Leprous

Day 22/23 - Last day on tour + Going back

2012-01-25T23:58:00.003+01:00

Bag packing melancholy
It’s with mixed feelings I pack my things out of my Nightliner bunk. On one hand it’s sad to know that I won’t have Teemu snoring and farting over me anymore, but on the other hand it’ll be nice to get back home and shovel my driveway free of snow in – 27 °C for the next 18 weeks. :D Today I’m meeting my sister also, who I haven’t seen in a while.

A big thanks to Kenneth!
As I leave the bus this morning, Kenneth (Einar’s brother) is backing up with the gigantic Citroën Jumper that he has brought to us from Norway. This van will be the 18 hour transportation method home for Me, Øystein, Rein and all the equipment, while Kenneth, Einar and Tobias will be taking the slightly more luxurious, comfortable and speedy transportation method of flying from Amsterdam to Oslo the following day.

Last show of an amazing tour
The last show in Hengelo was a worthy way of ending this incredible tour, and after the show we said our goodbyes to all the great people we’ve been travelling with the last three weeks. I also met my sister who currently lives in Holland, which was also very nice. We really wanted to get the most out of these last hours along with our touring buddies, and so we did as so many times before:

Going home – Version 1
After the show it was time for Me, Øystein and Rein to drive all the equipment back to Norway. Of course first we had to drive around in Hengelo about 90 minutes to find an open gas station and some chips with “french fries with mayo”-taste, but then we were on our way. If I’m not to write anything about driving, sleeping in the passenger seat, filling diesel, sleeping on the ferry for 20 minutes, driving around in Oslo for 2 hours to find the key to our rehersal rooom so we could unload all our equipment, then I guess it’s not that much to write about. Except that it was really good to get back home. And even better: We got home before the trio that were flying home.

Going home – Version 2
Right before we started driving with the equipment, Einar, Kenneth and Tobias took the train heading for Amsterdam where they would be staying one night before flying home. Or so they thought… The next evening, after arriving at the airport a couple of hours prior to departure they made their way through all security checks all the way to the gate of their flight. But hey! Standing in front of the gate they got the message that they hadn’t checked in, and so they weren’t allowed to go with the plane. So back to downtown Amsterdam, booking some new flights and waiting for the next 24 hours to pass. Nothing wrong about Amsterdam, but after driving around to all Major cities in Europe for seven weeks, I guess getting stuck in one more wasn’t the dream situation for them. Well well, I guess driving home with the equipment isn’t so bad after all! ;)

Thanks for following the tour blog!

Hope you enjoy to get the inside look on how Leprous is taking over the world, step by step. We promise to update the blog whenever we feel like something is worth mentioning.

Until the next time, here’s an announcement from Einar:

Juice on!

TorO

Day 21 - Vosselaar

2012-01-25T00:46:00.003+01:00

Part 1: Tour Apathy

After being on tour for almost eight weeks (with a break in between) I've started being a bit more apathetic when it comes to check out towns/cities, and when it comes to getting up in the morning. Usually on this tour I've managed to get up at a reasonable hour, but today I slept to 3.30 PM. I have to admit that I really hate waking up that late, and I feel that I've thrown away the entire day.

Part 2: The Perfect Backstage Solution

After eating a rather late breakfast, we go to check out the backstage at Biebob. It's one of those backstage solutions where you are trapped when someone is playing a show. Before the show, we were interviewed by a really nice guy from the DPRP (Dutch Progressive Rock Page). Cool interview!

Part 3: Belgium Rocks!

Both in the 2010 tour and on this tour, the Belgian audience turned out to be more than great! Even though we had very limited Right after the show we had to get the hell out of there as soon as possible so we wouldn't be trapped in the basement during the entire Amorphis show. Luckily the bus was parked right outside the venue, so we spent most of the day there.

Part 4: Record Label Mingling

After the show, we had a visit from Melanie and Jessica from Century Media (the mother label of Inside Out). It's always really nice to meet the people you are to work with for many years in real life! We've met at least five employes from CM on this tour, and everyone has been really nice! Good sign!

All the best,

Einar

Day 20 - Eindhoven

2012-01-21T21:28:00.000+01:00

Our second long tour around Europe is now slowly coming to an end. We've had a tremendously good time! For the third last show, we are stopping once again in the Netherlands. This time at Dynamo in Eindhoven, the fifth largest city in the country. The venue can fit 550 people and tickets sales show there won't be much excess space inside, so we've got high expectations for tonights show!;) Although the stage isn't very spacious for our usual moves during the show, we're never discouraged.

The show was yet another good one;) After the show, there's an official after party with Amorphis at some place called "The Jack". After hanging out in the bus for a while, we decide to go looking for this mysterious place. We have no idea what this is, except a small flyer we got from Teemu. Let's go huntin'! One failed iPhone GPS later and some walking the old fashioned way, we end up in what seems to be THE place to be in Eindhoven right now: a true party street. Dutch people obviously appreciate night life as this street is stuffed with places to go. Roaming through party land, we discover "The Jack" eventually, but Amorphis is not there, nor is anyone else we know.. Seeing as this is place an excellent opportunity to have some fun, checking out as many places as we can before closing time at 4AM becomes our mission!

It turned out to be well worth the effort. To put it nicely; Eindhoven has a lot of interesting bars… ;)

To end this days report, have a look at a small video from the venue. This demonstrates our, and especially Einar's, intelligent humor. Lots of spare time on tour..? Don't know what you're talking about...

Regards,

Øystein

Day 19 - Aschaffenburg

2012-01-21T01:08:00.003+01:00

Allright, another small German town.

We got a shuttle from the bus today, as the bug nightliner would have trouble in the small streets around the venue. The bus was parked up on a small ridge, outlooking a beautiful scenery of the countryside bathed in morning fog. We jumped in the shuttle, and drove it to the city centre. We checked out the venue (cool place), had breakfast, enjoyed the internet connection, and took a quick walk around the city centre. It turned out to be a nice, but rather empty (at the moment) city. Next up was dinner, and the usual pre-show routines. Put on our extremely smelly stage clothes, and got ready to rock Aschaffenburg’s socks off.

Cool show! Not so much space on stage, but the response and the general feeling after the show was good. After-show food, showers and shuttle back to the bus completes a nice, but not too exiting day (except the show of course, which is always exiting)

-Rein

Day 18 - Prague

2012-01-13T23:28:00.004+01:00

What happens in Vienna…
Tobias, whose bunk is adjacent to mine, woke up today with the good old feeling of ”What happened last night?”, as the sensation of Teemu’s shoe remarked it’s presence on his interscapular area.

I figured I might as well just leave the two alone, so I made my way towards the venue for today, Retro Music Hall.

Showtime
Tonight’s show was a lot of fun, as both the sound on stage and the audience was great. In the following clip you will see some live footage from the show, but also get an insight in how we plan the show right before we get on stage. Since we’re talking in Norwegian the clip has English subtitles.

The show was also an energetic and painful experience. During the show I hit my head several times in my mic, got shocked by my mic, hit my mic of the mic stand with my guitar and in the end I managed to get my hair stuck in my 8-string guitar (as shown on the picture below).

Back to the 80’s
In the effort of trying to repair the damages to my hair after the show, Rein went a bit far with the scissors, so I ended up with with a hair due from another decade. Well, what’s more rock’n’roll than the 80’s?

FIFA forever
Our last hours in Prague was spent the same way as many days before: playing FIFA. As you can see we have now managed to clear the merch boxes in the most crucial area of the TV, but still: feel free to buy some of our merch, so our FIFA experience get’s even better! $)

Buy buy,

TorO

Day 16 & 17 - Vienna

2012-01-13T23:13:00.002+01:00

Part 1: Hotel? No thanks.

Today the bus parked outside a well known venue for us, Szene in Vienna. We played there in 2010 with Therion, and two weeks later we went there to pick up the camera TorO forgot there at the gig. We had actually booked a hotel for this night, even though we would prefer just staying at the bus. At the bus we have really comfortable beds and tons of entertainment, while the hotel only can offer beds. Going to the hotel also means that we have to bring all our stuff, take the metro 45 minutes, check out next morning and go back to the bus. After getting the approval from the bus driver, we decided to stay in the bus, even though we had already paid for the hotel.

Part 2: Exploring Vienna for the third time

During the 2010 tour we had one show day in Vienna, and one off day a couple of weeks later. That means that we have already seen a lot of this beautiful city. Today I had a visit from my fiancee Marita, so that gave me a perfect opportunity to guide her all around the city. Even though I usually consider off days to be very boring, it was very nice to just walk around the two of us.

Part 3: Showtime

Being back at a venue you’ve played before always feels cool. The sound was good on stage, the audience was quite good and in general we were quite satisfied.

Best,

Einar

Day 15 - Budapest

2012-01-12T14:53:00.015+01:00

Day 15 - Budapest!

Ahh, back in Hungary! Last year we played a show here in a venue called Petofi Hall, a huge venue located in a park close to the city center. This time, it's a smaller one called Club 202 (http://www.club202.hu). It's a spacious venue with a kind of Hawaiian-feel to it. The bus is parked just outside the venue, which we love. It becomes your home on tour, and with such a great bus it's annoying not being able to access it during the day. Shuttle trips to the venue are also not the most fun part of it all.

Like most days, we can exit the bus, reach out and grab the door handle for the venue. Woohoo! 21st century laziness!;D Our backstage is located upstairs, through a hallway (still looking like a bar on Hawaii) right next to the stage. Always very convenient!;)

While we're at it, let's take a closer look at how we rate our backstage:

Space

This can make a bad backstage turn into a good one. Although it may sound utterly astonishing, touring is actually a quite intimate affair, all in all! Space is essential, and much appreciated.

Seating possibilities

This is always very important. You can't stay in the backstage the whole day, so you end up always stealing somebody's chair/sofa etc as soon as they leave. There should be enough chairs for everyone, and then some.

Wi-Fi

Oh boy. This is.. well.. mandatory!;) Absence of wi-fi can ruin an Internet-junkie's day! Which somehow we all seem to be. At the same time, an extremely slow connection can be even worse. Without it, we might suddenly start talking to each other.. and we can't have that, can we?

Location

As mentioned the ideal situation is a backstage right next to the stage (the word "backstage" kind of explains itself?).

Comfort

Mmmm. This is high up on our list. I will also mention noise protection here. Silence is always nice;)

Catering

Good catering can really make a difference!;) Plenty of drinks and access to delicious food 24/7.

Summary

So let's sum up our results. We're really not asking for a lot:

more than enough space
location next to the stage
100% noise protection
about 100 very comfortable seats
an extremely fast Internet connection
the best food money can buy and tons of drinks to go with it

What? Is that too much to ask? ;)

As we didn't film anything interesting today, I've decided to finally share an old movie from our first day in Berlin (we spent a day there before we went to Jena for our first show). You won't believe who we met on the street...

(the video is made short in respect of his privacy)

Regards,

Oystein

Day 14 - Bratislava

2012-01-12T14:37:00.005+01:00

The bus couldn't stay at the venue today, so we had two options. We could either get up early when the bus stopped at the venue, or we could sleep in and take a taxi back to the venue from wherever the bus parked. Surprisingly enough, I was the only one who got up early. Well, supposedly Einar did as well, but he went straight to the city center of Bratislava, and I didn't see him at all until later.

So, as soon as I got off the bus and into the venue, I realized it wasn't too much to do around the area. The time before soundcheck was mainly spent lying in a sofa listening to music. At one point, I tried to walk down to the city center, without knowing either the distance or the direction. Turned out I chose the right direction, but the distance and the cold made me turn pretty quickly.

The others arrived in time for soundcheck. Turned out we made a new "longest-soundcheck-on-tour-record". Not our fault though. Its a weird thing to do, and we've noticed it a few places: When there's a broken cable at the venue, they just put it back in the same case as the working cables…makes no sense to me. So, at one point they tried at least five cables before they found one that that worked. And since they put all of them back in the same place, the next band playing there will go through the exact same procedure. Weird!

Before showtime we end up being pretty frustrated. both because of the soundcheck, and because of our very, very, very small backstage (picture).

Luckily, the show turned out to be really cool! The crowd was great, and everybody was having a really good time on stage! Its always great to get a bad pre-show feeling proven wrong!

Totally out of the context, here is a video of Øystein talking about guitar playing and the Norwegian language.

-Rein

Day 13 - Graz merch try-outs

2012-01-10T14:38:00.004+01:00

Sleepless in the shuttle
At the venue of Explosiv in Graz, we’re granted our very own 3-bed hostel room as back stage. Suitable for Einar, who’s delicate sleep was continuously interrupted by Rein’s Led Zeppelin show down in the main lounge, up until 9 a.m. in the morning. By waking this revengeful sleeping giant (Einar), I guess the war of keeping people awake at night is on…

Hostel merch try-outs
At the back stage, The Man-Eating Tree has decided to try out their latest design on me and Einar. This is how it went:

Anti also has an additional merch suggestion, but me and Einar decided it may be a bit awkward to try that one the same way.

Graz tapas
After the show we went for a walk towards the city centre of Graz, and after a couple of detours we found ourselves in the middle of an abandoned Graz, since the 6^th of January turns out to be some kind of national holiday or something. Nothing’s open except strip clubs and kebab parlors as far as the eye can see. Just as we are about to give up finding something eatable, we find ourselves outside a tapas restaurant, which turns out to be the perfect way of ending my ascending hunger sensation. Graz was a nice city by the way.

Welcome home
Back from our trip downtown, I’m given a warm welcome by Teemu who’s bunk is above mine. Aaaah, nice to be back at the bus. :)

Zzzzzzzzzz,

TorO

Day 12 - Salzburg

2012-01-10T14:18:00.005+01:00

Part 1: Laundry time

Having only three sets with stage clothes on tour, forces you to play a large percentage of the concerts with sweat (yes, we sweat a LOT on stage) and smelly stage clothes. Therefore it’s always a nice surprise when there is a laundry facility at the venue. I managed to get all my clothes washed, which already made the day slightly better than the average tour day.

Part 2: Express sightseeing in Salzburg city

Salzburg was a city I had heard so many good things about, so I was very eager to check it out! Tobias, TorO and myself headed down to what my iPhone claimed to be the city center, and we found ourselves extremely disappointed. It was a boring and grey area with nothing special to see. Well, we found out that my “trusty” iPhone wasn’t as trustworthy as I thought, and we decided to continue our quest to find Salzburg city center. Being Norwegian means that you try everything before you ask someone for the way, but after a while we give up and ask one of the locals. We managed to find the city center, which turned out to be even more beautiful than I’d hoped for. Unfortunately we were running out of time, and didn’t have the chance to be there for more than a couple of minutes due to early soundcheck.

Part 3: Nosebleed

The concert starts and everything seems good, until i suddenly starts bleeding heavily from my nose in the second song. I’m not sure what caused the nosebleed, but when I’m on stage I have so much adrenaline that I don’t notice such things. I didn’t have any paper on stage, so I just had to continue playing/singing/headbanging with blood all over my face/clothes/keyboard. I have to say that when I was screaming “Tonight I’m passing away” with blood all over me, the whole thing felt slightly more realistic than usual, hehe.

A quote from a fan I met outside: “I guess the nosebleed was intentional, as both you and the midget on your backdrop was bleeding heavily from the nose”. So yeah, blood is always good for the image.

Best,

Einar

Day 11 - Nürnberg

2012-01-08T14:03:00.028+01:00

After enjoying Saarbrücken for three long days, "The Beginning of Times Tour" and all its people have now arrived at yet another German venue: Hirsch (www.der-hirsch.de). This venue actually has its very own beer and spirit. I thought this blog entry might be a nice occasion to introduce you guys to a very important part of the tour: our beloved crew.

Let's start out with…

Thomas!

Our fantastic bus driver from Coach Service have yet to be seen mad (quite the merit driving bands), and he's doing a wonderful job. Everything you could wish for! Because Thomas has quite the different schedule from us (driving all night) a picture of this handsome man could not be taken at the moment.

Teemu!

This finnish madman is the master of all the merchandise that Amorphis and Leprous have brought along for the ride. He himself claims he can sell a t-shirt to a statue. Impressive! Why do we still have merch left!? ;)

Matti!

Master of lights. This man has been giving us better and better lights throughout the tour, and he's been nothing but a pleasure to work with. Here you can see him in his usual black cap ;)

Falle!

This awesome guitar technician can fix pretty much anything, not just guitars, and does so happily;) I wonder if he shops for caps in the same place as Matti? You will also see him wear his signature tool belt, and like all the other guys in the crew, a walkie-talkie.

Sami!

Wizard of sound. This guy makes sure everybody's ears bleed! Rumor has it he's been running with the Finnish kings from Amorphis for 7 years. As you can see, Sami is very enthusiastic and gave his hair dresser a thumbs up!;D

Gerrit!

The tour manager. The German general of our 7-week journey throughout the corners of Europe. He makes sure everything is in order, and keeps everyone happy! ;) Just recently, he's been joining in on our FIFA fun! (football game on Playstation)

Masi!

Our beloved stage manager. Along with Falle and Matti this guy's got the sickest work schedule and work ethic ever. They work pretty much around the clock, and it's not easy to find people in this business as nice as these guys;) If you have a stage you need managed, call Masi. Simple as that.

Apart from the bands themselves of course, these guys together is what keeps this tour going!;) To finish off today's blog, here's a video of Tor Oddmund working his magic on Aksu's hurting back (drummer of TMET):

Yours always,

Oystein

Day 8,9,10 - Saarbrücken, days off.

2012-01-07T17:15:00.006+01:00

Allright. Two days off before our show in Saarbrücken. New city, lots of time…everything could happen, right!?

Well, everything didn't happen. Actually, most of our time in Saarbrücken was spent relaxing in the hotel room.

Day 1.

The first day we only got out of our rooms to get some food late in the evening. Probably sounds boring, but being the 1. Jan, the city was basically closed anyway. Nevertheless we found a really, really good Italian place to eat. It was one of those places where they make your food right in front of you when you make the order. Cool place! Not much else to write about the first day in Saarbrücken i'm afraid. After our meal we went back to the hotel for the rest of the night.

