Sonipshere, Spain (24th-27th of May, 2012)

and so it happended on the 24th;

Early flight from Kemi to Helsinki and of course then the madness begins. Can you imagine how we spend some 6 hours of waiting at the airport, I bet you can. Be that as it may, everybody get onboard and we're good to go. The gear is loaded.....most of the band is loaded and the crew is getting into the mood as well. Arriving at Madrid airport, basic hassle and off to the hotel and a decent attempt to get into bed early. Epic FAIL of course but we have time to sleep in the morning so no harm done.

and on the 25th the good stuff begins:

Since we missed breakfast I head out for lunch with Marko. Cheap, good and we're back alive. As we arrive at the festival there's a couple of interviews to be done and some photo-shoot thing. Pretty soon it's showtime and we hit the stage in front of several thousand people. We only had a short 55 min set so it was over quite fast, nevertheless we managed to play 4 new songs, Only the broken, Shitload of Money, Losing my insanity and I have a right. We've already rehearsed a couple of other ones which will be in the set during the summer. It's been really fun to play new stuff and on top of this we've changed the stage-setup as well so there's a lot of things to get used to. After the show we did a signing session and later we watched The Offspring and Soundgarden which of course was enjoyable.

and then we turned towards hom on the 26th

..and early wake-up, far too early for me (0700) and off to the airport. I slept the whole flight to Helsinki. Instead of flying home we took the night-train up north, a few drinks and some quite interesting discussions with other people in the restaurant car. We also decided to upload a couple of pictures on our facebook page.....what an original idea ;-)

and then it's a short break before Tampere on the 8th of June. See ya There !!!

cheers,

Henkka

ps. A big thanks to our drummer Tommy for the great pictures. 

Radio Rock Cruise, Helsinki-Tallinn-Helsinki (May 5-6, 2012)

Having a few weeks off before the first shows on the tour is not really nice. Personally I'd rather have a bunch of shows in a row to get started and get into the groove. Nevertheless, on saturday morning we flew down to Helsinki and shuttled off to our managements office. Awaiting us there was around 500 "I have a right" singles to be signed for the webshop. That of course took a while and we also did a couple of video spots as well...and just before leaving for the cruise we had the time to talk a little bit about next years touring plans and it will be busy, I'll tell you that much. 

We entered the Baltic Princess (I think that was the name of the boat) late in the afternoon and after getting our cabins and having dinner (which was really good btw) it was time to try to have a quick nap before the signing session and the show. Since our showtime was at midnight and we boarded the flight early in the morning, most of us were getting a bit tired at this point. I almost managed to sleep, and probably would have succeded if it wasn't for Elias phoning me up at some point, and then some loudspeaker announcement about whatever....well that's what's red bull is for, right ?

At around 2130 we had a brief signing session and then it was time to start to get changed and ready for the show. A really excited and "liquered up" crowd awaited us and despite the somewhat small stage we had a blast. In addition to the other new stuff we played at PPM we now also added Shitload of Money to the set. I think it worked really great despite the fact that nobody had heard it before so it will probably be in the set for the rest of the summer. Drinks after the show of course and an early wake-up to leave the ship in Tallinn. What ? Exactly we left the cruise midway, jumped on a faster boat back to Helsinki to catch an afternoon flight to Kemi and before 6 o'clock we were at home. Really a run & gun show but we like it. So next up is Sonisphere in Spain. I'll be back then.

cheers,

Henkka

PPM fest, Mons, Belgium (April 6-9, 2012)

The first show, can we still play ? We flew out in the evening on Friday and had a night (and you guessed it, some beers) in Helsinki. On Saturday morning we boarded our flight to Brussels via Riga. Confusion, waiting and paying for overweight, at least this hasn't change since our last world tour. Anyways we're so used to it by now it doesn't even bother me, unless it's some extra spectacular hassle. This time it wasn't. When we got to Brussels we were picked up and shuttled to the hotel. The crew guys went to the festival site to check out the tech-things and preparing our gear for the show. 

After a couple of hours of rest in the room, the band also headed for the PPM festival. First up was a signing session, it was very nice to see that people still remembered us and were excited for the show. A short interview later it was time for us to get ready...but wait, we hadn't eaten all day so we headed to the festival catering......we got the starters and the drinks right away but somehow they managed to forget our first order.....and our second one....and by the third time they appeareantly got it, so 1,5 hours after sitting down we got some plates before us. My nickname back home is trashcan because I eat almost anything, but this time it was not really worth the wait....of course I chewed it up anyway but.....well, enough bitching...

 Not having played a show since August 15 2011 the whole band was pretty nervous but that's how it usually is after a long break. As soon as we got on stage, all was well again and we started to enjoy ourselves. Really fucking great to be back !!!! We played three new songs, the show opener: Only the broken hearts, the "koivunen-cover" Losing my insanity and our first single: I have a right, on top of that we also played Breathing which we have never played anywhere live before. The rest was older and more familiar stuff...

...after the show, we met some of Elias friends from Pirkkala, had some beers, said a quick hello to the Finntroll guys  (whom offered some local spirit that tasted like Barbie and Marshmallows going to hell)....and headed back to the hotel. Some drinks, a lot of talking and planning and just in time for the last game of the regular season in the NHL, I was in bed watching that and passing out. A great day indeed.

On Sunday, all we had to do was eat breakfast and get to the airport for the evening flight, so that's basically what I did. We arrived at the hotel in Helsinki at around 0200am and at 0530 it was time to get up and head back to the airport, at just before 10 I was home and pretty much went straight to bed :-)

cheers,

Henkka

Official Tour Blog Launched !!!

Hi There, 

ok, so instead of posting this and that all over the web, here's the official tour blog for our Stones Grow Her Name World Tour. This tour will take about 2 years so there will be plenty of stories here. Any stories that are not from the tour, like recording sessions etc, you'll find on my homepage: lanceland.webs.com  , I will also try to get some of the other guys to write something here occasionally.....and hell, we might even post pictures. More stuff you can find on sonataarctica.info

and facebook.com/sonataarctica

It's gonna be a long tour all over the world so fasten your seatbelts people, here we go !!!!

cheers,

Henkka