clowns anyway.  Since we were going to have an early show the next day we headed straight to the hotel after the show.

Wednesday 26.9. Tavastia, Helsinki

Went to the gym with Tony and Marko in the afternoon, other than that I pretty much stayed in my room and rested. The show was an all-ages thing and started already at 1900. It's still a bit weird to play that early in a club but somehow we got ourselves going and in retrospect I think that this was the best of the three Tavastia shows as far as the band playing tight and everything running smoothly. Somehow we managed to take a detour via the Bäkkäri bar before the hotel, which might not have been the best idea. 

Thursday 27.9. Tavastia, Helsinki

Since we had a late show, I could sleep most of the day and thus get rested and ready. Our manager caught us off guard by not telling us that we were going to get our gold-albums for Stones Grow Her Name during the show. We had a business meeting in the afternoon but he didn't say anything about it then so....just as we were starting Shitload of Money, the stage was invaded with people that had worked on the album and we were given our gold-albums. Lots of pictures were taken and it took a while before we got to continue the show. Afterwards we got champagne and of course got detoured to the Bäkkäri bar again and this time it was definately not a good idea...or was it ? Can't remember. Anyways we spotted Neumann and Tuksu two finnish celebrities, famous for very different reasons though.

Welcome back to Tampere, I give you the 

judgemental lamb....with Elias of course..

Friday 28.9. Pakkahuone, Tampere

What a horrible hangover all day....I guess we're not 20 anymore :-) Anyways, in the evening when it was time to get onstage I was already feeling pretty close to normal. Sturm und Drang was our support band for tonight (haven't had openers before this on the tour), I managed to catch a few of their last songs. Since this is Elias hometown it's always kinda special to play here. That and the amazing crowd who definately were out to have a good time. Btw almost forgot that we had a signing session again at Levykauppa ÄX, it went smoothly so nothing special about it. Went straight to the hotel after the show since we had one more show on this part before taking a few days off.

Signing session @ Levykauppa Äx in Tampere.

Saturday 29.9. Sibeliustalo, Lahti

Woke up in time for breakfast for the first time this week :-) , A short drive later we're in Lahti. The venue today is a concert hall, meaning numbered seating and balconies and whanot.....and of course an early show (1900). The backstage is as you can expect with separate rooms for all the bandmembers and mine and Tonys even had pianos in them in addition to the private shower and beds....unbeliavable. Well, being that all the circumstances were excellent, we of course had to work our asses off during the show to get the crowd into it. I guess most of them were standing by the end of the show but it took us a while to get there.

Properly marked private dressingrooms

quite a bit different from your basic backstage

Afterwards we went to the sauna upstairs, had some food and drinks and packed ourselves into the bus. Some 600+km later I get dropped off at home, just in time for breakfast....for the second time this week.

Some crazy fans or something that joined us on

the bus from Lahti and back home...very weird guys.

Cheers,

Henkka

Pics by Tommy