Day 2.

Most of us hadn't been to Luxemburg before, and being just about an hour away from Saarbrücken by bus, we decided to go check it out. So we did. Turned out it was just an ordinary european city (not that we expected anything else). We spent some hours walking around, eating, and complaining about the weather. So nothing special about the place, exept the cool valley in the middle of the city, but now we have been there. After the bus trip back to Saarbrücken, and a couple of hours in the hotel, we ended up eating at the same place as the day before. Talk about being creative! I even ate the same thing as I did the day before…still really, really good food!

On our way to Luxemburg

Luxemburg

Day 3. - Showtime

We got up a little late for the check-out at the hotel (as usual). And decided to go the venue right away. The place was within walking distance, so we packed our bags and set out. Not much more interesting to tell about before the show, but the venue was cool, and the show was fun.

Video:

-Rein

Day 7 - Celebrating new year's eve, Pratteln Style

2012-01-03T02:32:00.008+01:00

What better way to celebrate the eventful year of 2011, than in good old Pratteln? The venue of Z7 hasn’t changed much in one year, and since both the extremely pleasant monitor technician and the great chef are still here, the evening is looking zehr promising.

Our stage manager Masi got up extra early today to give the two support acts their very own breakfast.

Pratteln boxing cup ‘11
To start of the day we arrange a little boxing cup between Tomi and Esa from Amorphis and Me and Einar. A couple of tender noses, and bruised eyelids later and we’re ready for sound check.

OMG, my face is ruined!

A taste of Norway
The sound check made it clear that the stage and monitoring is still züperfraiches, and we celebrated this by performing an ancient traditional Norwegian custom, as documented in the picture below. This awesome performance was of course met by enormous applause and astonishment from the spectators.

Upper lips on MacBook Air

Tobias welcomes you to 2012
Playing tonight was really great, and after the show it was time for:
Well, first it was Amorphis, but after that it was:
Still a couple of hours until the clock struck twelve, but when that happened it was time for:

Tobias to put on his glasses and welcome the new year on stage in front of everybody!!! :D

Here’s a live clip of Waste of Air, plus a brief montage of how the night was celebrated:

Have a great 2012!

Peace out!
TorO

Day 6: Karlsruhe

2012-01-02T01:19:00.003+01:00

Part 1: Karlsruhe + FIFA 2011 = <3

After eating breakfast myself, TorO, Øystein, Rein and Esa (from Amorphis) decided to take a trip to check out Karlsruhe city center. The local crew informs us that the tram station is very close to the venue, so we’re good to go! Our main goal with this trip was to buy PS3 games for the bus, and FIFA was our main priority. As all the latest FIFA games are rather similar, we decided to buy last years edition for half the price.

Part 2: H&M

We have a confession to make: Leprous are not very experimental when it comes to clothes. No matter which country we are in, we always end up in the same store; H&M (and if we’re in a crazy mood; Zara). This was of course also the case in Karlsruhe, and at least Rein ended up with two full bags with clothes/shoes from H&M. Yeah, so cool to be abroad buying exactly the same clothes we can get in our home town for approximately the same price.

Part 3: A pleasant surprise

We have barely played in Germany before this tour, and never in Karlsruhe, so we didn’t have a clue what to expect for tonight’s show. When we enter the stage we see a very enthusiastic German crowd, which gives us an even bigger to reason to give them the show of their lives. The concerts went very well, and we are all in a very good mood after the show.

Part 4: Aki and Tini

After the show we go out to meet our friends and fans Aki (from Finland) and Tini (from Germany, but also lives in Finland). Aki and Tini are what we can call true loyal fans. For the last year and a half they’ve seen us in Atlanta (USA), Oslo (Norway), Copenhagen (Denmark), Tallinn (Estonia) and Karlsruhe (Germany)! So they’ve traveled to five different countries to see Leprous, and for that we’re really grateful! Great guys! I feel that we really owe them a concert in Helsinki soon, so that they don’t have to travel all over the world every time they’re up for a Leprous show.

Best,
Einar

Day 5 - Hannover

2011-12-31T15:06:00.008+01:00

"Hmm.. what time is it? 2PM! Ok. I better get up". Socks, pants with the backstage pass, t-shirt, sweater.. "Where is everybody? And where's the venue?". Deafening silence. "Hello?". I head down the 5 step stairs down to the first floor. Still nobody. The bus door goes "psssssshhh" as I push the switch to open it. Drawing a map from the bus to the venue and putting it on the door has now become a daily affair for an unknown person, and as I leave I keep the map in my mind.

"Capitol" is no more than an arms length from the bus, and I find the entrance just around the corner. Not much of a challenge there. The crew is doing the daily routine of setting up everything on stage, but still no sight of any of the Lepromaniacs. No one ever bothers to draw a map for the backstage (not really necessary at all), so as usual I go looking, trying different doors along the way. I follow a few signs up some stairs and find our backstage next to the catering and the guys from TMET (The Man-Eating Tree). Still, no Lepromaniacs. I now realize this late morning (no alarm) made sure I stayed in while all the others are out having fun checking out what Hannover has to offer 4 crazy Norwegians. In particular I know they're looking for some nice games for the PS3…

Ahh, breakfast in peace. The catering here in Germany has been really great so far and also is today. Two pieces of bread and one yoghurt later my lazy tour stomach is pleased. I get back to the bus, pick up my stuff and my tiny Blackstar amp and start practicing in the abandoned backstage until the guys arrive. Despite all the spare time we have on tour, it's harder than you think to find time for things like this. Always something happening, and there's always someone everywhere;) But it's nice to try to make something of all that time!

I then practice some more. Tobias joins in with his drum pad. The rest of the day stays pretty much the same for everyone:

Hang out in the backstage
Having a bite
Roaming around inside the venue
Visiting Teemu at the merch stand
Watching a TV series
Surfing the web (if usable Wi-Fi)
Practicing some more
Etc etc etc.
Occasional exchange of words

That's todays tour report!;D Might be boring, but believe it or not: not all days on tour are ultra exciting! But there is one person on board that has made the last few days a bit more exciting: Gunnar Sauermann!;) This respected, funny and entertaining metal journalist writes for Metal Hammer and has been on our bus telling jokes and taking pictures and notes from our life on the road.

Auf Wiedersehen,

Øystein

Day 4 - Osnabrück

2011-12-30T17:45:00.002+01:00

I have to be totally honest here, I don't have much to write about today. Being very tired from traveling to Germany the day before (early flight, no sleep, hours of waiting), as well as from the gig last night in Bochum, I decided to sleep late today. It turned out I didn't miss much. The venue was basically located in the middle of a forest, or so it looked. Not much to see or do in the area, in other words. But the venue was great. Big stage and a cool atmosphere. The gig went well. Once again, I'm sorry about not having any interesting stories, or spectacular happenings or miraculous wonders to share with you guys. Didn't happen much today, except the usual concert, which was fun. As usual :)

We did, however, put together a little video for your pleasure and entertainment. Enjoy!

- Rein

Day 3 - Bochum merch bonanza

2011-12-28T17:54:00.004+01:00

Our first show in Bochum is sold out in advance, and high expectations arise as we check out the nice venue of Zeche. We say goodbye and give another big thank you to Martin and Jon-Øyvind for stepping in for Tobias and Rein on the show yesterday. Still, we’re looking forward to getting the real line-up together for the rest of the tour, and we celebrate this event in doing the thing we do best; hasseling Øystein when he’s trying to eat:

What goes down, has to come up. Somewhere…
Luckily for us, this good old saying is also very much represented in the relations between the toilet vs shower in our backstage. The fact that whatever went down the toilet would resurface in the shower wasn’t noticed until after all the 8 man-eating trees had done their best “effort” in the toilet, so I guess I’ll just wait out this shower opportunity.

Showtime
The venue was packed with people, and it was very nice playing together with the real line-up again. Einar struggled a bit with his voice, but if I know him right it's not something long lasting. Before and after the show we finally got to meet Leif and Jens from Century Media (our record label), which turned out to be very pleasant guys. We also met our old friend Waldemar from the Therion tour last year.

Teemu’s merch bonanza
During the entire 1st part of the tour, our merch salesman Teemu complained that all of our shirt motives was so ugly, and that he wanted us to print up a new t-shirt. Well, today we received the fresh batch of shirts, and as you can see on this picture Teemu is totally psyched!

What we didn’t calculate on though was that the extra cases of merch had to go somewhere… So, bye bye luxurious lounge area! :(

Please help us get rid of all these t-shirts by buying them on one of our shows! That's also a nice opportunity to actually meet Teemu.

Thnx!
TorO

Day 2 - Jena

2011-12-28T14:35:00.003+01:00

Part one: Leprous/Amorphis Re-union

Today we had to wake up early as we were meeting Amorphis + crew and the tour bus. We ordered a taxi, and went straight to the airport before even eating breakfast. Re-uniting with the Amorphis guys and their/our crew was something we had looked very much forward to. It was indeed great seeing them again, and we’re looking forward to three more weeks on the road with the guys.

Part two: The New Tour Bus

When we opened the doors on the tour bus, we found ourselves really pleasantly surprised! We’re talking a luxury bus including facilities I had expected waiting several more years enjoying. After chatting a little bit with the Amorphis guys, I went so sleep until we arrived in Jena. Three hours of highly appreciated sleep!

Part three: Step-in guys

On todays show we had Martin Wright Thorsen as a step-in drummer for Tobias, and Jon-Øyvind Nordby as step-in bassist for Rein. It is of course slightly thrilling for us to change the whole foundation in the band for only one show, as Tobias and Rein are very hard to replace. However, when playing a song at the soundcheck, we hear very clearly that Martin and Jon-Øyvind has done a really great job. Many thanks goes out to Martin and Jon-Øyvind for going through all those hours of rehearsing for only one show.

Part four: First show

When going on stage today I was almost a bit nervous (I usually never get nervous when playing), as I had to handle all the backing tracks in addition to be the lead-singer and keyboard player. Even though the show today wasn’t as good as a Leprous show can be, I feel we managed to do the very best out of the situation. This also made us prove that Leprous never cancel a show, unless we really have to!

All the best,

Einar

(Part 2) Day 1 - Berlin

2011-12-27T01:47:00.010+01:00

Christmas turned out to be very short for us this year. After a good nights sleep we all got up early to catch the bus to the airport in Oslo. Our plane left for Berlin at 1PM and after flying all the way to Japan a couple of weeks earlier, this one felt like 5 minutes. We landed in the German capitol at the airport "lala", and got ourselves a nice, big taxi to hold the 5 of us to make our way to the hostel for the night. Amorphis and the crew are arriving tomorrow, and we're all meeting up with the bus early in the morning. A day off waiting for the others is the perfect opportunity to check out the city!;D After checking in at the hostel and getting 5 minutes of rest, we decide there's no reason to just sit around in a cheap hostel staring at the wall (or our computers/phones for that matter) in a big, unexplored city. So we get to it.

Berlin turns out to be a really great place, but food is currently our number one priority. Our first thought is to find an Indian place and it does not take long before we find the perfect place. Cheap and exactly what we wanted. Finally we have the energy needed to explore this huge city;) With a big tower in sight we just start walking, hoping to find some kind of city center. After a while, we reach a nice traditional Christmas marketplace selling all kinds of food and candy.

....and of course we have to buy some chocolate bananas/grapes.

The market is located at Alexanderplatz where we finally reach the tower we aimed for. We see an endless road and just keep walking. 5000 miles later we end up at Brandenburger Tor! It's now getting late and after some photos we head begin on the long, long journey back. After a few hours Berlin's moderate temperature somehow doesn't seem very moderate anymore, so the next logical step becomes getting some ice cream! ;) One large ice cream later, the cinema becomes very attractive but is soon discarded when we realize all movies are dubbed. As a last source of entertainment we go back to find a bowling place we discovered on our journey. Einar eventually gets fed up with all the walking…

The bowling place is of course closing in 10 minutes when we arrive, so heading back to the hostel becomes the only tempting option left. A quiet ending to an awesome day in Berlin, and we fall asleep late, ready for our first show day…

Regards,

Øystein

Tour report: Japan 2011

2011-12-18T19:33:00.011+01:00

Day 1: Hello Tokyo
After a very long flight from Oslo to Helsinki, then from Helsinki to Tokyo it felt extremely good to stretch the legs. Even though I have developed a zombie mode when traveling, and don’t mind long flights that much anymore. Already by the luggage claim we get a taste of the Japanese efficiency, as all the bags and instruments are already waiting for us. After picking up the baggage, we walk out to the arrival hall and find ourselves pleasantly surprised with two very nice japanese fellows called Tetsu and George welcoming us immediately. Shortly after we met the driver Nambu, which turned out to be the organizer of the whole tour. They drove us straight to the hotel, but we weren’t allowed to check in there before three hours later. Luckily Nambu, Tetsu and George had planned to take us out for traditional japanese lunch! The restaurant offered us both looks and tastes we’d never experienced before, in a good way. Since we’d missed one night of sleep it felt really great to get a couple of hours sleep at the hotel, before everyone (except Rein who slept to the next day) went out to check out what Tokyo had to offer. What immediately stroke us when we found ourself in the most busy are of Tokyo, Shibuya, was that even though there was an insane amount of people it was rather quiet in the streets. That is impressive! Even in Norway (which is not the most noisy country in the world), the same amount of people would have made ten times as much noise. For not to mention the cars! Before going back to sleep at the hotel, we ended up eating at a really great japanese plays, which made me look at raw fish in a completely new way. I mean, I’ve tasted sushi in Norway several times without being blown away.

Day 2: Asakusa
Being rather confused with the new time zone, I woke up VERY early this day. I think 3 am is the earliest I’ve ever woken up ready for a new day. Of course I tried to go back to sleep, but without success. As soon as daylight found his way through the curtain, I went down for breakfast with Rein and Ihsahn. Today we had a day off and were all going to Asakusa, which is a district in Tokyo most famous for the Buddhist temple Sensō. It was a very pleasant experience to be able to see old japanese architecture. The area was heavily bombed during the second world war, and was later re-build. A really nice off day!

Day 3: O-East
One more night without a sufficient amount of sleep! It certainly takes time to adjust to the new time zone. Finally time for the first show day! O-East, today’s venue, is one of the nicest concert places I’ve ever been to. Huge stage, the finest equipment available and very nice backstage facilities. For the first time ever, we were about to do shows with two different bands without a break between. We have never played in Japan before, so it was with great excitement we entered the stage. The response when we entered stage was humongous and very inspiring, so it wasn’t difficult to give everything today! After playing the last note on the last song, we literally ran off stage to change from red and black to black. Three minutes later we were back on stage, this time with Ihsahn. It was a new, and very good experience to play a double show in such great circumstances. Thirty minutes after we got off stage, The Haunted entered the stage. I have to be honest and say that it’s long between metal concerts I really enjoy, but the Haunted delivered one of the best metal shows I’ve seen a while. Really passionate and intense performance! After the show we went out to say hello to some of our fans, and when we got back 20 minutes later the stage was 100 % cleared! Wow, we REALLY have a lot to learn from Japan!

Day 4: Nagoya
Finally a night with proper sleep! We were picked up quite early at the hotel, and driven to the closest train station in Tokyo. This trip was full of “first times”, and we experiences a new one of those when entering the express train to Nagoya. Approximately an hour later we arrived in Nagoya, and was driven to the venue immediately. The venue was located in a huge shopping mall, and the was the hotel. Very convenient! As I’ve revealed to our blog readers earlier, I’m a sucker for sweets and desserts. Therefore I was exceedingly excited when I saw the most fantastic dessert restaurant I’ve ever witnessed! After the soundcheck almost everyone joined me for some desserts, and my day was already complete. The venue in Nagoya was a lot smaller, but it was also a great place for concerts. The show went really well, and Japan still lives up to all our expectations!

Day 5: Big cat
As we just arrived from a european tour where it was impossible to have a single moment alone, it was a really pleasant surprise that the organizers had booked single rooms for us every night. When on tour it is always on the third and fourth show is at its worst. Today was no exception, and I was quite worried about the show. We stayed at the venue most of the day today, as we knew that we had a day off the next day to check out the city. I started warming up my voice one hour before the sow, and it ended up working OK. It was a bit more difficult on the Ihsahn set, as it is usually a long wait between every time I’m singing. So the voice becomes hoarse between every time I sing. Despite the problems the show also went great today, and it was a really worthy last show on this small tour. We managed to see a part of the Haunted’s show, and it was really great today as well. Check out this band live if you ever have the chance! The organizers takes us out for dinner every day after the show, and this day was no exception. We've gotten the chance to taste new and great food every day, Japan is fantastic!

Day 6: Off day in Osaka
Woooohooo, no sleep at all! Today we checked out a rather rainy Osaka, while trying to buy some christmas presents. George (which became a good friend during our stay) also gave us a really nice guided tour through Osaka It was an OK day, but not the most memorable.

Day 7: Hello Oslo
Time to go back Norway! We were driven to the airport quite early, and the check in at the airport was problem free. It was with mixed feelings we left this great country, and we really hope to get back really soon. The flight was nice, and despite the mixed feelings it felt good to be back on Norwegian soil.

Best,

Einar

Day 27 - Last day of luxury in London

2011-12-03T16:12:00.002+01:00

The last show
The end of the first part of the tour brings us back to London, for our third concert here. We’re all ready to give everything we have on this last show, even though 40% of the band have been struggling with illness the last couple of days.

Bye bye Blackstar
The technical part of the concert could have gone better. After standing a couple of minutes with the power on, my beloved Blackstar S1 200 amp gets a bit more power than it’s made for, something that leads to the total annihilation of two fuses as well as some plastic components that encloses them. Our super guitar technician, Falle, fixes the fuses and the plastic thingies, but even though the power gets back on, theres no more of that delicate sound being generated. At this point we give up, and I must ask as nicely as possible if I could borrow the Orange amp from Miguel in NahemaH, who of course borrows me his gear without question. Thanks! :)

The show is by far the best we’ve had in England so far, and it seemed as the audience liked it as well. After the show I had to pack down my beautiful amp, and send it broken to Jena, where it will be waiting for me (still broken) when we return december 26th. I guess I can just hope for a Christmas miracle.

