Today is exactly one week left before we kick off the 3 week long european tour. We will get ourselves through 21 shows in 22 days visiting 10 countries. We had a great start in Finland last week as a warm-up for this "tour-without-any-off-days". I think we need to warm up properly to get us through this tough schedule. I am doing that by getting as much rest as possible and have quality time with friends and beloved ones. I am really looking forward to get out on the road again throughout europe, especially as we will also do 4 shows in UK this time! And during the tour we will see the release of the new PAIN DVD "We come in peace" as well as the third album with 8thSin "Cosmogenesis".

See 'ya!

 

2012-11-04 O2 Apollo – Manchester – UK (with Nightwish)

2012-11-05 O2 Academy Brixton – London – UK (with Nightwish)

2012-11-06 O2 Academy – Birmingham – UK (with Nightwish)

2012-11-07 O2 Academy – Glasgow – UK (with Nightwish)

2012-11-09 Musichall – Geiselwind – Germany

2012-11-10 Backstage – München – Germany

2012-11-11 Trix – Antwerp – Belgium

2012-11-12 Z7 – Pratteln – Switzerland

2012-11-13 Trabendo – Paris – France

2012-11-14 Batschkapp – Frankfurt – Germany

2012-11-15 Estragon – Bologna – Italy

2012-11-16 Arena – Vienna – Austria

2012-11-17 Masters of Rock Cafe – Zlin – Czech Republic

2012-11-18 Progresja – Warsaw – Poland

2012-11-19 C-Club – Berlin – Germany

2012-11-20 Hellraiser – Leipzig – Germany

2012-11-21 Markthalle – Hamburg – Germany

2012-11-22 Garage – Saarbrücken – Germany

2012-11-23 LKA Longhorn – Stuttgart – Germany

2012-11-24 Matrix – Bochum – Germany

2012-11-25 013 – Tilburg – Netherlands

 

I want to thank everybodey who showed up at any of the shows at the Finnish tour "Kidneys to the limit" with Turmion Kätilöt. We had a great time and 4 out of 5 shows where sold out - not a bad result at all! Finland has alwyas been a bit special to us and this time was no exception. I'd go as far as saying some of the best Painhads in the world are located in Finland! THANK YOU ALL! Mustalainen MC and Vodkalainen :-)

 

Now we have almost two weeks to recover until we hit the next endeavour, the UK tour with Nightwish and the European tour "Into Darkness" right afterwards. See 'ya soon again!

 

 

(NOT sold out!)

 

We left Kuopio around 10 am this morning. It was only 3 degrees and really freeeeezing! This was way too early for most of the persons in the bus so it went completely silent after just a few minutes. I think all 16 people including myself fell asleep right away. We had a stop somewhere on the trip and i had my third Hesburger this week. When we arrived in Turku about 7 hours later we had a great dinner in a fancy restaurant and afterwards jumped into the bus to go to the venue. That's when it happened… The bus started to roar and jumped like a kangaroo, while our driver looked very surprised before he could make it stop. It turned out that the gas pedal wire had snapped and it was impossible to drive the bus in this condition. He made a temporary fix by putting a lanyard strap to the pedal and drove with this strap in his right hand. I said to myself: of course this must happen, we didn't have any bus breakdows yet, remember what band you're in!

This reminded me of when we were in Argentina earlier this year, and went into the breakfast restaurant of the hotel and Hede happened to start the coffeemaker at the same time i started the toaster. That made the lights go out so the restaurant turned pitch-black, hehe. I don't know why this story came up in my head when the gas pedal wire snapped, but i felt a wicked connection between the two events…

 

The show in Turku was really good even though it was not sold out (but really close though!). It felt a bit sad that this tour was coming to an end but it was a good ending. Peter had a crazy idea to wear make-up in true Turmion Kätilöt style to honor them on this last show. But he changed his mind right before he entered the stage, hahaha. We had really fun on stage and ran into each other several times by mistage, and changed the text in the chorus of "Great pretender" to "I am your great bartender" instead... Yeah, really mature, i know :-)

When Turmion Kätilöt finished their show, they came back for an encore and invited all of us in Pain and all crew up on stage to celebrate the last show. They played a song for all us "swedes" (David, Peter, Macke, Hede, Emanuel and myself, johan came later) who all sat on the drum riser and watched them. It was a really great ending. These guys knows how to put on a great show, that's for sure. Thank you Turku for this great evening!

