Metal Fest, Plzen, The Czech Republic, 31.5.-2.6.

The trip started with the now traditional evening flight to Helsinki and a night at the Hilton. Had a couple of beers with Elias but nothing majestic, so to speak. In the morning we got up at around 0700 for breakfast before heading to the airport and the 0935 flight to Prague. I somehow have come to realize, after all these years, that sleeping makes the flight go faster so I did just that and voilá we were about to land. Naturally we had to wait for about an hour or so for the shuttle to arrive and then it was off to Plzen. As the crew went to the festival to check out the gear etc...basically do their job ;-) The band went straight to the hotel for some R & R. Since I was hungry at this point, I convinced Marko that he also was...and so we had a nice lunch at the hotel wine restaurant. Drink, soup and pasta for around 10e/head was really cheap and on top of all the food was excellent. At the moment I'm just browsing the internet for NHL news and stupid youtube clips and waiting for the clock to turn 1800 and then it's off to the festival. We have a signing session lined up as well as the headliner show later.....let's see if we remember the songs anymore ;-) btw if you have any entertaining = stupid comedy clips please post them in the comment section so we have something to watch. Don't bother with the standup-things since there are too many of them anyway. Thanks in advance !!

I'll be back, just have to listen to some Yngwie Malmsteen right now because he fucking rules !!

..before long it was time to head to the festival. It was still raining like hell. The signing session was ok but just before the show we had some problems with the soundcard for the laptop. Appeareantly the firewire connectors on the card are not too sturdy but Ville managed to get it to work. Personal reminder: pick up the spare motu from the rehersal place before the next show. Anyways, despite having a few weeks off we managed to play a good show, and with a big stage it was really fun to run around for a change. Even to the point that I missed one soundchange because I was on the "wrong" side of the stage when I should have been changing the sound.Minor details so whatta hell. Afterwards I took some beers and cider and headed for the hotel where it was time to watch some NHL. We got there just in time to see the last 10min of LA-CHI and I even managed to stay awake for the first two periods of the BOS-PIT game, in the beginning of the third I fell asleep.

In the morning I had a quick breakfast before it was time for the 1 hour vanride, a couple of hours of waiting at the airport, check-in, lunch, a flight to Helsinki (slept the whole time again, way to go me :-) ) and some 4 hours of waiting in Helsinki, including dinner with the guys. Just after 2230 I was in the cab on my way home. This was a rainy festival but we had a good time, come to think of it we also played at the first Metal Fest in 2010...that time with a hellish sunshine and during a really hot day. Well, things change.

next up: Sweden Rock, before we have around 4 weeks of summer holiday !!

cheers,

Henkka

yeah yeah, I'll get some pics for the next entry...