Living luxurious
Being world famous rock stars and all, we all live pretty high class lifestyles, as portrayed in this video clip:

Going home
After getting an incredible good nights sleep, I wake up at 4.00, to get to Heathrow to fly home. Tomorrow I’ll return to work as a physiotherapist for three days, before we head out for our Japan with Ihsahn (and Leprous). We will of course report how this goes as well, before we return with the second part of the Amorphis tour, when Christmas is above us.

In the meantime,
Let the juice flow!

TorO

Day 26: Paris, oh my god!

2011-11-30T19:51:00.005+01:00

Part 1: The half flu is spreading
Late night after the show in Toulouse, Rein started to experience the same symptoms as TorO. So when we woke up in Paris, 40% of the band was ill and not in a condition to play a concert. We enter Divan du Monde, and this might be one of the coolest venues on the tour so far. Not the biggest or most fancy, but the most charming maybe? The backstage is nice, and the catering as well (it always is in France). A small problem though was that both TorO and Rein would need a place to sleep, and the bus had parked far away from the venue!

Part 2: The shortest sightseeing ever
Since we had to help with the load-in today (due to very limited time), we hadn’t got much time to check out Paris. Everyone but Jonas had been in Paris before, so me and him went down to take the metro. We had 45 minutes in total before the soundcheck, and the Eiffel tower was Jonas first priority. After getting of the correct metro station, we almost had to run in order to have a couple of pictures of the Eiffel tower in time. We were outside the tower for maybe 2 minutes, and then we had to run back to the metro station again and hurry up back to the sound check.

Part 3: Paris = Awesome
An hour before showtime I came to think of that I hadn’t eaten the entire day. I ran down to a grocery store together with Jonas and Tobias an bought maybe the worst tuna baguette I’ve ever tasted. When we got back to the venue, we saw that there was an extremely big queue outside! Great news for tonight's show! Even though both Rein and TorO was ill we were quite excited, as Paris was one of the coolest places we played last year! We entered the stage, and the audience was just as great as we’d hoped for!

Part 4: A rather stressful dinner
After the show everyone except Rein went out to a restaurant in the same building for dinner. When we’d ordered the meal, we wound out that we had approximately 45 minutes before we had to leave. The food arrived 40 minutes later, and we had 5 minutes to eat and to pay the bill! I just love stress-eating great food!

All the best,
Einar

Day 25 - Toulouse, Game on

2011-11-29T20:30:00.003+01:00

Part 1: Le Phare
I had one goal for this day, to check out Toulouse city center! Last year we played at the exactly same venue, and then I didn’t get to see the city center due to lack of public transport in the area (it was a major defeat for me, as I simply love checking out new places). After doing some research on the internet, the unthinkable happens: I give up! It was really difficult to find a cheap enough solution that would bring me back to the venue in time. Even though I felt bad about no being able to see Toulouse, Le Phare (the venue) is a really nice venue to spend a day at. It’s huge and contains really nice backstages with proper wifi, nice food and showers.

Part 2: Half flu
Sitting on my computer on the dressing room, TorO suddenly comes rushing in with a rather pale face asking for my Imodium. He tells me that he has gotten the half flue, and the liquid is coming out in both ends. Wooooho, tonight’s show is going to be great!! His shape is really bad, and he has to go to the bus to sleep after finishing his toilet duties.

Part 3: Boxing - Leprous VS Amorphis
Still sitting on my computer, Tomi Joutsen from Amorphis are entering our backstage to brag about his new boxing equipment. He knows that both me, TorO and Tobias are doing kickboxing (at a very low level) and he wants to challenge us to a match. TorO was ill, Tobias thought it was too close to the show, which left me as the only alternative. I went to the bus to pick up my kickboxing equipment, and gets dressed for the match. Tomi insist to only do boxing (with no kicks), which suits me OK since my kick skills could be better. We agree to go very easy and slow, so nobody gets hurt before the show. Check out the video to see how the match went!

Part 4: An energetic evening (from TorO’s point of view)
TorO woke up approximately 30 minutes before changeover without feeling any better at all. He take one more Imodium, finds himself a puke bucket and go on stage. The venue looks nice, the crowd seems really good and the sound on stage is quite nice! I was determined to compensate for TorO’s lack of energy tonight, and gave almost everything I had on stage. The show went really good despite TorO’s condition, and he managed to do the whole set without having to run to the toilet!

All the best,
Einar

Day 24 - Barakaldo Juicefest 2011

2011-11-26T23:38:00.004+01:00

Juice time!
Our first concert in the Basque Country ever took place in Barakaldo, a part of the greater Bilbao. The venue, Rock Star Live, is situated in a shopping mall, the stage is huge, and the backstage facilities are very nice. We all agree that it’s time to bring out our old companion, The Juicer. This way, we can juice up all the semi-bad fruit that we’ve been gathering throughout Europe. My tip is to try out any fruits and vegetables you like, and if you can get hold of lime, ginger and sellery, then you’re pretty much ready to make anything taste good. Tobias finds out the hard way that onion is an exception, but then again, who would have thought otherwise?

Gettin’ rid of all that energy
While I’m taking care of the entire vitamin needs of both Amorphis and the crew, Einar takes a trip on his own to the city centre of Bilbao. We soon realize that juice gives us a bunch of energy, so after OD’ing on vitamins, we feel like getting rid of some of that energy. Let the jogging commence.

We’ll be back
The concert went really well, and we all hope we can return the next time around.

Until then,
Juice on!

TorO

Day 23 - Santiago de Compostela

2011-11-26T23:23:00.004+01:00

Part 1: The hallway
We were woken up approximately 11:30 by Temu (the merch guy) who told us that the shuttle to the venue were already waiting for us. None of us had a clue that we were to park away from the venue, and we were preset to sleep as long as preferable. Waking up Rein isn’t always the easiest task in the world, and he ended up taking a shuttle much later that day! Our first encounter with the venue was really pleasant, and we were blessed by a really nice stage, great acoustics and equipment. The first encounter with the backstage however, could have been better. We had been given a hallway next to a staircase without any chairs as backstage! Wooooohooo! Luckily we were given some chairs after a while, and the backstage was OK after that.

Part 2: The cathedral
The weather is beautiful and the venue is in the middle of the town center, so we joined the forces with Tomi (vocals Amorphis) and Temu (merch guy) to check it out. We walked through a beautiful park, and after a while we managed to locate the renown Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. It looks extremely impressive both inside and outside. Touching it is supposed to mean luck, and only two days later both TorO and Rein has gotten the half flu. Hmmmmm......
Santiago de Compostela is defiantly a town worth visiting, and it’s one of our favorites on the tour!

Part 3: Daily routines
Safe back at the venue we do all our daily routines as soundcheck, desperately and unsuccessfully trying to upload blogs, drinking coke, getting ready for show etc. The show went really good, and even though the venue was only half full we fell in love with the Galician audience!

Part 4: Tapas
After the show we go straight out to eat, and as we’ve finally learned to choose the most visited restaurants we ended up on a really nice tapas restaurant. The food on the restaurant might have been the best on the tour so far, and it was a really nice way to end the evening.

Best,

Einar

Day 22 - Incriviel Almadense

2011-11-26T14:31:00.005+01:00

As usual, I woke up in the hostel a few minutes after we was supposed to be checked out. I can't remember the last time I actually checked out in time. Another stressful morning. After we gathered our belongings, we found out that it was time to try to locate the venue for tonights show.
Tobias got out of the hostel a few minutes before the rest of us, and met us outside having acquired one of the strangest "to-go" coffees I've ever seen. Anyways, we managed to get a hold of a couple of taxis, and began the extensive project of finding the venue. One of the drivers knew a little english, none of them knew where the place was located.
Turned out it was located in Almada, across a really big bridge from Lisbon. After a few stops, some direction-asking, a few conversations in portuguese (taxi-driver), english and norwegian (us) and a lot of traffic, we finally found the venue.
The venue was cool, and the stage was big. We need a lot of space to deliver a Leprous-show the way we want to, so everything looked really good. We were also able to walk up on the big PA speakers in front of the stage. Always fun! (hopefully it looks cool too).

The rest of the place was a bit more interesting. Really old concrete building, no wi-fi, very small backstage and very strange toilet/shower facilities. All of this is really okay, the only real problem with the place was that it was way too cold for our taste.
It turned out we had access to a big training hall through the corridors of the backstage area. We also found a football. Sweet! We arranged a little game of football with some of the guys from Nahemah, the other support band. Just when we started to get into the game, we got interrupted by a very old, very angry man. He started shouting at us in portuguese, took our football, blamed us for cracking a mirror, and then shouted some more. Not cool!
So, looking for ways to entertain ourselves, we figured we could make use of the adjustable haircutter i bought in Lisbon. TorO took on the role as the hair stylist, so Me, Jonas and Tobias ended up with a new haircut. Nice!
Looking fresh, we went out to get something to eat before the show.
The show was cool.

After the show we talked to a guy in the audience who brought us some local delicatesses, awesome! And they tasted really good as well!
Some showers and one Amorphis-show later we got a shuttle back to the bus. The bus is the closest thing to home on the tour, so it's always nice to come back to it after a day of.
Thats it for Lisbon, stay tuned for more..

-Rein

Day 21 - Day off fun in Lisbon

2011-11-25T17:42:00.002+01:00

Part one: Stay cool hostel
We were woken up at approximately 11:30 AM by our tour manager, and told that we had to get out of the bus and bring with us everything we needed for the next two days. After a panic filled packing of our things, we hit the streets of Lisbon in order to find our hostel for the night; Lisbon Stay Cool Hostel. We’re not exactly known to be picky when ordering hotels/hostels, and this time we had booked a six person room in this very small hostel. Of course we don’t have a clue about where the hostel is located, and I’m really dependent on getting aid from my dear iPhone. After walking around for about ten minutes looking for an open wifi connection, I manage plot in the address of the hostel to the GPS on my phone. We walked for five minutes to what was supposed to be the final location, and find out that my usually very reliable iPhone has led me out to nowhere. TorO managed to get hold of a local guy that was able to show us in the direction of the street where the hostel was located. Luckily it was only a two minutes walk away from our current location. And there they were the huge flashing neon light sings from Lisbon Stay Cool Hostel!

Part two: Too much service?
As we hadn’t had the chance to get something to eat, we took the metro to the core of Lisbon city center to find a descent restaurant. We ended up being tricked into a restaurant near the harbor, but it seemed nice enough when we got the time to look at the menu. The food itself was quite good, but it was very annoying that two of the waiters were standing really close to us looking at us while we were eating. For those who knows a bit about norwegian intimate boundaries (and our general need to be by ourself), they will know exactly how much we disliked this situation.

Part three: The bus trip of our lives
After yesterdays successful tourist train trip through Porto, we wanted to repeat the success by jumping on a tourist bus to explore Lisbon on the fastest and laziest way possible. Expectant and excited we board the bus, and walk strait up to the upper deck to grab a seat with a good view. After sitting on the bus of approximately fifty minutes, I realize that I might have seen 2-3 monuments worth mentioning. The bus decided to drive as long out of the city center as possible, and we get to see a building maybe every fifteen minutes. This would of course have been OK if the temperature was comfortable, but it was extremely cold. I usually enjoy these kind of tourist bus trips, but we all agreed (except Rein that found it very interesting and comfortable) that this might have been the single most boring thing we’ve done on the tour so far!

Part four: Music Burger
When the bus trip finally ended, we went straight to Starbucks to get something hot to drink. After sitting there for a while, we go home to the hostel for some rest. Not much worth mentioning happened while relaxing at the hostel, except that we plagued the hostel room with the smell of our stage clothes. Time for something to eat again, and this time we choose a nearby restaurant where there is a lot of people (yes, we have learned) called Music Burger. Do not be fooled by the simple name, because this place was really great! Reasonable great food (also vegetarian) served by a very jovial waitress. Even though this was a nice day, we all agree that we’re not that fond off days. We could have done the whole tour without them, seriously!

All the best,
Einar

Day 20 - Porto on my mind

2011-11-25T00:31:00.009+01:00

Walking out of the bus in Porto is a true pleasure. The sun is shining, and approximately 20 degrees feels good after driving through a rather cold southern Europe so far. The area surrounding the venue seems very nice, so we all decide to check out the rest of the downtown area as well, something we don’t regret. As a matter of fact, Porto may be my favorite city so far on the tour. Great weather, good food, pleasant people and beautiful surroundings. We meet a very nice guy which recommends us to take a ride through the city on a small train. Yes please!

Back at the venue, my impression of Porto doesn’t get any worse. The stage, backstage, catering, wi-fi and the pleasant promoter and staff couldn’t be much better. The fact that Jonas also downloads Civilization V to his macbook, meaning we can link and try out the multiplayer feature, is just the finishing touch of an already perfect day. The following movie will show you how Leprous look like when we're exploring a city. Please have in mind that we actually are a metal band, so the scenes you're about to witness are pretty scary and intense.

As for the concert, I really enjoyed playing, as did the rest of the guys. and the crowd seemed to like it as well. We also got the chance to talk to many nice people afterwards. My only bad experience with this first day in Portugal was that somebody broke in to Nahemah’s caravanette, and stole their money and some official documents. Apart from that, I really look forward to spending the next couple of days in Portugal, and hopefully Lisboa will live up to the great impression I have so far.

To the people of Porto:
Please like my band, so I have a good reason to return as soon as possible!
If not, I guess I’ll come back for my next vacation… B)

Until then,
Rock on!

TorO

Day 19 - Madrid Monitorama 2011

2011-11-25T00:30:00.002+01:00

Yo! Woke up in madrid today. It was one of those days when the bus can't park at the venue, that usually means a pretty stressful morning. Especially for me, nice I always wait as long as possible before I get up. So I get up, grab my stage clothes and whatever I'll be needing during the day, and rush on out.
I'ts always nice when the venue is located in the middle of the cities we visit. This is the case today. Nice!
After getting our stuff into the venue we met up with a graphic designer and friend, Ritxi (who did the booklet for Bilateral and the cover and booklet of Tall Poppy Syndrome). He was nice enough to show us around/hang out with us in Madrid. We went for a walk, following Ritxi's lead. First stop: The Temple of Debod. An Egyptian temple in Spain…makes sense…? Anyway, it's located in a nice park, and the weather wasn't too bad. Nice way to start the day, in my opinion.
We had breakfast/lunch at a cafe nearby, and went for a walk in the center of Madrid. Surprisingly, we met some familiar faces…

After hanging out for a while, we were joined by Ritxi's girlfriend, Alba. We walked around some more, had some tapas, and headed back to the venue for soundcheck. Great day so far..

Soundcheck complete communication breakdown? incompetent in-house crew? I don't know exactly what happened, but after waiting for a really long time, we basically ended up without any monitoring at all. Playing without hearing what we're doing is a pretty hopeless scenario, to say the least! Pretty strange considering that the rest of the venue was great, and is frequently in use. We finished the horrible soundcheck feeling frustrated, shocked, and at the same laughing about the ridiculous situation. We were also hellbent on delivering a good show, despite the "difficult" surroundings. Who's to say Leprous isn't up for a challenge!

So, it was time for the first Leprous show without monitoring, ever. Not the kind of premiere worth looking forward to, but not much we could do about it. Come what may, and all that…
Luckily, parts of the PA system was located behind the edge of the stage, so we could actually hear a little bit of what we sounded like. The local crew had also fixed the problem with the monitors during our show, so we actually had somewhat random monitoring during most parts of the show. For some of us it saved the concert, while some of us would have been better off without random things appearing (and disappearing) in the mix. On top of these factors, we are well into the tour at this point, and without sounding too "cocky" I think we would be able to pull of a decent show under worse conditions than today. Catastrophe avoided, in other words.
Our opinions on the gig may vary, but considering the circumstances we all agree that we did a good job. The crowd was great too! It felt really good to get a lot of positive feedback, after all the energy wasted being frustrated earlier. You guys saved our day!

-Rein

Day 18: Spain show nr one

2011-11-24T14:46:00.004+01:00

Today we had plans! We got a special guided tour from two friends of ours, Marce and Mathias!

Barcelona is a huge city with alot to see. And with only the time before soundcheck, it will not cover it all...

We went to Sagrada Famila! That was really awsome! And quite bizarre. You should check it out if you are in Barcelona!

Jonas came back to replace Øystein. This was Øysteins last concert, so Jonas took some really cool pictures you can see at our facebookpage.

The concert was really nice. And later we hooked up with our designer friend Maria (who designed our t-shirts and backdrop :), her boyfriend Jaime and Isam (Jesus?)

They are really nice and took us to a really cool buffet place with lots of really good vegeterarian food!

btw: Jonas is now back with his video editing skillz!

-Tobias

Day 17 - Lyon rocks

2011-11-22T21:05:00.005+01:00

Part one: A pleasant reunion
It feels great to be back in France! Last year we played six shows in France, and almost at every venue everything was great! Both the catering, the crew, the fascilities and the audience. Lyon was one of our favorite places on the previous tour, so we had really high expectations for tonight’s show! Nice venue, nice food, nice facilities and a nice local crew. Only thing missing now is the great audience, which we of course didn’t know anything about at this point.

Part two: The metro
After gathering everyone (which usually takes way longer than my patience can handle), we go straight to the metro station. Last year when I visited Lyon I didn’t get to see the old city, so I was very determined to see it this time. The metro trip was full of misunderstandings and wrong moves from us, and we ended up at the very same place I ended up last year. Right outside the gigantic shopping mall, which I had no interest in seeing. Luckily I managed to connect to a wifi connection, and find out that we’re in walking distance to the old town.

Part three: Monument obsession
I might be a bit more obsessed than the average person when it comes to checking out the main monuments in the cities we visit, and sometimes I forget that someone might have other needs. Rein was looking for bass strings, and TorO was looking for an iPhone protection thing while Øystein was looking for a new jack input for his guitar. This being our lucky day, we manage to find both an instrument store and an Apple store on our way to the old town, and everyone gets to satisfy their needs. We even found a Virgin Megastore on our way (which I didn’t think existed anymore).

