Anyways, the gig was at Copenhagen Live 2010. Other artists performing there was Slash, Skunk Anansie, Rammstein, Bullet for my Valentine etc. Great success!
DAY #1 - SUNDAY (Mäntsälä)
Met up at Pete's place to pack our van and the trailer. Took our own backline with us so there was a lot of real-life tetris going on to make everything fit.
DAY #2 - MONDAY
Drive, drive drive. Helsinki, Turku, Stockholm
Early start. This time it was cheaper to go from Turku to Stockholm and on a day cruise, so we had to get be in Turku at 8 am, which is a 2-3 hour drive from Helsinki. Tuukka spent the night at Pete's place with the van and our jam packed trailer.
Most of us didn't sleep Sunday-Monday, so we could sleep on the ship and be able to drive to Copenhagen during the night between Monday-Tuesday. The cruise was filled with senior citizens so we weren't exactly missing any action. Unless that's your thing. But for us there wasn't anything but sleep going on.
Woke up at approx 6-7 pm in Stockholm and took a small tour round downtown. Jesse and Janica met up some local friends, the rest of us wandered around aimlessly, ate some pizza, then later hung out at the van, looking at DVD;s. At midnight Jesse and Janica returned, had some nice vegetarian snacks and started the journey towards Copenhagen.
Pete drove most of the trip, as he wanted to relieve himself of any driving duties on the drive back home.
The drive was pretty much a living artwork, an installation piece, "fragments of sleeping in awkward positions". The chick from the old danish story "Princess and the Pea" would not have enjoyed this ride. Needless to say, when we finally arrived in Copenhagen, all our necks and backs were pretty much fucked up. Jesses and my ass hurt like hell from just sitting. Sitting I hope that is. Never know what these clowns come up with when you sleep.
DAY #3 - TUESDAY
Copenhagen, hotel
Stopped for breakfast at McDonalds. Yummy. I did not partake as the thought of McDonalds wasn't that appealing. Had about 8h left of free time until we could check into the hotel, so we parked our black asses and wandered about aimlessly. I had KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) for the first time and it was really good.
Found a guitar shop where we spent some hours drooling over some fine guitars. Tuukka shredded on some Ibanez, me and Elmeri (our tech) practically moved in to the Gibson booth while Jesse was in awe over a 8-stringed Ibanez guitar. Then a couple of us went to a shop to buy some food to bring back to the hotel.
When we checked into the hotel, we found out that we were the first guests in the hotel, and today was the grand opening of Copenhagens Omena Hotel! Very nice, how much?
Then just basic hanging out shit. Shower. Going out to eat something. Tuukka and Toni (our manager) went to a strip club down the street. Unfortunately for the guys, a strip joint isn't the place to be if your broke. Entry + one beer was 300 Danish krones per person and all you got was a 3 minute memory of a asian stripper saying "hee seeksy maan" and her leaving after you tell her you've got no more money. Not great success.
Meanwhile at the bat cave, the rest of us were chilling out, drinking some beers, taking it easy so we'd be fresh the next morning. Watched our old cult classic clip called "Toiminnanmiehet", as Jesse hadn't seen it yet and it's an old custom to screen it to "new" friends. "Toiminnanmiehet" ("Action Men") is a notorious DVD we made in 2003, documenting our weekends, drinking and other shenanigans. It's always fun to watch, used to screen it at home parties.
Then Jesse, Elmeri and myself went on a small walk around the block to enjoy the soothing air. Had some light snacks and went to sleep. I slept like a baby even though I had the weirdest dreams in sepia of Pete being a terrier with sellery in his mouth.
DAY #4 - WEDNESDAY
Copenhagen, gig!!
Packed our bags in the van and headed out to the festival. People were already lined up outside the gate. But, we had work to do, pretty basic stuff, load out and soundcheck. We were in a bit of a hurry, but everybody's done it before, had hard working local crew and roadies and we had our own backline so it was pretty straight foward and done in maybe one hour. Great sound, great monitoring, great stage, great everything!
Gig starts, and fuck. There's just a whole shitload of people. Very nice, great success! People in the front row were going crazy, jumping around and banging their heads. During the first few songs the crowd came pouring in to the massive festival area. During our show there was approx 6000 people watching. Very nice, as we're used to play club shows with venues that usually holds max 400-800 people.
The gig went really well, had great energy and a good feeling as the sound, crowd, weather, everything was well. Played mostly new songs, the setlist was;
Intro (#3)
Promise Me
Broken World
Paper Dove
The Walls Are Whispering
We Will Be There
Too Late To Say Goodbye
The One Behind The Mirror
Pretty much brand new stuff although "Promise Me" and "The One Behind The Mirror" was in the Deathstars/Di'Anno setlist. The other new ones premiered a week before this at the Pre-Party for CHL2010 in Dantes Highlight in Helsinki. It feels good to finally get to play some more new stuff, as we're really excited about the new stuff.
Noticed some small stuff to fix in the gig intro. After Pete joined the band, we've been using keyboard tracks and intros in shows. This is intro number three, tailored after the new songs. All intros have always been original compositions by me, the first one was a small string piece tied to the set opener at that time "Calling" in 2008-2009. The second one was a more percussive piece made for into "Broken World", used mostly on the late 2009 early 2010 gigs. The second intro is incorporated into the 2010 edition, jewel case version of the "Broken World" EP's title track.
