Day 6: Jogging in Krakow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!