Part four: Photographer of the year?
Finally we get to the old town, which turns out to be very beautiful and worth every minute spent on locating it. I’m slowly turning into a desert junkie on this tour, and more and more often I hunger for it. Suddenly we se a perfect french ice cream cafè, and of course I can’t resist the temptation. Below you can se a photo I took of the banana split which actually looked extremely good in real life. It’s fascinating how disgusting you can have really nice things look if you’re a bad enough photographer!

Part five: Moshpit
Back at the venue we’re starting to get eager to go on stage, as we remember the Lyon audience to be great! We enter the stage, and all our expectations and hopes turns out to be right! There’s a lot of people singing along, and a lot of people making lots of noise and movement. During Waste of Air it actually occurs a moshipit, which is a very rare sight on a Leprous concert. To sum up the day: Lyon is still one of the best places for Leprous to visit!

All the best,
Einar

Day 16 - Milan fashion extravaganza

2011-11-19T23:38:00.003+01:00

I wake up in the bus around 11.30. I enter the backstage witnessing a very typical Leprous social gathering, with everybody doing their own things on their macbooks. Tobias, just finishing his episode of Merlin, suggests that we should all head down town to check out the Milano fashion scene. Øystein doesn’t see what the big fuzz is all about, and decides to stay at the venue so he can prepare for his own fashion show later tonight. He’s got something really exciting up his sleeve this evening, so we’re all really psyched as we take the subway downtown, Einar, Tobias and myself.

As we’re approaching the Duomo square, Tobias can hear a strangely familiar sound. Yes, it’s the pigeons he played with the last time we were here, and o’boy are they happy to see him again. He also meets up with his old seed supplier, who tries to stuff some more seeds in his hand, but Tobias plays hard to get and runs away.

Not a trip to Milano without trying out some Italian delicacies, so we end up in a pleasant restaurant, with an open solution towards the open area that surrounds it. As we’re waiting for our pasta, eating our complimentary cookie, Tobias finds out he wants his old friends to join the party. The pigeons doesn’t have to be asked twice, and gladly follows up his invitation, to the great satisfaction of the restaurants other costumers as well as the staff.

We continue our journey through the fashion capital and end up at H&M and Zara to buy socks and boxers, before we head back to the venue where Øystein has a show and a fashion clinic ready for us. Here you can see the essentials:

After this great show we all felt energized and ready to hit the stage. The show went good and we leave Italy with the hope we will return in a not too far distant future.

Until then,
Stay fraiche!

TorO

Day 15 - Time for Treviso

2011-11-19T23:08:00.006+01:00

I knew from the moment I woke up that this was gonna be one of those stay-in-and-work-while-the-others-have-fun-checking-out-the-city kind of days. As most you might not know, I'm a student. This means a certain amount of work has to be done, and it does not matter whether you're on tour or not. Usually I get the enthusiastic question: "Are you coming with us to check out Treviso today?". I respond with the signature line: "No.. I think I have to work today". You just gotta love saying no to checking out a city you've never seen before!;D

For some reason, we can't get into the venue until around 1'o clock today. Normally our get-in is at 11. This matches up nicely with my 100% dependency on Wi-Fi to be able to work, but I'm hungry so I grab a bite at the closest (and only) diner in the area. Our first encounter with some serious beams for the sun and good food makes this morning a good one, and the crew dreams of this being the off-day, not the one-million-miles drive from Athens to Treviso. As we finish up our meal, I see the guys from the band returning with their tails between their legs. They couldn't get a taxi, and after a rumor of a 20km distance into town (although it was only 9) coupled with today's late get-in, seeing Treviso stayed a dream.

I feel sorry for the guys who wanted to see the city, but somehow it's a bit comforting considering what I have in store for the day. Luckily, "New Age" is one of those venues that have figured out Internet can come in handy.. and it's a fast one too! Fast internet equals blog uploads and work for me. Yeeha! I end up spending mostly the entire day in front of the computer (hence the short and boring blog entry). I keep on working until our sound check at 5PM, then have dinner with the others before preparing for the show at 8PM. There's not a huge crowd when Nahema hits the stage, but they do a good job and draw people, so when it's our turn we're ready to do our best on our first show here in Treviso.

Even though none of us saw the city, we had a good time in Treviso, and we always enjoy it when we see people that have come to see Leprous, not only Amorphis ;) Let's hope we get to come back asap! Next stop: Milan! Stay tuned!!

Regards,

Øystein

Day 14: Goodbye Greece

2011-11-18T00:18:00.003+01:00

All right! Travel day! Or days, more correctly. We left Athens after the show on Sunday the 13. The present time is 00:47 the 15. November, Tuesday. The plan is to reach Italy sometime during the day. So…loooong bus ride!

Slept really late today, being stuck on the bus there's not much else to do. Even though I had more than my share of sleep, I had a rather unpleasant awakening. Passport check on the Serbian border. Normally the bus driver handles the border crossings, but now we had to deliver our passports individually. No stress though..They checked our passports, and looked through the bus a couple of times. All ok, but not an Ideal way to start the day!

So, Spending the entire day in the bus might not be the perfect condition for writing an interesting blog post. Most of the time is spent watching movies and series, playing games, or just hanging out in the bus.

Still we had one interesting, to say the least, experience. Dinner at a random roadside diner in Serbia.

If I had been there alone, I would probably be out of there well before the drinks were on the table. Creepy atmosphere in other words. The place itself was ice cold, completely empty and looked like it belonged to another century. Now, all that wouldn't matter if at least the food was okay, which it, as you might have guessed, wasn't even close to. At least the vegitarians (TorO, Tobias and Einar), had a hard time with their "cheese omelet".

- "a bit like eating old sour cream, so old that it turned into a cheese-like shape, stuffed into an unfinished omelet." -Einar Solberg.

As you probably understand, not top-of-the-line cooking. But don't get me wrong, i'm really glad we actually experienced this Serbian diner. I'm definitely going to remember it for a long time!

Here is some other facts:

They actually served about 1/3 of the dishes on the menu.

Tobias and myself ordered some fries, but never got them (even though we asked, twice), While all the others got their fries really fast.

Oh, and they had a dead bear on the wall.

Finally back at the bus, passing time as the miles fly by. Next up: Croatian border crossing! Almost the same procedure as earlier today, only this time we had to get out of the bus and into a nearby building for them to check our passports. Lots of fun….or not!

So, to sum it all up its been a rather monotone/boring day in the bus, with two border crossings and dinner as the main events.

Here is some footage from the bus:

That's all for now!

- Rein

Day 13 - Athens, Greece

2011-11-17T12:46:00.005+01:00

We of course had really high hopes regarding the weather in Athens. Last years european-tour we played in Athens (also at Gagarin 205!) at approximately the same time of the year. I remember sightseeing Akropolis wearing shorts and t-shirt.

Today it was raining and windy, a little bit colder than Norway.... :( disapointed!

Athens is still a really nice city! We hooked up with our two favourite photographers Bjørn Tore and Einars girlfriend Marita, plus family,friends, who came down to see us in Athen.

That was really nice!

Allthough we didnt have too much time downtown, Rein was attacked by A) a bird pooping. B) someone who trew his cup of coffee out the window of his appartment.

The good old juicer were used for the first time(!). The apple, kiwi, salad, orange juice of course gave us an energy boost before the show!

The concert went really good, and here you'll see some live footage from the concert.

Tommorow is a traveling day. Traveling around 30 hours to Italy.. :)

- Tobias

Day 12 - Good old Thessaloniki

2011-11-16T15:36:00.003+01:00

Part one: Back to normal

Two days has gone since we parted ways with Jonas and half a day since we teamed up with TorO. Even though Jonas did an unbelievably good job replacing TorO, it feels good to have the normal line up back together. TorO is one of two members (me being the other one) from the current line up that has been in the band from the very beginning, so it has been a bit weird not having him around. I’m gonna miss Jonas´video editing skills though!

Part two: Breakfast and saxophone

It feels good waking up in a proper hotel bed, without feeling that you’re inside a centrifuge (eastern european roads can have that effect one you when sleeping in the tour bus). It’s check out at noon, so we met down in the lobby approximately then. We went straight out for breakfast, and found a place that looks quite descent. After checking out the menu, we find out that the only thing they actually serve there is pasta salad with mushrooms. It tasted like sour olive oil, and to be honest everyone hated it. I think we might should start to understand that if there’s no people in the restaurant, it’s probably no good. As most norwegians we do everything in our power to sit alone in a table in a corner, as far away from other people that we can get. But I’m starting to wonder, is it worth it? Even though the food tasted horrible, we managed to keep the mood up. Thanks to Øystein for that!

Part three: Jogging alongside cadavers

It feels nice to be back at Block 33 after only one year, even though get that typical feeling that you were just here. After giving TorO a quick tour through the tour bus, me, Tobias and TorO decides to go out running. It has been a couple of days since our last run, as we’ve been warned against jogging in areas with lots of stray dogs (which you find plenty of in Romania, Bulgaria and Greece). Nevertheless we felt it was about time to get some exercise again, stray dogs or not. We started running alongside a main road, which seemed to be more difficult than we expected. After running for a couple of minutes, TorO stops to show us that we actually ran over a dog cadaver. Not a very nice sight! Even though this 5 km run was a bit out of the ordinary, it feels nice to be back on track.

Part four: The concert

We were quite excited about todays concert, as this was the first concert with TorO on this tour. It was a really nice experience playing in Thessaloniki again, and it was great to have TorO at my right side again. We’ve built up a certain stage chemistry through the years, and even though it’s difficult to top the concert experience we had in Sofia, this was a really nice show for us!

Best,

Einar

PS: Sorry about the norwegian speaking during the last part of the video. This was due to Øystein’s refusal of using the international language.

Day 11 - Return of TorO (travel day)

2011-11-15T18:08:00.009+01:00

Ok, so here’s the deal. I (TorO) have been at home in Norway the last ten days, playing with my cat and watching crappy TV, while the other guys have been around having fun in eastern Europe. Finally the day has arrived for me to meet up with the rest of the band in Thessaloniki, Greece. As entertaining as it may be watching the tour blog from Norway, I actually have been anticipating to join the tour. A slight complication was the cancellation of the concert in Istanbul, as we’d already booked flights and hotels for me and Jonas to make “the switch” go as smooth as possible over there. After a couple of hours saying “no thanks” to all of RyanAirs’s special offers though, and we have ourselves a new plan. And this is how it goes, travelling like a true superstar:

Oslo
08.46: Waking up, feeling ready to start the day off with a nice meal, freshly squeezed orange juice and a delightful cup of coffe.
08.47: Falling asleep after turning off the alarm clock.
10.13: Waking up again with a funny feeling something’s wrong. My bus leaves in 12 minutes. F*****g s**t!!!
10.14: Out on the street, running.
10.16: Hiring a bicycle. A crappy one.
10.20: A rather skinny fella finds it in his heart to out of nowhere skip sideways 2-3 meters, making sure I actually hit him with my bicycle. Perfect timing! ;D
10.24.40: Arriving at the bus stop 20 seconds before the bus leaves.
10.25: Not feeling very well as I find my seat, while also realizing I should exercise some more. At this point I also realize that I forgot my water and the charger for my Mac. Feeling fraiche!

Torp
12.05: Arriving at Torp airport. Just one look at the million dollar cases they use for their security checks tells us that I’ve got two hours of non-stop entertainment settled as I wait for my plane to leave.

13.55: Ascending in the spacious aircraft, and really taking in all the calmness, comfort and helpfulness that comes with flying with RyanAir.

London
14.45: (local time) Arriving at Stansted airport.
15.00: Getting in line for my 2nd baggage check. The gate for my flight closes 15.30

15.37: Finished standing in line, and prepared to start my second run of today with all my bags. Hungry like you wouldn’t believe.
15.43: Arriving at gate, barely conscious, noticing that nobody has entered the flight yet.
16.00: Learning that most greek senior citizens prefer to stand at a distance of approximately 3 mm from my ass, while all the time touching me with their luggage. Nice to get to know a new culture along the way. :)
16.05: As we fly off, the nice married couple sitting next to me starts arguing. They’re loud.

Thessaloniki
21.00: (local time) The married couple continues their fight, as we start our descent to the airport.
21.15: The senior citizens find their way back to my backside while we leave the plane. Btw, Isn’t Greece supposed to be somewhat warmer than Norway this time of year?
21.25: I hop on the only bus I can see at the airport, hoping that it will take me downtown.
22.35: I push the stop button after realizing my destination is just down the road.
22.36: The bus passes my destination.
22.42: The bus stops. I have to walk back several km to the Hotel where the guys are waiting.
23.05: Reunion time at the Astoria Hotel, Thessaloniki. Woop woop! :D

05.30: Rein makes his signature sleeping sound. Aaaaah, feels great to be back…

Peace out! B)

TorO

Day 10 - So far, Sofia

2011-11-15T15:25:00.014+01:00

After playing the Oldies Pub in Sibiu sharing back line with Amorphis and having no backstage besides our beloved bus, the time has come to kick everything up a notch (or more like ten). Arena Armeec Sofia, as the name implies, is a huge indoor arena just outside the city center of the Bulgarian capital. In the morning hours, everyone had their opinion based on "facts" how many people could fit in here when fully seated. The debate is now over, as I've found the official number: 19,000! That's right.

Two good-looking stray dogs were in the bus parking spot when we arrived, so Carsten (our fantastic driver), gave away some bread to these small, nice, hungry friends to keep them busy somewhere else. These guys had their own cardboard boxes, so the new arena seemed to be their home. As we go through the enormous gates to this place, we realize this is something entirely different from what we played the night before. Actually, we've never played something even close to this, except the huge outdoor festivals we've done with Ihsahn (Brutal Assualt in Czech Republic had 15000-20000). So we're not complaining. The stage set up on the floor looks really nice, and we really can't wait to get on and play the best show possible. Like every sports arena, this place has a whole bunch of showers and dressing rooms so we're back to having our very own again, which feels great. This time I actually get a cable rather than Wi-Fi, which is much better, and I have plenty of space to set up my nice practice amp from Blackstar called HT1-R. For those of you who didn't already know, Leprous is now endorsed by Blackstar amps (www.blackstaramps.co.uk). I have the Series One 104EL34, which is probably the best-sounding amp I've tried, so I'm of course a very happy guitar player now!;D I bring the small 1W HT1R to practice and to have fun backstage ;)

The show was probably the best so far for everyone in the band. The sound on stage was great and the huge crowd really made some noise! We felt welcome, and as always, we tried giving them the best show we could ;) You be the judge..

After the show, we met up with two awesome guys we first met in Bulgaria last year. They once again took us to a good restaurant and we had a nice meal and a chat before we left at 2PM with the bus to head for another familiar place: Thessaloniki in Greece. Here we come!!

Regards,

Øystein

Day 09 - Bucharest

2011-11-13T11:20:00.006+01:00

Bucharest 09.11.11

I had planned on sleeping late today, but Einar woke me up, and pointed out that it was my turn to bear the heavy burden of the blog. Sooo…i skipped the comfort of the bunk bed, and stepped out into the harsh streets of bucharest to find something to write about. Talk about making sacrifices!!

Well, anyway. Leprous played in Bucharest on their last tour about a year ago, but for me, Bucharest was a new city to explore!

As usual, we don't have all the time in the world when it comes to exploring our surroundings, as we have to be back at the venue for soundcheck and such. So with limited time, Jonas, Einar and myself chose to go and have a look at the Palace of the Parliament, as the venue was located not too far away from it.

After asking for directions at the venue, walking for about 20 minutes, realizing the directions we got led us in the complete opposite direction of the actual palace, and walking for a while longer, we finally found the building.

The Palace of Parliament is said to be the second largest building in the world, and yes, it was big. Personally i think the walk trough parts of Bucharest was more interesting than seeing thepalace. A big building is just…a big building..

The venue for tonight is called The Silver Church, and it turned out to be a really cool place. Room for a lot of people, but still a cool "club" feeling.

Nearby the venue we found a music store. Good news for Tobias, who needed a new cymbal as the old one lasted just a few shows before it got a crack in it…due to extremely cool drumming i guess!

Ok, we had our usual soundcheck, dinner (which isn't always a good experience) and got ourselves gig-ready. As I mentioned earlier, Leprous played in Bucharest last year, before I joined the band. And apparently they had a really good time playing here back then, so everybody was really looking forward to this show.

It turned out to be really cool! Very energetic and enthusiastic crowd! we had some small technical/backline problems, but nevertheless it felt like the audience really appreciated the show! And despite the small, stupid problems (which nobody probably even noticed) we had a really good time as well!

So, At the end of the day, good times in Bucharest!

Finally a chance to get some laundry done tomorrow, in Sofia. Looking forward to it! Our stage outfits are starting to get kind of uncomfortable at this point, soaked in sweat each night, never being completely dry…yeah..you get the point…

Living the dream!

-Rein

Day 8: Oldies

2011-11-11T20:50:00.005+01:00

Todays venue (...) is called Oldies Pub....

This was of course something we looked very much forward to after a long day off.

Most of the venues at this tour is bigger places or clubs.

But heres Oldies...

It was quite hard to fit everything on stage.

Sibiu is a very nice old little town, with alot of charm. The weather was also nice.

Allthough it actually was a pubconcert, it went really well, the audience seemed happy. And we enjoyed doing a "different" kind of gig today!

- Tobias

Day 7: One night in Sibiu

2011-11-11T15:41:00.004+01:00

Part one: Traveling with a kindergarden
After very few hours of sleep due to rather bumpy Slovakian, Hungarian and Romanian roads I wake up in a rather smelly bus. I'm not going into more specific details about what caused the smell in respect for the privacy of a certain person. Tobias is already up, watching "Merlin", season 1 on his laptop. I look out of the window of the bus, and se a quite nice romanian landscape outside.

Part two: Living the rock star dream...
Before I went to sleep I received a message from our tour manager that we were due to arrive in Sibiu around 1pm. Well, 5 hours later we finally arrived in the beautiful transylvanian town Sibiu. While the Amorphis guys checked in to a 4 star hotel, we had booked a somewhat more economical alternative; Pension Zansi. When we arrived at the hostel, they claimed they hadn't received a reservation from us (even though I showed them my booking confirmation). Hell yeah, the life of a rock star!! (Luckily they found a couple of rooms for us, which seemed much nicer than what we originally paid for.)

