EPA Day 1 - Assaulting Oslo

So, after sufficient requests from you all, there will be a tour blog this time around as well. I'm not complaining, as making the posts after all is pretty fun!

Well, finally we're ready for our first headliner tour, and we've used the last months to prepare to give you all the best possible concert experience. New songs have been made, visuals have been recorded, and the stamina needed to have the energy we want on stage has been exercised. This kind of exercise regrettably often comes with “work related injuries” like: head butting your keyboard -->

<- Filming some of the visuals that will appear on stage.

This first show sept. 28th @ John Dee, Oslo, was held one week before we started the journey south to the rest of Europe alongside Loch Vostok, Persefone and Ørkenkjøtt. For this first show, Aiming for Enrike, which is a duo consisting of Tobias from Leprous and Simen Følstad Nilsen, replaced Persefone.

The show @ John Dee was a big success, and the audience really gave us the positive energy we need before we head out to assault the rest of Europe. For those of you that are planning to catch the show as it passes by your town, here’s a sneak peak of some of the things you’ll get to see + Aiming for Enrike who you won’t see more of on this tour.

Per nå,

TorO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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