But back to the gig, I enjoyed playing the show even though my leg is still pretty twisted and fucked up. I have a hard time standing up and walk with a cane normally, so standing, moshing and playing the guitar is hard when it's quite a challenge just to stand up straight.
Played so hard on my Gibson custom that I injured my right hand and bled over the hardware. Fuck, that's life, gotta shed some blood for what you love. Pain brings aggression that's good for the gig. You're not playing a mandolin with potato chips, you're playing loud heavy metal with a 12 pound les paul for fucks sake.
After the gig and the load out we proceeded to marinate our brains with beer and enjoy the other acts in the sunlight. Slash played a nice "Greatest Hits of Slash" set with new songs and some classics from GNR and Velvet Revolver etc. Rammstein played a nice set with new songs and a lot of old songs. Surprised me they still play "Du riechst so gut" from the first album. Very nice. Really awesome to play at the same event as these great artists, whom been an inspiration and idol for me for years. Got hooked on Rammstein from the first album, and Slash is the reason I started playing guitar, and still is the sole guitar idol for me. Verry nnice, how much?
DAY #5 - THURSDAY
Shows over, go home.
When the shows were over at midnight, it was time to drive to Stockholm. Pete was pretty inebriated, wrestling with himself in the mud, acting crazy and generally not making any sense. The 8 hour ride to Stockholm took about 12 hours, with a lot of gas station stops etc. I wanted to sleep but couldn't, got woken up pretty much every 15 minutes. Our stage tech Elmeri was a real trooper and drove over 4-5 hours straight.
Stopped to eat lunch at McDonalds (normal people time; breakfast). We named Elmeri, as a "Man of Extremes". If you do not know the guy, he was our stage tech this time and was our live session bassist for the Deathstars/DiAnno tours. He is quite a hard working chameleon with McGyvers can-do-attitude and Chuck Norris work mentality. He's the guy who needs no sleep, lives pretty much on McDonalds food (but still has the physique of a garden hose), family man, can fix anything with anything, can climb any tree, can do miracles with gaffa, can repair anything with a soldering kit. He is a true McGyver and a Man of Extremes.
When we talked about his endless abilities, and ehm, how he could probably make a helicopter out of himself and fly around the room, Elmeri laughed so hard he got some cheeseburger in his lungs and almost chocked himself. It was pretty scary and morbidly funny as we first didn't know if he's fucking with us. But luckily nothing serious happened! It would have been pretty hardcore face-palm way to go; breakfast at McDonalds, laughing so hard at dick-jokes that you choke yourself on a 1€ cheeseburger. Pretty epic, but not in a good way.
Finally, at the cruise ship, which was a over-night cruise this time, we finally got to rest. Some chocolate, toys for the kids and gifts from the tax free store to bring back home, ate some good food, then sleep. Elmeri slept almost the entire cruise, which was no wonder since he'd been awake for over 30 hours at that point.
Soon enough, Pete passed out on his bed. He got his fun on his one-man inebriated stand up comic party where he was the entertainment and the audience on the drive to Stockholm, so now it was our time so we decided to play a small prank on him.
Took some chocolate, warmed it up so it was all sticky and mushy, smeared it on his palm, scattered some chocolate stained toilet paper around his bed, wrote "WRY ME?" in chocolate fingerpaint on his mirror, unzipped his pants and threw the rest of the almost melted liquid chocolate inside his underwear. When he finally woke up the next day to take a piss, hung over, he of course thought he thought he'd gone diarrhea on himself in his sleep. Luckily he took it as a man when he realized he'd been burned.
This leads us to one of our codes of the road, if you pass out from drinking too much, stuff WILL happen to you.
DAY #6 - FRIDAY
Back home
Arrived in Helsinki at sometime before noon. Drove everybody home, made some arrangements for the backline. Good to be home again.
It's funny how we spend one day packing our stuff and 5 days on the road for 30 minutes. Drive with all our instruments and amps all the way from Helsinki to Copenhagen to play for 30 minutes, then drive back home. No or little sleep. Be away from your family and home. Sit in a car, staring at trees passing by for 8-14 hours. Travelling at night. Changing clothes in a parking lot. All for that 30 minutes. Get paid in beer and applaudes. This music business is pretty fucked up and weird, everything is backwards and un-logical. But I love it. That 30 minutes is what's it's all about, what I was made to do and I love it more and more every year. Love it to death.
I leave you now with some selected quotes from Courage Wolf that could relate to this week;
"BRING A FIST TO A GUN FIGHT. WIN."
"EAT POTATOES. PISS VODKA."
"MAKE MISTAKES. BE PROUD OF THEM."
"HIRE STEVIE WONDER. AS YOUR DRIVER."
"DON'T LOCK YOUR DOORS. ACCEPT ALL CHALLENGERS."
"FIND MC HAMMER. TOUCH THIS."
"PLAY RUSSIAN RULETTE ON EXPERT MODE. USE SIX BULLETS."
Goodnight, kiitos ja anteeksi.
/Jonas
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