Part three: Wifi and a (very) local restaurant

As you probably have noticed earlier we're quite obsessed about having a proper wifi connection, so it was a huge bonus that the wifi in the hostel room worked perfectly fine!

After spending approximately one hour on going through all our daily internet routines, we agreed to go out to grab something to eat. We chose to follow the recommendations from the receptionist at the hostel ("very cheap and very good") we ended up at a (very) local restaurant nearby. When we opened the door and walked in, I felt that everyone was staring with a very skeptical eye ("Wait a minute, they're not regulars!!").

Part five: The menu

Since 60% of leprous are vegetarians it's rather complicated when the menu is in Romanian, and the waiter doesn't speak a single word of english. The carnivores could do the old "order without having a clue about what you're ordering" trick, but for the rest of us that was a bit more risky. After a while we managed to order something by using heavy body language. After a rather boring meal, it was time for dessert. Oh, don't even get me started. It was dough (without sugar) and a lot of sour cream with sugar-less jam at the top. I can eat almost anything, but this one gave me a struggle. To all our romanian friends, what the hell is this (to get a clear view, check out the video)???

Part six: Fire

It's always nice to get back to the hotel room after a "descent" meal. Back in the bed, we suddenly hear tons of sirens right outside of the window. We looked out of the window and saw a lot of fire trucks, ambulances and police cars. It seemed like it was a fire in the neighboring building. Not a very nice sight, but luckily it seemed like everyone got out of there without major injuries.

The end,

Einar

Day 6: Jogging in Krakow

2011-11-08T23:34:00.005+01:00

Day 6 - Krakow

I woke up around 11:30 AM, and went directly into the venue to check for wifi. No problem logging on, full reception and.........it’s........ NOT working! One more day without wifi!! Hiiiihaaaaa!!!!

The only positive thing about it was that we had no excuse for not going out for our daily 5 km run immediately. Tobias, Rein and Myself are doing this at least 4 times pr week in order to be in good shape for the live shows.

Usually I always go to the city center to check out the city in which we are playing, but since I had a lot of time to check out Krakow last year and because it was a sunday (and everything was closed) we all decided to stay at the venue. We had no proper backstage, so we had to hang around in the hallway.

Since we didn't get any time to explore the city today, we made something for all those rock and metal fans out there. Check out this great guitar tutorial video made by Øystein Skonseng Landsverk. We discussed whether he should reveal these secrets to the world or not, but as Øystein says: “With great power comes great responsibility”.

I’ve ran out of clean stage outfits now, and we’re finally at the point where I will have to re-use the already out-sweated outfits. Nothing like putting on clothes which still is wet from the concert 4 days ago!!

The concert went really good, and I manage to have even more energy than on yesterdays show. My voice is slowly starting to improve again, after yesterdays throat infection. Check out this clip from the concert!

All the best,

Einar

Day 5: The Wonders of Warsaw

2011-11-07T22:42:00.031+01:00

We're slowly getting used to sleeping on a bus again, but not all nights are easy. A bumpy ride from Vilnius (LT) made this one very long. It was one of those were you wake up constantly and do everything in your power to go back to sleep, and try to convince yourself you're feeling aaaaawfully tired. When you finally have to admit you're not, the only thing on your mind is how far away tomorrow is. Then suddenly you wake up in the morning, feeling very confused.. I'm sure you all know the feeling. Late nights make for late mornings, but I'm lucky to be in a bunk with a window, so today's wonderful sun made sure this one wasn't going to be a late one (what great combo with a bad night). Not really that bad considering all the great places we get to see. But on this tour, I'm determined to see as much as possible, so I bite the bullet and put some clothes on.

The venue, "Progresja", is located in the outer parts of the city. Like a lot of the venues in these Eastern countries this doesn't look like your average place to have a concert, but the place is big, cool and can fit 900 people. And for the first time on the tour, we get our very own backstage room, not to be split with Amorphis or Nahema (the other support band). Wi-Fi on the other hand, is not working. This effectively eliminates our strongest possibility of not talking to each other, so all five of us decide to get together and check out the city center of Warsaw. There's a tram line very close to the venue, and a 30 minute ride takes us very close to where we want to go. Two stops with the Metro after that do the trick.

We're given directions to "Old Town" by a local woman, and grab some coffee and hot chocolate the first chance we get. From time to time Einar misplaces some of his things (believe it or not), and a missing shoe in his stage outfit is the beginning of the first round of shopping thus far. Personally, shopping feels like being hit by an elephant's tranquilizer dart, but the other guys find some things to spend their money on. As we're currently moving further south each day, the temperature here makes a city walk feel very comfortable. Heading back to the Metro, we stumble across some awesome street musicians along the way (check it out in the video!).

Despite Einar having some troubles with his voice and me having a soar throat, we had a great time performing our set in front of the supportive Warsaw metal audience. We also had a chat with some fans after the show, which is always nice;) If you check out our Facebook page you'll find an album for the tour which has some nice photos from Warsaw. If you feel you need a description of the day with moving pictures as well, despite the awesome one already given in text, check out the video below!

If you want to see some really cool shots from the show, check out this link (let's hope this great photographer is ok with it):

Until next time.. pożegnanie!

Regards,
Øystein

Day 04 - Vilnius

2011-11-07T18:27:00.003+01:00

Friday - 04.11.2011 (due to lack of steady internet access, this blog post is a few days late)

Hi there!
Today we arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania. Yeah!
Nice town, nice weather, and a nice concert!

For me, Vilnius was a new acquaintance, and it turned out to be a good experience! Some of us (Einar, Tobias and myself) took a walk around, and had lunch/breakfast, in the centre of the "old city" to start the day. Then we met up with Jonas and Øystein at the venue, and did the usual pre-show routine: Soundcheck, a quick jog, dinner and warming up.

SHOWTIME!
I think all of us agree that this was maybe the best experience of the tour so far! Great audience, good sound on stage, and the playing and energy on stage was really good! A really intense and cool experience!

Tonight we put a camera up on stage as well, so you can see what the show looked like from our point of view. Enjoy! :)

-Rein

Day 03 - Riga

2011-11-06T00:08:00.004+01:00

Check out the videoblog from day 3 on our tour!

We had a great time in Riga! And would love to come back soon!

Day 2: First Show, Tallinn

2011-11-04T00:14:00.008+01:00

It's the first day of the tour! The rest of the band arrived Tallinn early in the morning, while waiting on Einar we got the great oppurtunity to eat at the infamous Hesburger fast-food restaurant, were the food tasted like cardboard from hell. We got settled in the bandbus were sharing with Amorphis and it seems like a great place to live the next months. The crew and the other bands are all great guys, and that's a good starting point for the tour. We took a trip to the city centre of Tallinn to explore the greatness of the town, and Øystein, who has years of experience guiding people all around the world took us on a guided tour around as you can see in the video. The gig went well in general, a great start on the tour! Tommorow we'll play in Riga, Latvia. Hoping it to be as fun as today.
Check out the video, and follow the blog!

Cheers!!
- Jonas Kiste

Day 1: Travel Day, Oslo - Tallinn

2011-11-02T22:59:00.003+01:00

Day 1 - Oslo - Tallinn

Oooh yeah, we’re blogging again!!

One year has passed since the last tour, and we’re really looking forward to start a new adventure! The day started off with me getting picked up at my home in Oslo by my brother and my mother, who had agreed to drive me and the equipment from Oslo to Tallinn (while the rest of the guys are taking a plane early wednesday morning). The trailer was hooked on the car, and the trip began. After plenty hours in the car listening to 80´s heavy metal (on my brothers request), we arrived safely at the harbor in Stockholm approximately three hours before the ferry to Tallinn was leaving. Really not too much else to say about the trip from Oslo to Stockholm

Safe on board at the ferry, I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep at the king size bed in the cabin.

After getting a descent meal consisting a raw Tuna fillet I had to fry myself on a lava stone, we entered a really cozy piano bar. The extremely talented pianist / singer kept us busy singing along and dancing for several hours.

Rumors were spreading about a live band playing at an other section of the boat, and we literally ran to join the party. As you can see on the video below, we got an experience of a lifetime. These guys knows how to rock!

Time to go to sleep, and charge the batteries for tomorrows show.

Best,
Einar

Day 33, Stodola, Warsava, Poland. 29/11/2010

2011-01-20T17:36:00.002+01:00

The bus left at 4 in the morning. The ride was supposed to take 6 hours. Just a short little relaxing trip from Krakow to Warsava. We thought we had the day in the city to our disposal. We were wrong...

Poland suddenly had the worst snowstorm in ages. And unlike norwegians, they cant handle it. At all.
The traffic was chaos, and nobody knew how to handle the situation.
At noon we were still 45 km away from the venue Stodola. So at this point we were two and a half hour late.
4 hours later there were 43 km to Stodola. The bus went 500 meters pr hour. So we were actually driving in 0,5 km/h. Yeah! Everybody was happy! A really good finale to this awsome tour...

The traffic did not improve, and we were out of food (we had some chips though. But Joachim peed all over them last night. But that no one told me, before i allready had some of them.....)

We of course understood that with this tempo, we wont get there in time. So there wouldnt be any support bands this day (Therion`s bus was allready at the venue. Dont know how?).

But at around 7.30 the traffic started to open up and we were moving faster and faster. We saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Not thinking we got time to play our shows (Loch Vostok was supposed to go on stage at 7.30.). But at least just get there, so Scott our bus driver could relax and then drive us home. Everything to get through this really anoying day. And of course get some food;).

We got a phone call and they told us they could delay the Therion show. Giving us some time. The two bands on the bus were supposed to share the ammount of time left, playing two very short sets. But at least get a really good end of the tour, compared to how it looked earlier.

When we finaly arrived at the venue. We had approximately 50 minutes to our disposal. For rigging, setting up a whole backline with amps and drums, soundcheck, and concerts for two bands.

The tour manager said that only Leprous got to play. And Loch Vostok as kind as they are, were ok with that and helped us carry. So we trew all our stash on the stage, turned it on, checked if the lines were working with the mixer. Played the whole 37 minute set. Everybody was of course starving. But we just had to give it all for the last show.

The concert was awsome! A really special energy. It was very funny when the Loch Vostok guys (and Scott!) came on stage during our perfomance.
Later we all went on stage with Therion on the encore. Just like a celebration, since its the last show. That was... fun...

It is starting to get really cold. And we`re excited for the 3 day long trip back to Oslo!

Day 32 – Club Studio, Krakow, Polen – 28.11.2010

2010-12-15T19:08:00.005+01:00

Looking back at this day, I realize that it must have been my most immobile day so far. I woke up at 14.00, and since I had the privilege of counting the merchandise today, this more or less meant that I would not have time to check out the city center of Krakow. Once the merch was counted it was time for soundcheck, followed by a fight with the internet to publish my blog post from the travel day, “Crossing Donau”. While the video was uploading, I had some deep fried spring rolls, with deep fried potatoes, over cooked vegetables and mayonnaise on the side. In other words; an excellent way to fill up your energy level prior to the show.

Suddenly it was showtime, and as for me, I think this was one of the coolest shows soo far. Here’s one of the songs we will record on our upcoming album this january. The song is called Restless.

The energy both on stage and in the audience was really good, and the groove felt very natural. After playing in all the 17 countries of the tour, I hereby declare my top 3 best impressions of audiences, based on the nationalities (in random order): the Bulgarians, the Polish and the French. Of course, my personal impression can be affected by many different variables, and this doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the other shows. In fact, I hope we will be able to return to every single place we’ve visited, and hope some of you will want us back as well!

After the show, me and Einar went out in the neighbourhood, hunting for something to eat, but everything seemed to be closed. That was until we came across this place:

Out of absolutely nowhere, a kebab hut, not too different from the ones we have back in Norway, popped up in a street which up until that point only seemed to consist of residents. I must admit that the taste of the food probably wouldn’t have taken any harm in being a bit better, but as for my famishing stomach, it did the trick.

This was the last night we travelled with Therion, since tomorrow is the last show, so Kristoffer and Waldemar from Therion decided to ride with us this night. Kristoffer put on a Prog rock show off in the back of the bus, while Waldemar tried to get a party started in the front.

It all ended up with Joachim, our eminent sound engineer and tour manager, going for a walkabout in his sleep at 7.00 am. His destination was in the front of the bus whereas he found it convenient to spread his urine. Lawrence and Waldemar, sitting in only their underwear at the moment, gathered some cups, and cought approximately 0,8 liters of piss as it exited Joachim. As to how they managed to clean up the spillings, I wont’t go to much in the details, but I can go as far as to tell you it has something to do with Tobias eating some odd tasting chips afterwards…

Tomorrow will be the last concert for the support acts. Will everything go smoothly, or will somebody play a prank or two?

Stay tuned!

TorO

Day 31/34 - Petofi Hall, Budapest, Hungary 27.11.2010

2010-12-13T17:03:00.003+01:00

We arrived at the venue about 1 PM, which means lunch time for us. After entering the Petofi hall, we were met by a very nice local crew who showed us our backstage. The service on the venue turns out to be very good, and everything is in order. The concert hall is huge, the stage is great, the backstage is nice and the food is very good. Nothing to complain about so far.

I manage to gather the entire band (for once) for a trip to Budapest city centre. On our way out we met the best prepared autograph-hunter I’ve ever met. He has book in which he has made two pages each for all three bands which is decorated with a picture of the band and a compact disc. Everyone signs the two pages, and we head off to the city centre.

On our way to the metro, we encounter a castle which reminds us about the castle in “Tre nøtter til askepott” (originally called Tři oříšky pro Popelku). A CzechoslovakianIn adventure movie which is broadcasted on christmas morning every year.

In order to find the metro, we had to follow the GPS on my iPhone very thoroughly. The metro stop was located in the middle of a park, and there were know signs showing that it was located there. It was only a stairway without any signs. The trains themselves might have been the smallest I’ve ever witnessed, and they also had the coolest jingles I’ve ever heard on a metro.

I’ve heard so many good things about Budapest, and it absolutely lives up to my expectations! I wish we had more time to check out the City, but at least we managed to cross the almighty Donau on our way from Pest to Buda! After that we had to return to the venue for sound-checking.

What surprises me is how good shape we all still are in after 26 concerts - almost without breaks. I still look forward to every concert with great enthusiasm. Todays concert was really enjoyable, and I’m really looking forward to Krakow tomorrow!

All the best,
Einar

30/34 - DK VLtavska, Prague, Czech Republic - 26.11.2010

2010-12-12T20:50:00.006+01:00

We're spending one of our very last days on the tour in the Czech Republic. Last time it was Zlin, now Prague is up. Scott stops the engine outside a huge building; the DK Vltavska. Not much research were done on this place beforehand, but it would seem this is somekind of cultural center for all sorts of things. Later in the evening, loading out, we pass a swing dancing lesson. That's pretty damn cool. Anyway, the main stage is downstairs. Loch Vostok and us have two separate backstages. Usually this is a good thing, but when you're left with a 2 square meter room and can fit ONE chair in, you just know it won't be the center of tonights hang out. First come first served; Me and my laptop get the chair. On the other side of the wall is the stage for tonights eardrum-busting show.

Tobias, Halvor, Einar and Tor Oddmund leave to see how this place compares to the other 24 (!) cities we've visited so far this November. I decide that staying and working on my studies are much more fun!! You'd be crazy not wanting to grab this fantastic opportunity to spend some quality homework time..

It feels strange only having 4 shows left. We've played more shows this month than we have in years combined. Hopefully this will have only made us a much better live band, and we can't wait to show off after the tour;) As the tour is slowly coming to an end, some extra energy is unraveling on stage. Hope to see you in Budapest!!

Special news for today's blog:
As a part of Leprous, I am very proud to announce that we have received 25 000 NOK (about €3000) from "Willy Strandlis Minnefond", a foundation dedicated to the late Norwegian guitarist Willy Strandli. Anually the foundation chooses a local band from our hometown and this time it was Leprous. As touring is very expensive and our next album is yet to be recorded, these money could not have come at a better time. We are very thankful and can't wait to start recording in January. Even though the planned live video feed for the ceremony back in Norway didn't work out as planned, a short phone conversation did the trick.

- rockin' greetings from Øystein

Day 29/34 - Backstage, Munich, Germany - 25.11.2010

2010-12-05T19:25:00.004+01:00

We’re back in Germany! The village is called Munich, and the stage is named Backstage (?). Napalm Death has their tour bus parked alongside ours. It turns out we’re playing the same venue the same night. Luckily there’s more than one concert hall in this Backstage venue.

Before the soundcheck we went downtown to check out their largest musical instruments store. It was huge! Øystein and TorO tried out leftie guitars, Einar bought some new instrument cables, Halvor drooled over some analog synths and invested in 10 shiny new picks while Tobias tried out every cymbal in the huge drum department, and ended up buying quite a few. Tobias’ cymbal adventure ate up our possible soundcheck time, so we had no soundcheck this night. But we had new cymbals, picks and cables!

The venue was beautiful. Great backstage at Backstage! The show was ok, but unfortunately not great. After the show we ordered some pizza and checked out the Napalm Death show. And I believe the Vostok guys enjoyed a beer or two judging by their comfort level ☺

Next time we’re in Germany we’ll be on our way home from this great tour. But right now we’re hell bent on killing and destroying big time in Prague!

Watch out, Czech Republic!
Halvor

Day 28/34 - Z7 ,Pratteln, Switzerland - 24.11.2010

2010-12-02T22:56:00.002+01:00

Today the weather was kind of grey. And the venue was located far away from the centre. So we did not see the city of Pratteln.
Z7 (the venue) was really nice. The monitor-technician was as good as his mouth was big.
The experience from a show with bad monitor-sound compared to good, is of course huge. So we really appreciate having a guy that knows his craft.

We all enjoyed excellent home-cooked food, right from the kitchen. This is also something you start to compare, after a few days with in-door catering.
And as with technicians. It varies alot.