 

Tomorrow morning we are heading for Helsinki and then our flight back home to Sweden.

 

Yeah, the title above is getting a bit worn out by now, but we are all proud of it! If we can also sell out Turku Tomorrow we will have a full score point and can proudly leave Finland with a smile.

Took a walk in the city of Mikkeli with Johan after having breakfast in a local café. We missed the hotel-breakfast by 30 mins which made me very angry. You know how much i appreciate the hotel-brekfasts, if they are any good of course.

A few hours in the bus from Mikkeli to Kuopio was a ride with a bunch of restless guys with nothing to do. But it was also a ride with a bunch of guys who looked more dead than alive and a few guys who were still drunk since last night. Now this clash of two major difficulties shall never been put in the same small environment. Why? Because one can not be close to the other without making some evil jokes and the state differencies makes it even worse! This time it was the booking manager who was on the "dead" side and had to take the hit for the evil plans. As soon as he felt asleep he got paint in his face. Black ears and a big fat mustache was painted in his face with black permanent marker. We took some photos and then just pretended nothing happened. Now this is the bad part of this evil joke: everybody knows how it goes, and no one will be such a nice guy to tell him when he wakes up that he looks stupid. The result is always so funny! We arrived in Kuopio and started to unload the bus. It was hours ago since this happened and this guy still walked around with this silly black marker paint in his face. He hadn't look himself in the mirror so how should he know? He had no idea why everyone was smiling when he passed by… "Grown up men do things together".

Kuopio is the hometown of Turmion Kätilöt so i guess this show is a bit special to them. I feel like that when we play in Stockholm anyway, having loads of friends around.

 

The show in Kuopio went fantastic, it was more (!) than sold out and this was the loudest audience so far in Finland. Even louder than Helsinki that had twice the quantity of people there! Thank you Kuopio, this will be a night we will never forget and that became special to us. The funny joke tonight was when we covered Peter in plastic bags and taped him until he looked like a living garbage bag. Then we threw him up on stage when Turmion Kätilöt played - success! :-)

So we only have one show left to go now, in Turku. That will be the show that will determine if we can call this tour sold out or not!

 

Okay, where shall i start? "Kidneys to the limit" tour is starting to be a bit on the edge… Putting Pain together with Turmion Kätilöt was a bad mistake last year, and same mistake this year. It's a bit like pouring gasoline on fire.

After the show last night in Jyväskylä this gang consumed seven bottles of vodka and three crates of beer. Johan hurt his hand really bad in a "broken-beer-bottle-accident" and had to go to the hospital when we came to Mikkeli to get help. Perfect to be a musician and have a big scar in his right hand…

I went up around 8 in the morning and after a shower and some work i went to Hesburger to have breakfast. I love the Finnish Hesburger. Then i went to Alko and bought some Jalokahvi as i can't get this in Sweden. The ride from Jyväskylä to Mikkeli was interesting - as any other ride with this bunch of lunatics. Turmion Kätilöt sang the "ärtsoppa rap" and Peter had bought a pink women's bodysuit at one of the stops, and after some hard work he actually managed to get it on. I have never seen him so ugly! Johan bought some finnish makkara (sausage) and sinappi (mustard) that he ate on the bus, and David was asleep. Hey ho.

Anyway, we're in Mikkeli now and had a great show today. It was a small and cosy place and the audience was very good. My neck hurts like hell after the last two shows with a little too much headbanging, so i took it a bit easy today. I have learned that if i don't listen to my body's signals i will get punished sooner or later. Been there done that. Learned the lesson.

Thank you all Painheads of Mikkeli for treating us well - it was about sold out again. Tomorrow we're going to Kuopio.

After a bumpy ride we finally arrived in Jyväskylä. Without revealing any names, the full bus of people traveling Helsinki-Jyväskylä (both bands and all crew, around 15 people) was delayed for several hours because of two individuals who were shitfaced beyond recognition last night (or actually this morning...) and couldn't find their way out of the hotel. This is something that always seems to happen as soon as we enter Finland. Countless of times in the past this is how the story goes, and i wonder if Finland has a bad influence on us? I also wonder if there will be a day in the future where we actually just skip anyone who couldn't respect time schedules and leave without them? Probably not. But we have been really close a few times. Really close.

