Tuesday 23.7. - Travel Day
Ok, so what do we have here, a show at the Metal Fest, some off-days at my friends summer cottage and another show in the east of Finland....but it all started with a major fuck-up. Here we go:
We were supposed to leave for Helsinki in the evening on Tuesday....but when I got a phone call from our manager around noon, with him asking why we weren't on the morning flight the day took an unexpected turn. Just for the record and as a greeting to flybe, if you change our departure to be 9 hours earlier, fucking tell us you idiiots !! Being that there were no other flights from Kemi that day, and we had an early flight from Helsinki to Ljubljana (correct spelling ? ) on Wednesday morning...it was time to make quick decisions and get myself, Tony & Tommy to Helsinki asap....our options: get to Oulu or Rovaniemi and fly from there, with Finnair we'd get up to over 1000e for 3 persons to fly to Helsinki so luckily I found a flight with Norwegian which was a lot less. I had about an hour (and so did the rest of the dudes) to get my shit together and haul my ass to the trainstation, 1 hour by train to Oulu and then a 20min cabdrive to the airport and we made it in time for the last flight of the day. Hopefully the rest of the travel will be a bit less stressful ;-)
Upon arrival it was time to get some evening-food & drinks from the alepa (local supermarket) at the airport before checking into the Hilton and trying to find out if Elias also wanted some beer ;-)...and while doing that I checked out the rest of the youtube crop. Granted we've seen the dog vs cat stuff and how animal eat their food...funny shit...also the not give a fuck was nice...but the winner today is The Loner....and just so you don't get to tell me I never give anything back, a bit of music:
btw some of the videos in the comments were really crazy...and some were boring...maybe this
will make you laugh a bit though (not for too sensitive ppl):
...and there's a lot more in that well ;-)
Wednesday 24.7. - Travel & Show Day, Tolmin
Gedappa, at around 0530 for a 0600 lobby call, this will be awesome ;-) Took a nap on the plane,
and tried again in the car...it worked...almost. It took us about 140min to drive to the hotel. Upon arrival
we had some late lunch and went to bed for an hour or so. At 1830 it was time to drive to the festival, eat dinner and have a signing session. So far so good ;-)
Be that as it may, the show was great (hate to repeat myself but whaddayado when you rule haha ). Back at the hotel just before 3 and leaving at 0445 means that you pretend to sleep or you're just honest and have another drink. During the 120min (note the difference of early hour travel) ride to the airport some of us shared a van with some of the Messhuggah guys. Some drank some didn't. Cheers Mr.H.
We also got some nice wine with Sonata Arctica-labels on it...had to taste it right away ;-)
Thursday 25.7. - Travel Day
Got to Helsinki somewhat ok and jumped into our pyroguy Ari's truck, heading for his islands. Somehow the dude owns 3 Islands somewhere around Jyväskylä and we decided to spend a few days there since being at home doesn't really constitute as a holiday. Loaded up on drinks and food and got to the main island.
Friday 26.7. - Summer Island Day
Beer, Sauna, Sun, Swimming, BBQ (repeat several times in no particular order). We got blessed with an incredible summer weather, sunshine and whatnot. Total bliss.
Saturday 27.7. - Summer Island Day & Drive to Iisalmi
Started off the day with the same formula as yesterday. However since we used the sauna next to the sleeping room for the whole day, last night we had 27 degrees celcius in our bedroom. Well, shit happends. ..eventually we got off the island and went to a friends mansion for some more sauna, excellent food and a sleepover. Thanks Mika.
Sunday 28.7.- Showday, Lieksa
After a sturdy breakfast it was time to head towards our show in Lieksa. Upon arrival (the first ones to get there from our party btw) it was just about waiting for the other dudes to arrive. Met up with the Battle Beast guys since they were already there. Janne had broke his wireless midi at Q-stock so I borrowed him mine for their show. He also had the Alesis keytar which I'll have to check out some day. It's kinda cheap and I usually brake my keyboards, even by accident so it might be a good idea to step down if I can play our stuff on one of those. Anyways, later as our guys arrived me, Tony, Marko and the pyro dudes went to play fresbee (spell check ?) golf. It was kinda fun but I'm not sure if this is my thing or not. Eventually we got around to actually play the show (kinda the reason why we where in Lieksa anyhow). Our hotel for the night was a local villagehouse or whatever it could be called in english. Basically this ment that I could hear the snoring from 3 rooms down, nevertheless we had beer.
Monday 29.7. - Travel Day
Spent most of the day in a van driving home....technically speaking riding home since Punky was driving. Well, that's about it and we still have 4 more shows to go. Kemi & Wacken...plus a trip to Portugal and the last show in France.
cheers,
Henkka
