14-Feb-2011: Rebuplik - Calgary, AL (CAN)

I woke-up pretty early to use a bathroom somewhere in Montana, where the driver was taking his short sleep before we continued. We started driving at 10am, arrived to the border around 4pm, were at the venue in Calgary at 7:45pm and Barren Earth was already playing at 8:30. This was pretty close to the way we have been doing our shows on our earlier US-tours, but for this tour it was a bit of a stress to make it to the show. But we did it!

Our show started right after Barren Earth and we were noticing that people were still getting in when we started. But the place got pretty packed and we received very good feedback during and after the show from the crowd. Some people were still standing in the line around the time we finished, which was a huge bummer for us and them, but fortunately we're planning to come back after Cursed. My day continued with a well prepared interview with Jordan, the guitar player of Kataplexis. After the interview we were just killing time at the merch and the bar and at the end of the night we got an offer from Jordan and his girlfriend (whose name I can not unfortunately remember anymore) to join them in a small after party.

We loaded-out, got some pizzas and got a ride to Jordan's place for me, Mika, Finntroll's bass-Sami aka Tundra and Matias. We were having really good times sitting and chatting with Jordan and his two friends at his place until we left back to the bus in a huge hurry, because our bus call was at 6am. We got in there at 5:56 and I decided to jump on the Finntroll's bus to have one more glass of wine with Marko, Mikko, Matias and Tundra. I had to stay in there until we had our 1st truck stop where I could switch back to our bus. I was asleep around 8:30am, which was a bit late (or should I say early), but still worth doing because we managed to take some cool hat-photos during the last hours. Fintroll and Barren Earth have started to collect an impressive collection of party-head-wear and Rotten Sound will do everything in our power to join that group of people with the hats. I have a strong feeling, that some of the head-wear will appear on stage before the end of the tour.

13-Feb-2011: Day-off in the middle of absolutely no-freaking-where

I woke-up around noon to meet everyone else in the nightliner lounge swearing about the fact, that Finntroll's nightliner had broke-down and that it's going to be stuck for two days at a repair shop. We were at that repair-shop already and after some rumors and confusion Skid came in and told us that Finntroll is going to replace Rotten Sound in our bus to ensure that the headliners will play in Calgary. We were told to move into Finntroll's bus for some hours until a replacement bus is coming to pick-up us. There was absolutely nothing around us except for some corn fields and a highway.

Everyone was using their laptops for some time until there was a big demand from the shaman of the tour (Mikko Kotamäki of Barren Earth) to stop fiddling with the computers and to start a day-off party to kill some time. Everyone got pretty cheerful and we listened to lots of music including the upcoming albums from Moonsorrow and Rotten Sound. At some point our driver told us that we need to wait some more time because there was some mis-information about the schedule, but around 10pm we were finally moving towards Calgary. It was a battle against time because the ride was really long and our new driver needed to take some sleep too on the way.

Our party started to slow-down gradually and everyone except our spiritual leader was asleep some time after midnight.

12-Feb-2011: El Corazon - Seattle, WA

El Corazon - Seattle

I woke-up with a splash of hang-over in me around 3pm. And that was also the time to go to a radio interview with Seattle's KWIS Metal Shop, it felt like being in Frasier for a while in there. We had really good time in the interview and we got also a book called "Forbidden American English", which contains loads of colorful words and shows how rich language American English is today.

After the interview we got a very pleasant visit by Ryan of Trap Them: he brought us FOOD, delicious vegan burritos and nachos. It's amazing how much we end up starving during the days just because we either do not have anything to eat or we are just too lazy to do anything to the state of our stomachs. This dinner really made our day and it was also very nice to have a long chat with Ryan and his wife, who also came to meet us. Our evening continued at the merch in a venue, where we could not bring any beers or wine to drink. It meant, that I was having a day-off from drinking for a change. I also decided to skip shower again, because we are supposed to have a day-room tomorrow's day-off.

11-Feb-2011: Hawthorne Theatre - Portland, OR

Portland

I woke up fresh I.e. un-hungover and we started to walk to find a place to eat. We ended-up sitting down in a sustainable Mexican place, which was truly awesome and affordable. Everyone in our bus were also raving about the market across the street, which had a lot of organic food and drinks. I spent 40 bucks in there to sushi, fruits, bottle of good wine and some organic protein shakes, which are going to be life saving units some morning when we're still moving and I'm out of food.

