Tour Diary #5: Manchester, UK (08.04.2008)

...it's been a while since we've updated this mothafucka... you might think there'd be enough time to write during the days but goddammit, the time kinda flies, no matter what. Anyway, we've practiced several shows through France and Spain and ended up in England. Here's very short versions from all the past shows for y'all:

In Marseilles we were supposed to do the best show ever 'cause there were lots of folks from Season of Mist checking our show out... but what do you know: we barely managed to do a soundcheck 'cause there were some nice delays here and there. Also the venue forgot to open the freakin' doors and just when we were supposed to start, the first fellows rushed in. also the monitor-engineer dude was nowhere to be found and we played practically the whole set without monitors. Well, the SOM-people understood the situation and told that that wasn't the first nor the last time there were some complications on this venue. Fuck it, the town was very cool and the SOM people were even more cool, very down to earth and the most easy to come along with. We also got the fucking promo CDs with us, a small victory or what!?

Then we hit to Spain, four gigs there, from north to right in the middle and to the border of Portugal. Barcelona gave us a little sweat about the schedules again, we did the soundcheck and the gig right after! Some more sweat after the Barcelona night 'cause our bus broke down again in the middle of the damn deserts on the way to Madrid. We made it to Madrid after some serious Scania-engineering sessions but fucking failed to do the show! The Sorrow did three songs and we only had a chance to do some serious stage-diving there… some of us with better success that the other fat fucks. 

In Vigo we got to do a full set with the strangest stage ever… the stage was three meters high, so no stage diving that night, not too much jumping from the drumset on to the monitors either...

The stress of being the first and doing the soundcheck hit us once again in Irun, where we were doing the check with our stage clothes on and straight after “check one twooo…” “ good evening mothafuckas! We are….”. Very intensive night though, one of the smallest clubs on this tour.

Saarbrucken was probably the best show in Germany so far (one to go still), even the stagediving worked out pretty fucking fine during our set…

Then there was Paris, which was again back to the ground-thing for us... needless to say that the town was fucking something else that Martinlaakso, but the audience understandably held some critics towards an unknown band.they didnt throw anything on the stage though, but took our shit pretty nice.

Next there were seven days in Great fucking Britain… none of us had even visited the freaking bloody country before! It is now the fifth day's night in Manchester and it feels like we're already wanting to revisit! The first show in Norwich was too short, 'cause we were supposed to play only 25 minutes. We did the songs so fucking fast that there were 8 minutes left when we stopped. That's always fucked up if it turns that way... 8 minutes is 8 minutes! Sheffield was kinda tuff to break, or so it seemed, but after the show there were more than enough people to convince us that we were doing fucking great! Believe that! After the show they held a freakin` disco right after..here`s a note to a Finnish disco-scene: play a fucking brit-pop and ska –shit, that`s much nicer to listen that some weak-ass tomorrow has-been wannabe bullshit. Got it?

Glasgow Scotland was another experience. Understanding absolutely nothing about the language we only assumed the things local people wanted. The stage was not that glamorous and we held our bus as a backstage but we get the feeling people were positively surprised of our set. Lesson learned: do not underestimate the power of the cover!

Bristol was another really fucking non-stress free thing, the schedule was pretty fucking tight and we had to drop one song. We got the crowd moving anyway and that was that, then the next band please! There was some boredom in the air at the direction of the crew and some “fuck this”- situations came and passed…Being the opening act has it's advantages: there's no powerstruggles needed at all. You just do the job as well as possible and after that a smoke or boozing or jerking or whatever needed and that's it.

Manchester was another story then... the schedules again, that crew-boredom again... again nothing to do with us but much effecting on us. In the end we got about 15 minutes on stage and still we needed to start the set with chairs and cases on the stage. But gotta say it was one of the best 15 minutes in UK this far! there was just enough space on the stage and the underaged front row was freaking out even during our short-set! Our compassion goes out to Maroon who suffered some serious technical problems and got to play only four songs because of that. There`s the band who should always perform the full set, no exceptions.

Three days to go… stay tuned and patient, mates, specially the last show for the tour might be something else…

-TimoKallioKallioTimo-