 

The show went very well and we had loads of fun on stage today, it was just one of those days... We ran around and did stupid jokes to each other, and in "Shut your mouth" i sneaked up on Peter from behind and tied up his armsleeves around his back. It got even worse when Turmion Kätilöt did their show... We collected all toiletpaper we could find backstage, and then wrapped up a naked guy like a mummy. Then he ran out on stage in the same song as Peter also joined in. The stage looked like a total chaos with bottles flying around, toiletpaper all over the floor and then a mummy walking around half-naked (as the paper tend to fall off...). Lutakko is also one of these places where they have a Sauna backstage. I used it last time i was here (last year), but this time i didn't. But most of the finnish guys did, of course.

 

Thank you Jyväskylä, the second sold out show in a row now! And thank you Helsinki yesterday!

 

Tomorrow we are going to Mikkeli. As i remember it we were there playing Jurassic Rock in August 2009, and that was my first time in Mikkeli. That was also one of these crazy events where one guy (no names) couldn't find his way out from the hotel as he by mistake took the elevator down to the basement, and then didn't have a keycard to get back up again. After running around in the basement for a while, he eventually came up a few blocks away, on the other side of the street... Let's see how it goes this time :-)

 

There's always something special with Finland and Helsinki. Every time we've been here we get such a treat, and this time was no exception. The venue Virgin Oil was completely sold out and the night was a blast. We had premiere of parts of our new "We come in peace" stage set, our new "We come in peace" merchandise, and my new red guitar :-)
I have wanted a Ferrari red Jackson Rhoads for years. Actually as long as i can remember. I had a red Aria Pro Flying-V back in the late 80's and i still miss it. Finally the wait is over. Not only is it my favourite guitar Jackson Rhoads, it's also Ferrari Red and has my name on it! This is the third RRX model i am using this year and it's just fantastic and plays very well. The only thing that differ my new RRX from a stock RRX is the color and the EMG-81/EMG-85 active pickup system.

It was so great to meet our friends in Turmion Kätilöt again, and i am sure this will be a crazy tour as always… I am in the land of Fisu, Jaloviina, Makkara and Auran (Turun) Sinappi, what can possibly go wrong? :-)

Anyway, after the show Kimmo, Johan and myself went to the hotel. On the way there, Johan bought the ugliest, sloppiest, and most disgusting burger i've ever seen! It was a quadruple burger with two slices of ham, one slice of egg and one slice of sausage between all the other crap in there… Look at the picture yourself… and he actually ate this in bed… Urrk.

Tomorrow we are at Lutakko, Jyväskylä. This must be the third or forth time i am visiting Lutakko. I like that place and i remember they have a pretty good sauna downstairs/backstage. I wonder if this place can be as good as Helsinki this time?

See 'ya!

 

It feels refreshing right now. I have very good things coming up in the very near future, and several good things coming up a bit further away.

 

If we start with the near future - on wednesday we will kickstart this seasons touring with the Finnish tour "Kidneys to the limit" together with Turmion Kätilöt. I am sure this will be a blast! We were touring together with them last year as well and i just love these dudes. You need to search really hard to find a band with the same attitude as them, or even just half of their attitude... Anyway, we will tour Finland and do shows in five cities starting with Helsinki on wednesday. As usual i will be blogging here during the whole tour.

 

A little further away (in November to be a little bit more precise) it's time for the UK tour together with Nightwish and then the big european tour "Into darkness". We haven't been playing UK since 2009 so this is very big for all of us and i know we have Painheads waiting for us in UK! The european tour is in a "touring-festival" style and i think we are as much as five bands every night, this will be very interesting and i am really looking forward to this as well. Here we will join forces with Moonspell, Swallow the sun, Lake of tears and Scar of the sun. Also the long-awaited Pain-DVD "We come in peace" will be out the same day the tour starts! Don't miss that one, i laughed my ass off when i saw it first time...

 

And finally, the most personal happening to me is the release of the third album with 8thSin called "Cosmogenesis" on November 23rd. Finally! It took me more 6 years to get this album done so that's why this is very personal to me. This is the album we recorded in 2005-2006 for a planned 2007 release. But as both myself and Johan has been touring with Pain over the last 5 years it has simply never been time to finalize the project. Now i started the mixing 1,5 years ago and now it's finally ready to see the light. I have so much to tell about this album and the process, but will leave that for now and get back to the subject later on.

 

So, loads of things to look forward to, but let's start with our friends and neighbours in Finland on wednesday (and i will bring my brand new guitar, yay!). See 'ya all Finnish Painheads!