Our set was again a good one although we felt that we were a bit spoiled from San Francisco because Portland's constant pit and stage diving wasn't getting us into the same level of euphoria as yesterday. As said, we were just spoiled, the show and crowd was great. We also got to meet Orion (finally) and Matt Jacobson from Relapse, who are at the Portland office. Matt brought us some pizza from his new venture, Sizzle Pie, which has named their pizzas according to the important stuff. Cheese-pizza is (obviously) D-Beat and Pig Destroyer has Pepperoni, Metaballs and Bacon in it. Very cool idea and tasty pizzas too.

Our night continued at the bar attached to the venue and we were having the pleasure to sing some karaoke in front of the tourage and some other people. I did a comic-version of Wind of Change with Matias, where he was dubbing my goth-rock-lows with black-metal vocals. Pete from Ensiferum sung some Tom Jones and I went for Imagine before we had to start driving towards Flying J on our way to Seattle, where we could take a shower for 9 bucks. I didn't because there's going to be one tomorrow and day after tomorrow. Finntroll's bus did not have any electricity, which brought couple of guys from there to our mobile party-space and that kept us going until pretty early. Good times again!

10-Feb-2011: DNA Lounge - San Francisco, CA

San Francisco

I woke-up late due to the being-scared-of-sleeping-at-the-other-nightliner-incident from last night. I woke-up around 5pm to notice, that the show has been going on without me and everything was already set-up at the venue. We even got some breakfast today and the catering was according to our rider I.e. this venue felt almost like some European venue. Place got packed, close to sold-out, and the crowd response during our set was probably the best one until today. Thank you very much, San Francisco!

Krisse the street King

Our rest of the night was pretty simple waiting of getting back on the road to start sleeping. I'm starting to be in a mode where it's harder to fall asleep if my bed (aka coffin aka sarcofago) isn't moving a little bit. Some drinks have also helped sometimes, but now I was having a day-off from drinking after the madness in LA and Santa Ana and that seemed to be the case with most of the people in our home on wheels.

9-Feb-2011: Galaxy Theatre - Santa Ana, CA

Huntington beach

This morning was the roughest one on this whole tour. Some of us woke up to have some burritos and tacos for breakfast. Mika, Sami and Krisse went to the beach for some time when I decided to have some more sleep.

Sunset at Huntington beach

There was two locals today and Christina was helping again at the merch table, which gave us a lot of time to get well for the show. We also got some friends in the backstage with loads of beer-drinking-experience and that probably made us drink pretty heavily again. Our day ended outside the nightliners with some fans and friends and when we started to drive, our two mobile bars were full of people.

Nicke Andersson visited us? Nope, it's Matias after the show with Keijo's hat on.

Our guys just went so sleep so early, that I decided to continue the party at the party-bus with Finntroll and Barren Earth guys. Only problem was that there wasn't any truck stops in a few hours and I ended-up getting stuck into their sofa, being really afraid to fall asleep because when one dozes on sofa, they will usually wake-up with some marker on their face. So, my night continued until 8am, when everyone else went to sleep from the party and at that point I was able to take a short nap until 10am truck-stop, where I could go into my coffin for the rest of the day.

Sunrise from the nightliner window.

8-Feb-2011: Key Club - West Hollywood, CA

Key Club, Hollywood

Everyone were pretty fresh this morning because of two days of break from the parties. We arrived to the Key Club on Sunset Boulevard after 1pm and went for a walk after loading in. It was really cool to see the other legendary venues on it and to have drinks and over-priced nachos at some western-style pub.

Waiting for beer...

We headed back to be at the venue on dinner-time and started to wait for the evening to begin. Our dressing room was a huge turn-on for us: a rotten bus outside of the venue and we even tried to take some promo photos in it with not that much of luck.

Cool backstage at Key club

The evening begun with local Voices of Ruin and Barren Earth. Key Club isn't the biggest venue on the tour, but it was still awesome to have a sold-out show tonight with other metal shows in the city. Apparently Cradle of FIlth, Nacthmystium, Turisas and Daniel Lioneye were playing in Nokia Theatre and there was also some other shows elsewhere. Our show started with a moshpit and that pit didn't stop before we stopped.

Some fan of ours has tattooed the exit-cover dude.

Our night continued at the merch table with Christina, in our nightliner, at the Rainbow club and finally at the party-bus of Finntroll and Barren Earth.

Mika got his favorite drink at the Rainbow club

Everyone stayed up until pretty early with some local friends who came over. It must have been the heaviest party on this tour, which may cause us to have a bit more rough day on 10th, but it's some kind of rule of touring to party in LA.