The Swiss audience were really nice to us. And its good to play after a really boring day off.
Although its not the biggest audience, it seemed like there were some that showed up mainly to see us. That is nice, for a opening act.

btw: thank you, the guy that gave us swiss money for the foosball-game! and thanks to Waldemar, being such a humble opponent in the game!

-tobias

Day 27/34 - Travel day #3 (Bucharest / Vienna / Pratteln) – 23.11.2010

2010-11-28T19:37:00.005+01:00

“Crossing Donau”
by Tor Oddmund Suhrke

The grenades are pouring down. We just barely missed getting struck by the last attack. They’ve spotted us now. 20 soldiers are heading our way. Blam! Blam! BLAM! Tobias is dead, Øystein has betrayed us, and Halvor is lying in his own pile of blood. It’s only Einar and TorO now. As they turn around, Scott directs a herd of bisons their way. They get forced down on the ground, and while the bisons are stumping their heads down in the mud, suddenly…

BUMP!

TorO wakes up as his head fiercely rams into the roof of his bunk.
“Thank God, it was only a dream!” TorO thought to himself as he rolls out of bed. “But what’s going on?”
He considers his jeans worthy of their 22nd consecutive day without washing them, as he throws them on. He struggle his way down to Scott, who’s in charge of keeping the bus on, what appears to be, the most bumpy road in Hungary. Scott is calm as usual.
“Hand me the black pack of vanilla cigarettes will you?” He asks gently.
“Where are we?” TorO replies, unable to find the cigarettes.
“They’re lying under my laptop.” He adds, while pointing in the direction of the overhead compartment. “We had to take a detour. There was an accident on the highway you see, but I asked around, and this is supposed to be the best way we can cross the river, without having to take one of those small ferries.”
Something in Scott’s eyes gives TorO an uneasy feeling.
“Are you ok Scott?” he asks, while handing Scott the cigarettes. Scott tries his best not to show what he’s really thinking, but it’s all in vain.
“It’s just that we’ve been driving on this road for 1,5 hours now, and I’m starting to think that the guy who gave me the directions might not have been a professor in English after all.” He lights his cigarette, and leans back into his seat.

---

“Mmmmh.” Øystein sneaks naked out of Joachim’s bunk. “And where exactly do you think you’re going mister?” Joachim whispers with his sexy, rusty morning voice.
“I’m just heading to the front of the bus to see what’s going on with these bumpy roads.” Øystein replies.
“You didn’t seem to mind the bumpy roads last night!” Joachim adds, and gives Øystein one of his famous winks. “I miss you already!”
Øystein throws himself at him, and as their lips meet, all the bumps in the world couldn’t stop them. “Let us make breakfast” Joachim says in that all to familiar voice.
Øystein stuffs his salami right in the middle of Joachim’s freshly baked donut. “Mmm, that’s good!” Joachim shouts eagerly. “The only thing missing is some dressing.”
“Well I happen to have some right here!” Øystein laughs. “Just wait one more second! Here it is! I found it!” Øystein squirts some delicious dressing on to Joachim’s donut.
Joachim dips his finger in the dressing and then licks it all off, slowly. “Now, that’s what I call good dressing!” he laughs.

---

“Is that a line of cars forming down there?” TorO asks Scott, as he points his finger down the road.
“I’m not sure, but at least it looks like we’re getting closer to the river.” Scott replies. “I can feel it.”
“Øystein! Can’t you put on some clothes for once?!” TorO asks politely, yet a bit harsh, the moment Øystein sits down next to him. Øystein starts to cry.
“Was that really necessary?” Joachim shouts from his bunk. He climbs down. “Now, I have to spend the rest of the day comforting him!” He grabs one of the panties Øystein has left in his bunk, and throws them at him. “Here you go! Put this on, and maybe Mr. grumpy pants won’t be hassling you anymore.”
Øystein starts to giggle.
“What’s that?” Joachim asks, as he sits down with his great looking just-got-out-of-bed hair.
“It’s a fuckin’ ferry,” Scott sighs, while everybody starts laughing “and it’s probably about half the size of the bus”.

---

---

“Wake up!” Einar raises his voice to get TorO’s attention.
Øystein gets a bit startled and starts to cry.
“Where am I?” TorO asks with an astonished look in his face.
“You passed out right before Donau devoured us completely. We took the trans Donauic passageway, and were put ashore in Vienna just a couple of minutes ago…”
“So we’re in Vienna now?” TorO asks out in the open as a rather slick expression covers his face. “Then I can get my camera back!”
“Ha ha ha! You and your camera” Halvor says, while he winks to the other guys.
Everybody laughs, winks and high five each other. What a gang!

THE END

Day 26/34 - Arenele Romane, Bucharest, Romania - 22.11.2010

2010-11-28T01:15:00.008+01:00

After a very relaxing day off in Thessaloniki (Greece) we had all our batteries charged and were fit for fight. Bucharest, Romania was our next stop. Once we stepped out of the bus, we were embraced by several stray dogs who wanted to express their welcomeness to us.

After checking out the backstage (which turned out to be quite nice) we managed to get in touch with our Romanian friend and very true fan Andrea (who currently lives in Oslo, Norway). This was the third time she saw us on this tour (and the eight time this year), which is rather impressive since she actually lives in Norway. Fortunately she was available to give us a really nice guided tour through her old hometown Bucharest. The most impressive (and most horrifying) building was the Palace of the Parliament, also called the Peoples House. The palace of the Parliament is the second biggest building in the world after Pentagon, and was built in only five years (from 1983 - 1989) under the command of Nicolae Ceauşescu.

I would describe Bucharest as a two-parted city. It had many impressive architectural pearls, but the maintenance in general could have been better.

While looking for something to eat, we met a couple of the Therion guys (which we do very often when we’re checking out the city centre). They joined us after our meal, and we started walking back to the venue. After walking for a while we found out that Therion was about to start their soundcheck in just a few minutes. Thomas and Christian had to catch a cab in order to be at the venue in time for the soundcheck. The distance from the city centre to the venue was twice as long as I remembered it to be.

When it was time for soundcheck, we unfortunately found out that we had to deal with the slowest working local crew on the tour so far. When the doors opened and people started entering the venue, they still hadn’t managed to connect all the cables to the drums, guitars, vocals, and keys. To be honest, I’m glad we weren’t the first band to go on stage today. As a special treat from the venue to Loch Vostok, they had made sure that Mano (the guitarist) got radio signals playing Barry White through his guitar amp. After Loch Vostok was done with their concert, everything seemed to be in order.

The concert went well even though we didn’t get to check anything, and the response we received from the Romanian crowd was overwhelming!

I had actually made quite an effort to make a video of our backstage activities, but it ended up being way to embarrassing for certain people. Well, you can at least check out the song I used as theme song for the movie! The never ending success story ..........Babylon Zoo!!

All the best,
Einar

Day 25/34 - Travel day #2 (Thessaloniki) - 21.11.2010

2010-11-27T23:11:00.006+01:00

After a drive that made night turn into day we arrived in Thessaloniki after leaving Athens behind us in the dark. This travel day turned out to be much more enjoyable than the last one. The last one was being spent in rainy Ljubljana in a boring hotel room. This one we spent in sunny Greece by the ocean.

We had the whole day, one hotel room and not a care in the world. We ate pizza by the ocean, drank coffee from starbucks and walked down the harbour towards a beautiful tower. Øystein went back to the hotel to catch up on his studying while the rest of us went to the movies. We saw the new Harry Potter movie. This was my first encounter with Harry Potter. So – Tor Oddmund, Einar and Tobias had to bring me up to speed on the saga while we were waiting for the film to begin. Even though they did a great job retelling the story, there were just too many holes in my knowledge of the story to keep me on the edge of my seat this evening. Despite the noisy young crowd, it was nice and relaxing to spend the night at the movies after spending 22 nights on venues around Europe. Nothing wrong with that at all – but a bit of recreation is never wrong.

After a nice shower and some fast food we entered our tour bus once again at midnight. This time our destination is Romania and a huge tent in the city of Bucharest.

Merry XMAS form Greece:

Good Night!
Halvor

Day 24/34 - Gagarin 205, Athens, Greece - 20.11.2010

2010-11-26T00:42:00.008+01:00

8 hour bumpy drive from Thessaloniki
the sun wakes us up and we're feelin' hot 'n freaky
let's gather the band plus our danish engineer
and check out the city, there's a metro near

Daypass is the thang and Attiki is our station
Acropolis is our number one destination
This popular place is 6 dots away
but we jump on the train without any delay

Our sound guy with his Ray Ban thinks he's cool as hell
even though he once got the comment; "Dude, your ass smells!"
The coolness of this crew makes everything fade
lets hope Acropolis is ready for our escapade

We go up, we go down
we turn back, we frown
there's nothing here, let's go 'round
ok, lets pay the twelve and head for the top

A long, long, long, long way to go
the path of stone is just so damn slow
up from here the beautiful city we see
right now, this is THE place to be

(NOTE: No emergency rhymes were made during the making of this rap)

Yours faithfully,
Øystein

Day 23/34 - Block 33 - Thessaloniki, Greece, 19.11.2010

2010-11-25T18:55:00.003+01:00

Yesterdays night we had a really bumpy ride. The roads from Bulgaria to Greece arent the best... It was quite ok, allthough sometimes you`d wake up allmost trown out of bed.

The weather in Greece is really nice. It makes it even better to know thats it minus 10 degrees in Norway.
We took a walk to find the city centre It took a while and we didnt have too much time to actually see the city.
As we were walking peaceful down the streets Einar and TorO got stopped by a cop. He told them to show their papers, probably meaning their passports.
They were of course in the bus...

They tried to explain that we were a group on a tour. He asked where we were from. As soon as Norway got mentioned it was ok. You free to go.

The reason why they were stopped in the first place: ??
What a rude cop...

In addition to this rather suprising episode, we were in quite a hurry to get back to our soundcheck.
Which of course resulted in this:

The funny thing is that when it was time to soundcheck, the pot-smoking local crew were to slow so we didnt get time to soundcheck.

But the show went on as usual. The crowd werent the same as the two previous days. Not saying it was bad. Just not as wild.

After the show i enjoyed the coldest shower ever. In the world most dirty toilet. Which of course was the only one on the venue. Without being able to lock the door, or hide behind a showercurtain. Because there werent anything.

-Tobias

Day 22 (v2) – Jubileina, Sofia, Bulgaria – 18.11.2010

2010-11-24T23:18:00.009+01:00

The word on the street is that Hr Botev Sports Hall’s roof actually collapsed the day prior to our concert there, so I guess we can be glad it didn’t hang on for just one more day. The new venue, Jubileina, is an ex-military base turned into Sofia’s university of transport. The stage is placed inside an extremely boring room, and in daylight it looks like a school prom, just without all the dancing people

The coffee here is the worst yet, even though they actually have their own espresso machine. The backstage is the longest one I’ve ever seen, and after 5-6 hours in the hall, we also got our own auditorium as dressing room. In the following movie, you’ll get to see the backstage, and maybe you’ll get something else as well? You won’t find out until you watch:

The fact that they managed to fit 1200 people into this venue is nothing more than impressing. The show went really good, and the crowd was amazing. I must really say I love the Bulgarian audience, except one guy who wanted us off stage before we even started playing. Luckily, this was also the guy with the loudest voice in the room…

The light engineer of the day had many cool movable lights to choose between, and the lighting turned out to be very cool in parts of the show. The only thing I could put my finger on is that he had a slightly weird "light interpretation" of the start of our concert. That’s me striking that wrong note in the beginning, simply because I couldn’t see my guitar. Here’s a compilation that shows the light, the excellent crowd and the great atmosphere.

After the show we got interviewed by a national Bulgarian TV-station, and we learned that we probably won’t take any harm in preparing a bit more before the next time we’re answering questions in front of a camera.

We also got to know a couple of Bulgarian fans, Antonio & Vladimir, who had also seen us at ProgPower Europe earlier this year. To our advantage, they turned out to be some of the nicest people I’ve met so far on the tour. During our spare time earlier in the day we tried to get to downtown Sofia, but when we finally found out how to get there, we didn’t have the time. When we told them this, Antonio drove us downtown to see the city center and to get some food. He also drove me to a pharmacy and bought some coughing medicine for me, since I have been coughing since Vienna. Thanks to their company, this evening turned out to be the best night so far on the tour, and it really left me with an excellent impression of Bulgaria.

Good times! :)

TorO

Day 22 (v1) – Hr. Botev Sports Hall, Sofia, Bulgaria – 18.11.2010

2010-11-22T21:53:00.009+01:00

Finally! The day we’ve all been waiting for! Everybody has been so jealous of me for getting to write the blog for today. “Hr Botev Sports Hall” has been on everybody’s lips ever since we received the tour dates 6 months ago. This is the only venue of which we have no information what so ever. There’s just a blank page in our tour intinerary, also known as “the book of lies”.

The questions are many: Who is this Hr. Botev? What does his Sports Hall have to offer? Will he meet us in person when we arrive? How does he look like? Does he wear a top hat? Days pass like years when you’re waiting for something this good, but now the wait is finally over.

Or is it?

What I’m about to tell you is actually too painful to be described on paper, so I made a documentary instead. This movie contains extremely dramatical and disturbing scenes, so be sure you have a shoulder to cry on as you watch.

...

To see what happened next, check out Day 22 (v2)

Day 21/34 - SKC, Belgrade, Serbia - 17.11.2010

2010-11-19T22:03:00.000+01:00

The clock is approximately 09:00 am when Teddy (from Loch Vostok) wakes me up for the Serbian passport control. To be honest I was actually quite glad to get up early for once. A couple of hours later we arrive outside of the venue in Belgrade, which luckily happens to be in the middle of the city centre. First mission - to exchange my Croatian Kuna into Serbian Dinara. That was easier said than done. I had to ask in at least five different exchange offices and banks before I finally found someone that was able to exchange.

Since the weather was slightly better than it had been for the last three days, it was a pleasure exploring the city. Belgrade was a much more modern city than I thought, although it had a post war’ish touch (especially outside the city centre). In the end of the main shopping street, we found Kalemegdan - The fortress of Belgrade. Kalemegdan was built in year 535, and is one of the oldest monuments in the area.

Tonight's venue was a venue worth mentioning. It reminded mo of an old museum both from the inside and from the outside. The first thing that crossed my mind when I saw the concert hall was: “How on earth can someone arrange a rock concert in a hall with these kind of acoustics?”. During the soundcheck I found out that my predictions was entirely right. What a mess!! I believe the room would be perfectly suitable for a classical concert, but for very rhythmical music like Leprous it was a complete disaster - at least on the soundcheck. The reverberation time was insane!

Luckily it seemed like the tickets were sold out this evening, which was a very good thing when it comes to the acoustics. The more people there to absorb the sound, the better the sound will be. When we finally entered the stage, we were met by an extremely enthusiastic crowd! Their enthusiasm affected us in a very positive manner, and after one day with reloading batteries we gave absolutely everything (although the temperature on stage was unbearable). It seemed like many people had checked us out prior to the concert, and quite a few people actually sang along on some of the songs. The sound seemed much better than on the soundcheck, and this ended up being one of the coolest concerts on the entire tour!

Since we finance this tour entirely on our own, we’re dependent on selling some merch on every concert. After some experimenting, we’ve found out that we often sell more merch by hanging around outside the merch stand after the show. It kind of reminds the people that we exist and that our concert (and music) was good! By standing there we also encourage the autograph hunters to buy CD’s for signing. Well, this strategy didn’t seem to work on this crowd. Of course there were some people who wanted to take a picture with the band, but nobody came for a signature on recently bought items. So he whole thing ended up being rather awkward.

On our way out to the bus, we suddenly found ourselves in a middle of a brutal fight between a guy with blood all over his face and the security guards at the venue. When I came, he ran towards the security guards to hit them, but ended up being being put back on earth. I did notice that Serbian security guards are way more violent than the ones we have in Norway. I almost felt sorry for the bastard when he was sitting in his own pile of blood, although everything seemed to be his fault.

Next stop - Hr. Botev Sports hall!!!!

All the best,
Einar

Day 20/34 - Travel day - 16.11.2010

2010-11-19T21:28:00.005+01:00

First Travel Day:

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Today we travelled from Strasburg to Ljubljana and stayed in Ljubljana for the day. We parked the bus right outside the venue we played a week ago. There were a hotel right beside the venue, and we seized the opportunity to get some rest outside the bus for the first time in 18 days. Each band (LV and L) got one room each. Here we got to shower and relax on a king size bed.

Later TorO, Halvor and Tobias went for a run in the November rain. No show today - so not much to report I’m afraid. We left for Belgrade around 22.30 and watched “5 på gata fra Notodden tv” and "Some Kind of Monster vol. 2" on the bus. The real film, Some Kind of Monster vol. 1 was mssing… FAAAACK:(

Halvor

Day 19/34 - La Laterie, Strasbourg, France - 15.11.2010

2010-11-17T19:25:00.005+01:00

We wake up at around 12 o'clock. Well, at least I do. Halvor and Tor Oddmund have shown to be the vampires of the tour. Their active in the nightly hours. I do my usual routine and gets some work done during this rainy and gray morning. If you've been paying attention and have read this blog, you'll know how we love the French. This is the sixth and last of the shows in France; Lille, Paris, Toulouse, Limoges and now the ninth largest city in France. It's one of three cities in France with an opera house and its 266 000 inhabitants live almost 500km east of Paris. Yes! You guessed it.. it's Strasbourg!

We make our way into La Laterie. The old dairy is redecorated and made a pretty decent venue. We put down our stuff on the second floor where our backstage is and proceed to the wonderful catering provided. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to see this beautiful city, but Einar was kind enough to provide me with the picture above.

21 days have passed since we left home in Oslo and there comes a time when one has to do laundry. The time is now. The place is located down the street 200 meters from the bus (phew!). 40 minutes later everybody has 6 euros less in their pockets, but ready for the remaining 12 days of the European tour.

I love you all,
Øystein

Day 18/34 - CC John Lennon, Limoges, France - 14/11/2010

2010-11-16T21:32:00.002+01:00

Today we ate, waited, jogged, waited, rigged, soundchecked, ate, waited, played, rigged, waited, went on the bus.
The concert was mediocre. We didn't get too much out Limoges on this rainy day. But it seemed like a nice city.

