Went up 4:30am and went to bed around 01:00 am (UK time, which is 02:00 my regular time) which made this day a very long day. Got picked up by David and Andre at 06:00, went to the airport where we met the rest of the gang and made loads of re-packing arrangements before checkin. We always have way too much stuff and more than we are allowed to so we have to spread out the weight a bit. Anyway, we flew to Oslo, and then finally to Manchester. Got picked up by a van and got to the O2 Apollo arena. After some catering lunch i met with all our old friends in Nightwish who just arrived as well. Long time no see, but this is also Pains third tour with Nightwish so we know each others pretty well by now. As always at the first show in a tour, all technical preparations takes a lot extra time and time schedule is tight. This time we expanded our Sennheiser wireless setup with 4 channels of In-Ear systems as well, which saved us completely! It makes life so much easier and the sound is just amazing, i love to use in-ear systems!

We entered the stage exatly on time, in front of a almost sold out Apollo arena. Show went well, audience treated us well, and the only obstacle was Peter who almost lost his voice during the show and sounded a bit bad. Hopefully this will be better tonight in London. After the show, i saw a few songs of Nightwish, then hang around backstage until we left for our hotel. When me and Peter entered our room, the window was open so we had the same room temperature outside as inside! Do i have to mention it was cold? Probably around 2 degrees only. So i slept in jeans, double sweaters, scarf, blankets, and still was cold as ice. When i woke up this morning i felt sick and my throat hurts. Perfect way to start a day, especially when i know i need to be singing in stage in London tonight...!

 

While i am writing this i am sitting in the hotel lobby, just had english breakfast, waiting for our van to pick us up and drive to London. I hope to see a full house at O2 Academy Brixton tonight, and hopefully a few of my UK friends will show up (Ben and Rich, see 'ya tonight!)