Enjoy the videos!

-tobias

Day 17 - La Riviera, Madrid, Spain - 13.11.2010

2010-11-15T17:09:00.009+01:00

I haven’t been able to wash any laundry since Lille, and now I’m really starting to run out of clothes. Ten concerts without access to a washing machine has also taken its toll on my stage outfit, so today I was determined to find a Laundromat or Lavateria or whatever its called here in Spain. I gathered my Posse (Einar/Tobias), and off we went on our quest. Our first stop was at Lori’s, to borrow some laundry detergent. She supplied us with what we needed, asked around in Spanish to find out where we could go, jogged over herself to check if it was open, returned and told us it was closed, and then added that their (Therion’s) sound check were moved earlier so we wouldn’t have time to wash anything anyway. Cool... Guess the quest will have to be postponed.

The upside of not being able to do my laundry was that I now had time to take a stroll downtown in Madrid. On our way we were lucky enough to be heading in the opposite direction of a demonstration, featuring both Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh. We also met this guy, who makes a living smiling for money.

To my surprise they don’t seem to sell clothes in downtown Madrid, so my quest for clean clothes continues. On our way back to the venue, the demonstration had decided to turn around, so once again we had to walk through it in the opposite direction.

Time for soundcheck. Has anybody seen Halvor? He’s always on time for sound checks, and always tells somebody where he’s going. He’s not in our dressing room, nor at any other dressing room. Nowhere back stage. Not in the bus. Nowhere in the venue. He’s not in the close perimeters of the venue. I try to call him, the phone rings, a couple of times, and then I get a “no answer signal”. Time goes by.

Lori: Here’s a guy sleeping that kind of looks like Halvor!
She shakes the sleeping fellow, who turns around with an astonished look on his face.
Lori: Not him!

More time goes by, everybody’s looking, but no Halvor. We’re all starting to get worried about whatever has happened to our dear bass player. Is he lying somewhere in his own pile of blood? Almost an hour after our sound check started Halvor comes jogging up on stage with his green foosball t-shirt. He’s been lost in Madrid for over a couple of hours, with nobody understanding English. He’s never been so desperate in his life. On the bright side, we’ve never had a slower group of local venue riggers, and since they were running approximately 90 minutes late, the sound check went smooth as always.

Being the blog-guy for today, I’m in charge of setting up the camera. It’s actually harder than it seems though. Specially when the venue is a maze, I’m focused on filming where I’m going, and in addition I have all these amazing pictures running through my head from the backstages we share with Loch Vostok. I made this short film to illustrate the life of “the camera dude”.

The concert went well today, and we once again edited our set list by replacing one of our new songs “Cryptogenic Desires”, with another new song “Restless”. I guess we’re not that patient when it comes to playing the same set night after night. We also encountered the same odd looking crew we met earlier in Paris, who said they really enjoyed this alternative set list. They would also like, once again, to send their greetings back home.

I think that’s all the super interesting information I have for you guys following our blog. Oh well, of course I could also tell you all who has hooked up during the last 24h, but I guess I’ll rather use this as a cliff hanger, so I know you’ll be continuing checking out our super duper fantastic blog.

Until next time!
TorO

Day 16/34 - Razmatazz, Barcelona, Spain - 12.11.2010

2010-11-14T22:41:00.007+01:00

This is the day I was finally going to meet my family and my fiancee!! What did not cheer me up particularly was that we couldn’t arrive at the venue before 2 pm because of difficulties with the load in. Luckily the guys in Therion let me crash in their bus from Toulouse to Barcelona , so I managed to be there before noon.

I struggled a bit finding Razmatazz due to massive road work. But then I finally saw my mother and fiancee outside! And what a great feeling it was to finally meet my family and fiancee!
As soon as we were able to, we took the subway to check out the city centre. First we took a small stop by the main street called La Rambla, but once we realized we didn’t have that much time we took the subway further to the main tourist attraction of Barcelona - The architectural masterpiece by Antoni Gaudi that never seems to be finished: La Sagrada Familia!

We managed to get back to La Rambla, where we met this guy:

Due to early sound check I had to get back to the venue earlier than preferable. The venue was nice (as the venues on this tour tend to be) , and the sound check went very well.
After soundchecking we met our spanish designer Maria Picassò, who has designed the latest Leprous t-shirts. It was a pleasure finally being able to meet the person we’ve only spoken a lot to through e-mails.

The concert was filled with energy, a painful back (due to 15 concerts of intense headbanging), a great spanish crowd and good stage sound! It was really nice to show my family and fiancee how much we’ve developed as a live band on this tour. It’s always nice playing for people you know very well. They always have earlier shows to compare to.

In every city, TorO is taking a picture of several Playmo-men (and women) in different settings. Here’s an action photo of TorO doing exactly that.

It was sad having to say good bye to my fiancee, mother and aunt. But it was truly a pleasure getting to see them again!

All the best,
Einar

Day 15/34 - Le Phare, Toulouse, France - 11.10.2010

2010-11-13T21:56:00.004+01:00

No time Toulouse today! The trip from Lyon to the south of France was done in the dark of night either sleeping or watching Mad Men, Dexter, Six Feet Under or playing Football Manager. When we got there it was raining lightly outside. Inside the venue of Le Phare we got our own backstage with candy and drinks and a shower but no WiFi... Catastrophe! No FaceBook!!? A whole day without knowing what Per Cesar or Jeremy are up to? How we got trough it is still a mystery to me.

The stage and the hall were really nice. During soundcheck there was a slight problem of slap back delay in the room – having to do with the rooms acoustics. But the problem lessened when the audience came in in time for the show. TorO, Tobias and Halvor were out running in the beautiful French countryside. A refreshing trip!

The audience were amazing in Toulouse! They really energized us and made the show memorable. The concert went well. Maybe not the best – but certainly not the worst. Tonight we’re heading even souther when the pin is nailed to Spain and Barcelona -and WiFi!

The one and only,
Halvor

DAY 14/34 - Le Transbordeur, Lyon, France - 10.11.2010

2010-11-12T18:09:00.006+01:00

I try to get up early today, but the good mood on the bus keeps the nights long so it isn't easy. I've taken a month off from my studies to go on this tour and I have stuff to do every day. The venue's Wi-Fi is one of the few that extends to the bus, so I try to get some work done. Eventually the other guys get up, and we gather for breakfast. It turns out that the frenchmen kick everyone's ass with their catering. The good meal gets the day started and our usual backstage rig (mentioned earlier) is up and running in no time. I put on my combo of ear-plugs, noise-cancelling headset and Massive Attack and get to work. Einar heads out for the streets of Lyon and the other three enjoy the Wi-Fi.

The hours fly by when you're having fun as they say, and I have to put aside my books as everyone starts preparing for show time.

Tonights show turns out to be one of the best (use the comment section on the bottom of the page if you agree or disagree) and most fun for us so far. The sound on stage is amazing for everybody, and as usual the delightful French crowd help us keep the energy up high.

This was one of those days where I had to give up sightseeing and be stuck inside with my computer and papers. I study computers and programming for those of you that are curious, so I'm a bit of a geek on the side. Luckily I get to have fun on some of the coolest venues across Europe, so I'm not complaining! Tonight we're heading for Toulouse. Hopefully they will retain the reputation of the French!

Day 13/34 - Alcatraz, Milan, Italy - 09.11.2010

2010-11-12T15:11:00.002+01:00

Today we stood up early as usual. Maybe around 12.30. Halvor of course needed his two more hours.

Catering was very good. Venue was good. And that is good, after last evenings lame concert.
We went to the city of Milan, which was very nice. Allthough i think its more suited if you are into fashion, and are willing to spend (wasting) alot of money.
We went into one of these fashion store. When the personal approached us and saw our style, he just smiled and turned back. No need wasting time, he thought.
The Milan Cathedral was one of the most spectacular buildings i`ve ever seen.

The concert itself was much better than yesterday and the crowd were really nice to us.
We had a shower in our backstage, which is really nice. Because the last couple of days we had specific rules for showering.

Like: just between 9.30 and 10.30, so its ready for the headliners after their show.
Hey!, but their show ends at 11.30?
Yeah but the water needs to get heated before they finish.
Sometimes there is this moron rules for support bands. Just to seperate us from the headliner.
But overall its good!

Next stop Lyon!

-tobias

Here is a short movie i made one night on the bus. It is random clips, filmed during our stay in Milan.

Day 12/34 - Kino Siska Club, Ljubljana, Slovenia - 08.11.2010

2010-11-11T00:07:00.005+01:00

First of all, being the lucky bastard I am, I forgot my Nikon D80 camera back in Vienna.
I also went to bed last night with a fever and a sore throat, so what could be better than to be woken by the Slovenian border patrol walking around in our bus? That’s right; getting the message that if we didn’t get up this very instant, we would be arrested… So we all rolled our behinds out of bed, and saluted our new best Slovenian gun bearing friend.

Arriving at the Kino Siska Club in Ljubljana was a very positive experience. It’s a really nice venue, great catering, a large stage, easy to load out/in and we had easy access to our bus. Another great thing was that we got the biggest backstage ever. 300 m2 of pure heaven featuring our own ping-pong table, free internet access and good food. The only downside was that there had been a double booking of the room, meaning that we had to share the paradise with an amateur group of barrel drummers. Luckily they didn’t make their presence too obvious though, as seen in this film:

Being in need of a hacksaw, Tobias forced the rest of us to join him on a 3 hour walking tour of Ljubljana, which is a very beautiful city by the way. For some reason, Tobias have a tendency to break his instruments, and now he had to saw off a piece on one of his cymbals. As the rain was pouring down, we returned to the venue after not finding anything close to a hardware store. At this point I double checked with Tobias that he had already asked someone at the venue if they had a hacksaw, but to my surprise, he had done no such thing. Two minutes later Tobias got the saw he needed from the first person he asked, and I would like to use this opportunity to give Tobias a big hand for his top of the line reasoning on how to get hold of things he need.

Finally, it was showtime, and we were all really psyched after the great show in Zagreb the day before. With such a cool stage and venue, in addition to the very nice impression we had from the Slovenians we had met so far, things couldn’t go wrong. The only thing we didn’t know before the show, was the fact that 75% of the Slovenian audience obviously prefer to sit on the floor, or in some cases lie on their backs, while watching the concert. We tried the best we could to keep up the energy level from our previous shows, but I must admit that it’s a bit hard when the people in the first row are lying on their backs yawning, while you’re breaking your pelvis trying to lift the mood…

As a special treat, it seems as we’ve also lost our camera stand, so from now on we’ll have to improvise a bit when recording the shows. I don’t think you will be disappointed with this camera view though. ;) Enjoy!

Thank you for following our blog!
Next stop: Milano

TorO

BTW. I beat Tobias in ping-pong three times in a row…

Day 11/34 - Boogalo Club, Zagreb, Croatia - 07.11.2010

2010-11-09T22:40:00.003+01:00

Today it was time to say hello to Zagreb - the capital of Croatia. We enter the venue, and discover that both the catering and backstage facilities are really good! After doing some shows with rather small backstages shared between two bands, it was really nice to finally have a large backstage only for Leprous. In addition to that, the stage was perfect and the local crew was very helpful! Without us asking for it, they provided us with a driver that drove us to the city center of Zagreb.

When we arrived in the more central parts of Zagreb, the driver offered us to guide us through the city center to show us the most interesting parts. Now we´re talking good service! What also surprised me was how good the Croatians were in English! Almost everyone I talked to were able to communicate quite good in English.

The catering on the venue was perfect........for those who eat meat! Since the majority of the band are Vegetarians, it could have been better. It was a huge plate with meats of all kind, almost like a norwegian christmas meal. No worries, because the really nice crew from the Boogallo Club in Zagreb ordered a really nice Tofu meal for us! Once again, really nice service.

Yes - there was a fitness studio in the same building as the venue! I got the chance to do one of my three weekly work out sessions!! When I returned to the backstage I was embraced by one hell of an exited gang!

Ok, it’s about time to write something about the concert! Because this was really a concert worth mentioning. The majority of the crowd were girls between 15 - 25 (at least it seemed so), and they gave us such fantastic response - even though most of the people there didn’t know us before the concert! The sound on stage could have been better for me, but it did not overshadow the great experience at all. Zagreb is definitely a place we wanna visit again!

All the best,
Einar

Day 10/34 - Szene, Vienna, Austria - 06.11.2010

2010-11-09T01:02:00.003+01:00

Today I was the last one to wake up and to get out of the bus. And to be honest – this is how it usually is. Anyway, as I stepped out of the bus a group of Theorians and Leprechauns where ready to take the trip downtown to check out the cultural Haubstadt of Vienna. I joined the group, and we were on our way.

When we left the nightliners, parked outside tonight’s venue Szene, the weather was nice and sunny, but as we reached the city centre the sun had vanished and we were left freezing in our t-shirts. Tobias had a specific mission for his trip downtown – he needed to get his broken drum pedals either fixed or replaced by a working pair.

We got directions to an instrument store from one of the Theorians, but this trail went cold, as no one in the neighbourhood seemed to know anything about it. Then we were told by a local to take the tram here and the train there to get to this instrument store. This was too complicated; as we were convinced it had to be an easier way to come across an instrument shop in Vienna. Then we were told to ask one of the guys handing out opera flyers to the rich tourists. We did, and he told us there was a shop located “right down the street”. But “right down the street” there were no instrument shop. Here we ran into Einars brother Kenneth and our good friend Josten who came all the way from Norway to visit us on tour!

Back on the trail:
Then we found a record store and asked the staff there for directions. They told us that the biggest instrument store was located two stops by tram from the venue Szene. We went there but couldn’t find any instrument shops there either. And now it started to get really cold, and late. Then a local told us to walk a couple of hundred metres down the street. We did. No instrument shop. Then we asked a lady behind an info counter in a shopping mall. She looked it up and gave us the correct address to Viennas biggest instrument store; “Klangfarbe”. They were closing at five. That meant that we had about 20 minutes to get there, and it was pretty far away…. After some more tramming and walking/running we finally arrived at “Klangfarbe”. As we stepped inside they were turning off the lights and asking people to leave. They didn’t have the time to fix Tobias’ pedal, so he had to buy a new one. He bought the exact same model as the broken one. I believe it felt great to spend some hundred euros on something he already had.

Szene, the Austrian venue, was one of the smallest venues of the entire tour. Our spot on the stage was pretty limited with Therion´s rig just behind ours – but it worked out ok. This was one of the better concerts for me personally, as my stage sound was great and I easily managed to get into the groove and enjoy myself. This was unfortunately not the case for everyone in the band – but overall the show went ok. Tor Oddmund left his camera in Vienna, so no pictures on todays blog...

Tomorrow it’s Boogaloo Club in Zagreb.
We’re ready to rock the Balkans!

From Vienna with Love,
Halvor

2010-11-09T00:21:00.006+01:00

DAY 9/34 - Masters of Rock Cafe, Zlin, Czech Republic - 05.11.2010

Z to to L to the I to the N. That's right, folks.. Zlin! We're finally here. Our first encounters with Czech roads at 11 o'clock in the morning make for a bumpy introduction. I give up sleeping any longer and like the rest of the band usually do, I kill off some time watching TV series. The bus has effectively been split in two from day one: the LV guys at the front (Loch Vostok.. do your homework!), us in the back and all the bunks in between. A broken panel on the air duct above our section cool us down to below zero. Gotta get that one fixed, although it might not be all that badconsidering the current level of hygiene. Takes away the edge, haha..

The bus does its signature "shake and stop" (like all buses of course must do!) outside a mall. "We're here!". I take a quick look outside the bus and jus beside the mall I can see the logo: Masters of Rock Cafe. Todays venue has one of the smaller rooms so far, but the stage looks good. Not as spacious as some of the other ones, but we make it work. Our backstage is a small room in the back of stage right, and we're starting to get used to sharing the backstage with our swedish companions as we move east through Europe.

We've traveled through 6 countries and after a total of 3145km so far, the bus is ready for its first cleaning on this November tour of the great Europe. Mano from Loch Vostok gets to work with the on-board vacuum cleaner, while the rest take care of stray socks, boxers, sweaty stage clothes, bags, cans, bottles, chips, remote controls, deoderants(??), medicines, sunglasses, metronomes, computers, chargers, dvds, to-fix-dreads needles, jogging shoes, peanuts, pence, cent, groszy, ZLIN-money.. do you get the picture? The point is that stray pillows, plastic bags, jackets, headsets, drum sticks and other stuff is actually just lying aroung in the bus. Believe it. Anyway, Einar has dreads as some of you might know. And sometimes they need a fix (not dope, no). He needs a special kind of needle for that, and just as he's leaving Zlin's "Needles For Dread Fixing" shop satisfied with his purchase, he decides to check the message I sent him BEFORE he even entered; "Hey, man! I found the needle you lost!". So now there's actually three needles lying around, as he decided to buy two.

Our late arrival makes for a short day before the sound check. Luckily, the stage crew is extremely slow, the monitor guy is pissed at the world and one of them speaks English. We've been waiting so patiently for that! Things eventually get done. Before we hit the stage, we decide to just wing it, no matter the monitoring.

The past-show hang-out and dinner is done at the cool VIP room on the second floor. Hammerfall, Sonata Arctica, Manowar, Manowar and Manowar are just some of the famous bands that have eaten their food here. If you look through one of the 8 10x10cm windows on the wall facing the stage, you'll see the backs of the press, band members and other VIPs on a small balcony. The evening is otherwise of the calm kind.

Zlin was Zlin and now we're ready to put on another 235km to Vienna.

Yours sincerely,
Øystein

Day 8/34 - Batchkapp, Frankfurt, Germany 04.11.10

2010-11-05T22:55:00.003+01:00

Last thing we did yesterday was driving past Louvre and Notre Dame. Today we woke up in Frankfurt in Germany. Not quite the same to be honest.

We took a walk to check out the city, but found out that, our venue: Batschkapp, wasnt located in the centrum. Cant complain because we found a very nice shop. That had some really nice christmas calenders. For a good price.

The stage was quite small. At least compared to the other we played on the last days. But we sorted it out and gave it all. It seemed like some liked it.

It wasnt the most exciting day. But still there are things thats has to be done.
Here is a typical activity on tour:

-Tobias

Day 7/34 - Elysée Montmartre, Paris, France - 03.11.10

2010-11-05T17:04:00.008+01:00

Our first impression of Paris really lived up to everybody's expectations of this marvelous city, and it was a truly psyched gang of early birds that jumped out of bed at the break of dawn.

All loaded in at the venue, we were once again served a delicious breakfast. I must really hand it to the French when it comes to food at the venues (not ironic). The venue, Elysée Montmartre, is located about a 2 min walk from le Sacré Cæur, which is a big beautiful church placed on a hill with a wonderful view of the entire city (as seen in the jogging video later in this post). Once we were there, Tobias decided he would like some jewelery, so he just stopped a random stranger passing by to make him a bracelet.

We also met this odd looking crew, who wanted to send their hello back home.

While the rest of us went downtown to check out what Paris had to offer, Øystein used this opportunity to do some homework. Well, I guess we would all be torn when being faced with these two choices…

While some of us wanted to TAKE pictures of the monuments, some of us preferred to BE the pictures. I’m not sure you’ll notice it though.

Before the concert, me and Tobias went for a jog back to Sacré Cæur. The main stairs up to the church turned out to be closed though, so we had to take the back stairs. It was a good warm-up anyway, and Tobias got the opportunity to try out some of his newest jumping tricks.

Back at the venue, people was starting to gather in front of the stage, and so it was time to play our sixth concert. This concert turned out to be the coolest concert so far on the tour for all the band members. It rarely happens that all band members are completely satisfied with an entire concert, but the great sound on stage, as well as the excellent energy in the crowd made this the most rewarding show so far. I really hope we’ll have the opportunity to come back in a not too distant future.

You can’t be a tourist in France without trying one of the many national delicacies, so we chose to end this highly interesting day in Paris sharing a plate of snails at a traditional French cuisine.

Au revoir,
TorO

Day 6/34 - Aeroneuf, Lille, France - 02.1010

2010-11-04T19:40:00.010+01:00

Today was the day when I realized how spoiled actually are on this tour! Before the tour we received a lot of warnings and concerns about how exhausting the life on tour is. We were told that we were to expect low standard all over the place. We were warned about shitty backstage’s, lack of descent food, little or no access of clean water, tour busses with similarities to coffins, disrespectful headliners, no proper sleep, horrible venues etc.

Well, let me summarize a typical day on this tour:
You wake up in a new city after many hours of good sleep in the tour bus (after a couple of nights you manage to sleep properly in the beds while the bus is moving). After getting dressed, it’s time to load in the equipment at the venue. Entering a new venue is always exciting, especially when the stages / concert halls are as nice as they are on this tour! After load-in we most we’re most often getting served proper breakfast by the kitchen at the venue. After breakfast you have some hours to see the city in which you are playing before sound-check. Although we’re one of the support bands, we get to do a thorough sound-check before every show. Luckily we’re allowed to use Therions digital mixer on every concert, which makes it possible to restore the settings from the previous show. This makes the sound-check way faster than it would have been with an analogue mixer. When the sound check is done, we often hang out on a really nice backstage - fully loaded with food, candy, fruits and drinks. The main act Therion (and their crew) always treats us with kindness and respect, and everything is always handled very professional. In fact, you can always count on everything being in order at any time. Before we enter the stage we usually get a really nice meal - even the vegetarians! On every concert we’re granted a fifteen minutes change-over between the opening act Lock Vostok (great band), which we usually manage to do in five minutes. Then finally - it’s time for the concert! Usually we get to play for huge crowds (at least huge compared to what we’re used to), and most often we get overwhelming feedback from the crowd!

As you can see - the tour (luckily) doesn’t live up to the predictions at all! We´re really enjoying every second of this tour!

This day was no exception! We arrived in Lille in France about 2 pm, and did the load-in shortly after. The catering at Aeroneuf (the venue) might have been the best I’ve ever witnessed in a Leprous setting. Both for breakfast and dinner we were served the most delicate food I’ve tasted in a long time. This was french food at it’s best, and we had unlimited access to it! As soon as I found the time for it, I walked to the city center of Lille. I really don’t regret that! Lille is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been to. A positive surprise is that the frenchmen has finally started to improve their English skills a bit, so it was easier to communicate with the locals then I remembered it to be. I wish that I had brought either the proper Leprous video camera or an SLR photo camera, but since the iPhone was my only alternative I had to do the documentation of the city with that.

Back at the venue I found TorO experimenting with the juice machine (which is an activity we all find very appealing), and I also got the chance to see the it from above - which I found rather scary.

Finally I got the chance to wash my clothes for the first time on the tour. I started off with handwashing (which was quite complicated in the small wash), but after a while I found out that there was actually a washing machine available near the backstage! What a venue!!

Todays concert was OK, but not of our best. Tobias had a lot of trouble with his bass drum pedal, which made it a bit difficult to focus 100% on the concert. However, we received great feedback from french crowd and it was after all a really good experience.
Lille - We will come back!!

Kind Regards, Einar

Day 5/34 - Hof Ter Loo, Antwerp, Belgium - 01.11.10

2010-11-04T11:32:00.004+01:00

We woke up feeling refreshed just outside the venue Hof Ter Loo in Antwerp, Belgium. We rolled out of the bus and directly into the catering area where a vast variety of breakfast dishes where served.

This day can be summed up in this way:
- Tobas practiced on his drum pad
- Einar and Tor Oddmund went to the city
- Halvor and Øystein organized all the merchandise
- We all came together for the show.
- All day the juice did flow, if you know what I mean.

You’re in luck – just by clicking on this video you can be a fly on the wall as Halvor and Øystein are having the time of their lives. (NB: This activity did take a bit longer than two minutes in real life. The pace is actually sped up.)

Here you can follow Tor Oddmund and Einar on their adventures in the city of Antwerp. Please use the comment field to discuss whom YOU think is hotter of the pair.

Soundcheck was fast and easy – great sound in no time! The digital foh mixer is travelling with us; so all the levels are dialled in beforehand and saved. So all that is needed is to make smaller adjustments in correlation to the different acoustics in the different rooms we play, and to set the monitor mix. This night we decided to change the setlist with the addition of a new song.

The show went really well. It was fun to play the new 11-minute song for the Belgium audience. The sound on stage was really good and there where quite a few people who seemed to enjoy our set.

Care for some juice?

The night was spent playing Madden 2005, watching TV-series and sleeping in the parked nightliner just outside the Belgian venue. Except for TorO and Einar who, as you know, travelled back to their beloved Tapirs and stayed there all night. Tomorrow we’re crossing the French border as we’re invading Lille in the blood red morning hours.

Good night!
Hope to see YOU on the road

Yours truly,
Halvor

Day 4/34 - Sheperds Bush Empire, London, England - 31.10.10

2010-11-02T17:12:00.011+01:00

We're now starting to get comfortable on the road. Sleeping in a moving bus is like a breeze, and there is a well established odour inside. Apart from a midnight border control the 625km drive from Groningen to London is unnoticeable. We wake up in a coach parking lot, and slowly try to make our way through the not-so-busy streets of London, looking for tonights venue; the Sheperds Bush Empire. The long drives have started to affect our clocks, and when we finally find the place, the new timezone makes sure we're an hour too early. Fortunately killing spare time is also something you become good at on tour, and this time the nearest mall gets a visit from Leprous. Yes, men can shop (but it's absolutely exhausting).

The old theater can fit 2000 people and the large stage makes for an easy rig. Our backstage is located on the fourth floor (or third, if your british) and as the evening progresses, we get to know the elevator. My index finger also get an unwilling encounter with one of the heavy western-like slam doors. My day has begun. Our usual backstage rig of four Macs, a PC and a juice machine is up and running. We hit a brick wall: no Wi-Fi. Our world crumbles.. What now?? Our 21st century abstinences kicks in. I elegantly replace it with my guitar while all the others stare into infinity, waiting for divine intervention (top right photo). Several hours pass, but no gods seem to be present (except in the tour production office). With my smashed finger in mind, my wonderful day reminds me; I forgot my stage outfit in the bus (parked back the lot). For the first time the daily jogging routine of the others comes in handy. I get to keep on playing.

As the clock hits the 17 mark, it's time for our sound check. As usual, we're lucky to have an experienced crew and the stage sound is awesome. FOH (Front Of House, that is, the sound that hits the audience) is as usual taken care of by our young and talented, danish friend Joakim that's traveling with us on the bus. My monitors sound great and I'm only left with optimism for tonights show. We leave the stage to the Swedish fellows in Loch Vostok; the other support band for Therions Sitra Ahra tour of Europe.

The show is minutes away and I suddenly remember I forgot to hand over tonights merchandise to Therion's merch lady, Mary. I fix it at the last minute. Anyway, Lock Vostok finishes their show and we hit the stage. The crowd seems prepared for Leprous, but I find out my monitors obviously are not, and so my day continues. Technical issues prevent me from relaxing, but the crowd is awesome and we are able to keep the energy up throughout the show.

The astonishing buy-out of £7 per person gets us a meal at a shabby indian place, and all leftover pounds and pence are spent on a taxi back to the bus. The one and only show here in England is over, and we go to sleep heading south to Belgium..

Yours sincerely,
Oystein

Day 3/34 - De Oosterpoort, Groeningen, Holland - 30.10.10

2010-11-01T17:11:00.002+01:00

Hi

We arrived in Groeningen in the middle of the night. We were still sleeping... Thats one of the fun things about nightliners, you go to sleep and wake up in a completely new city.

At the first sight, Groeningen Oosterport looked like a highschool. But as yesterday, we got a nice backstage with nice catering.
Since we are support-act there arent much to do, before main-act done rigging their stuff and had their soundcheck.

So we had plenty of time to check out the town, excersise, write blog, practise, eat fruit etc.
When it was time for out soundcheck it went smoothly. Luckily we can use Therions mixer, which makes it so easy for us, since we can save our settings from each night.

The sound on stage was awsome, we all felt really good, and ready for a good show.

Tonights show was good, with more energy than yesterday. I think there were maybee 400 – 500 people in the audience, which were really nice to us.

We had to leave soon after the show for the next stop: London. 6 am, we had to get up for a passportcheck before we could go on the ferry to England. This was of course something we all enjoyed very much! Especially our soundengieneer Joachim...

-tobias

Day 2/34 - 013, Tilburg, Holland - 29.10.10

2010-10-30T16:00:00.014+02:00

The day startet approximately 2,5 hours after yesterday ended. At 6.30 it was time to leave for Mönchengladbach, to meet up with the nightliner (the bus we’re sleeping in during the tour). It was an energized duo, consisting of me and Einar, who was the lucky two given this self rewarding assignment. After a couple of detours we found ourselves at MZES bus company, where we met our bus driver Scott.

We soon realized that we we’re in serious need of some additional storage capacity, as the storage room under the bus couldn’t hold half of our gear, and so we had to hire a trailer. Can’t get enough of those extra expences! :D After parking our van at some random parking spot in Mönchengladbach, it was time to check out the interior of the bus.

Concidering the fact that we hadn’t slept all that much the last 24h, we also found this a suitable time to check out the sleeping facilities of the bus. While we slept, Scott drove us back to Tilburg for the preparations for our first concert of the tour. After crossing the border to the Netherlands something happened to the bus door, so we got ourselves an additional three hours of sleep, waiting for someone to fix the door. Thanks to this we returned to Tilburg relaxed and ready to prep for the concert.

After the sound- check, Halvor, Tobias and myself went for a jog around Tilburg. We found this a good way to see the city, which btw is very nice, and we’ll try to do this in every city from now on. 15 min out running we encountered a fruit & vegetable store, and took this opportunity to buy some ingredients for my juice sentrifuge. On the way back from the veggie store I realized that running with a 15 kg bag of vegetables isn't all that fun after all. As you can see from the pictures, it was a high class photogenic trio that returned to the backstage at O13. Just for the occation, Halvor showed of with his latest neck extention. From the looks of it, the ingredients for my next juice creation will be, broccoli, carrots, sellery, spinach, cauliflower and apples. Feel free to come with suggestions to a name for this juice. We shall try to post a video soon of how to make the best pre-concert juice.

Loch Vostok opened the tour with a massive set, which received great feedback from the crowd. After a record fast change-over we entered the stage, and tried to live up to the standard set by LV. Once we had a song or two on our continence I felt we were really starting to groove, and with the help of the great audience in Tilburg (approximately 2000 people), we all had a really good experience on stage. Hopefully there were some people that liked what they heard, because we would love to come back some day! All in all this first concert was a great start on the tour, and we're all really looking forward to the next 28 concerts. :)

Here's a preview of the opening show:

Back on the bus, and on our way to Groeningen, we passed the time listening to the masterpiece by R. Kelly: “Trapped in the closet”. For those of you that haven’t heard it: Do it! It’s highly rewarding! ;) You should all have a listen to the original a couple of times for starters, and then top things of with the bonus feature ”Kell’s commentary remix”. This is where R. Kelly is sitting admiring his own brilliance. I rest my case.

For a preview, check out this link

Stay tuned for more updates!

TorO

Tour blog - Day 1/34 (28.10.10) Oslo - Tilburg (Travelday)

2010-10-29T16:46:00.008+02:00

The first of day of our trip was delayed due to an unexpected issue. All the copies of our most recent album “Tall Poppy Syndrome” had by mistake been sent to “Sør -Norge Aluminium” (South Norway Aluminum) in Husnes near Bergen. It was so late as Wednesday afternoon (we were supposed to leave Wednesday evening) before a guy called us and told us that had received our package. Since we all live in Oslo, which is approximately eight hours away from Husnes, we had no choice but to delay our trip with one day. TNT - the company responsible for the mess - promised that we should have the package delivered at our door between 8 and 9 am next morning. When we were starting to get nervous the next morning, the package finally arrived at 8:57 am. We were finally ready to leave!!

Whilst two of the band members (Tobias and Halvor) cowardly chose to fly down to Tilburg, the rest of us had to choose the hardcore-18-hour-drive-with-no-sleep-at-all alternative in order to get all equipment there in time.

To avoid unnecessary conflicts with the Norwegian customs on our way home, we had a to prove that we already owned the equipment before we left Norway:

The trip through Sweden went smoothly, without any difficulties worth mentioning. While we were driving through Denmark we realized that Denmark do not operate with gas stations along the highway.

On the ferry from Denmark to Germany we managed to get a proper meal, as well as having a deserved and long awaited break from the driving. Here you can see Øystein philosophizing on the ferry:

And finally we reach das Autobahn! That means we can drive as fast as we want to without being confronted by the law! Oh, but wait.......nearly 70% of the way there’s 60 zone due to road work!! After a while, we were finally able to drive in 120 km. But suddenly, there was a cat running out in the highway. And Tor Oddmunds spontaneous reaction was to do his very best to avoid killing the poor animal, and he took a very sharp turn while driving in 120 with a full-loaded van. The car headed towards the fence, but TorO managed to maneuver the car back on the road before hitting the fence in high speed. Suddenly it seemed like the car was going to tip over because of the manouver, the high speed and tallness of the van! Luckily TorO managed to get the vehicle back on track. This was one of the most horrifying situations in the traffic I’ve ever witnessed! But we all got out from it in good shape - including the cat - and headed further on to Tilburg!

When we finally arrived in Tilburg, we were satisfied, relieved and tired. After an exhausting 18 hour drive (with only four small stops including the ferry), we were finally able to go to bed!

Here’s a video clip from our arrival in Tilburg:

All the best, Einar

New t-shirts and new copies of "Aeolia"

2010-08-27T15:50:00.001+02:00

First of all; sorry for the horribly long delay in updating this page. You probably all thought we were dead-and-buried, right?
Well, we're very much alive and kicking, have enjoyed a nice summer, and now we're back in action and we've got some great big news to announce very soon.

For now, we can announce the implementation on this site of our WEB STORE !!! Yes, if you take a look up at the top menu, you'll see a menu button saying "store" - click on that one and you'll get right in there to order our new shirts and the brand new re-issue of our debut album "Aeolia". We're offering it in two different versions - the regular album - and the special edition, which is a hand numbered (only 100 copies) album signed by all members of the band. Check out leprous.net.

Ihsahn confirmed as headliner on Norwegian festival

2010-07-12T23:55:00.001+02:00

Ihsahn will be headlining this years Southern Discomfort Festival in Kristiansand, Norway on September 17, 2010. Leprous will, as always, be the backing band for Ihsahn. We're very much looking forward to this show.

Leprous confirmed for Norwegian festival

2010-06-29T17:32:00.001+02:00

We're happy to announce that Leprous will be performing at this years 1001 Watt Festival in Skien, Norway on Friday October 8th 2010!

Thank you Hellfest!

2010-06-21T23:22:00.001+02:00

We had a really good time at Hellfest in France this weekend with Ihsahn and the crew. Here's a picture (courtesy of Håkon Grav) of the entire band and the crowd.

"Aeolia" and "Silent Waters"

2010-06-03T14:17:00.001+02:00

Leprous will be printing up a limited edition of the debut CD "Aeolia" as well as a very limited number of copies of the old demo "Silent Waters". The discs will be numbered and signed by all the members, and available only on our upcoming shows and through online order on www.leprous.net

Leprous

Tablature and lead sheet

2010-05-26T10:34:00.001+02:00

We've started making guitar tablatures and lead sheets for one of the songs on "Tall Poppy Syndrome". Within a couple of weeks we'll start posting one section every week, until you have the full song.

Leprous

Help us choosing our setlist for the Therion-tour

2010-05-20T18:18:00.000+02:00

We've decided to ask YOU for help in choosing some of the songs from "Tall Poppy Syndrome" that we will be performing live on our October/November tour with Therion. Please vote on the poll available on www.leprous.net for your favorite song, thanks.

Leprous performs Passing live in Copenhagen.

2010-05-14T16:47:00.001+02:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw_D1W4eTho