Home sweet home! Even though it has been a great adventure in many ways, touring through Sound America and Central America, it's always the same when you get back home... Piece of mind. I love it and i need it. Now i will not touch my guitars again until mid-July when we have our next shows; the Rockharz Festival in Germany, the Masters of Rock Festival in Czech Republic and the Bang your head Festival in Germany.

We have been travelling through 4 time zones, 7 countries, 6 cities, doing 5 shows with 10 flights in 12 days. I am jet-lagged and fucked up, but i cannot stress this enough; THANK YOU ALL PAINHEADS! I must say honestly that i was not ready for this reaction or response, and all of you crazy Painheads of South America and Central America have all proved me wrong. I am happy you all proved me wrong. The thing is that i never thought that we had so many fans over there, but from now on i will just shut up, hehe. I have many good memories from this tour that will sit there forever in my heart.

After an early breakfast with Michael Kiske, Macke Ring and Johan Husgafvel we went to the airport in Mexico City. I wished i had time to spend a few more days in this place, as it is an interesting city indeed. I wanted to see Templo Mayor (as the title of the old 8th Sin song) so i guess i have to come back here at some point! Anyway, our flight to Madrid took 11 hours, then we waited in Madrid for another 4 hours until the last flight took us to Stockholm in another 4 hours. So all in all it took me about 23 hours door-to-door Mexico City to Stockholm. It was a long trip and it sucked out the last energy in me, but i think it was worth it.

Until next time - have a drink on me!


Live in San Jose, Costa Rica


Ticket to the show in Mexico


Tired guys at the airport in Madrid, on our way back home to Sweden

After a early 3 hour flight from Costa Rica we finally arrived in Mexico. We went straight to the hotel to get some more sleep while our crew went straight to the venue. Loads of fans were waiting outside the hotel when we arrived so next time we left the hotel the driver picked us up on the backside... We got a great hotel (same as Gotthard and Unisonic), and we started the morning with breakfast (Breakfastpoints: 6) and then went to sleep for a while in our rooms. This last show of the tour is a bit special as it is a event with 3 bands; Unisonic, Gotthard and "the band that always get into trouble".

Gotthard started the evening (unfortunately i missed most of their show as we arrived late) followed by yours truly and his fellow retards. Our show went great and we had a really good time. I'd say we got treated very well by our Mexican fans, thank you! We also filmed parts of this show for possible use later.
After our show it was Unisonic on stage. Unisonic is the new band where Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske have joined forces again after 23 years. I have always been a big Helloween fan, so to me it was a big thing to be have these guys around, but also Mandy Meyer from Asia. I must say i was totally blown away from Mr Kiskes vocals... He is just amazing, when he was singing parts from the old Priest song "Victim of changes" i died a bit. Total respect!

This morning i had breakfast with Michael Kiske - really nice guy.

The only that remains from this South American / Central American tour now, is a looooooong way back home to Sweden. About 20-22 hours for me and David, but we have the easiest trip of all of us. Some have up to 30 hours to go before they are home again :-)



Beautiful Mexico from above


Mexico City - 9 million people lives here, almost the same as entire Sweden


Just arrived in Mexico City, fans were meeting us at the airport


The view from my hotel. But don't get me wrong, the hotel itself is fantastic!


I am not used to earthquake warnings, coming from Sweden


Peter and me - jalapeno and Corona. Yes we are in Mexico :-)


The only proper drink in Mexico if you ask me


Daysheet for Mexico City


Last show of this tour


The trohpy of the day, thrown up on stage in Mexico City - Pain thong


Unisonic with Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske played after us


Johan, David, and me, backstage after the show in Mexico City. Rawk Style


Backstage after the show in Costa Rica the day before

After the spectacular day when we had "some difficulties" getting out of Colombia, it felt really good to finally be at stage in San Jose, Costa Rica. It was close to being cancelled if we couldn't get there in time. The show went really good, and i think we did our best show so far on this tour. At least it felt so. Having such big stage makes things so much easier, but also brings out the spirit in all of us to really use the whole stage. We had so much fun on this show, we were just smiling and laughing all the time, and also brought on two extra songs after the final encore just for the fun of it. Thank you San Jose for the great support we got from all of you!

One thing that was funny in San Jose, was all the crazy Pain merchandise that i had never seen before. T-Shirts, hoodies, shorts, caps, coffee mugs, wallets, buttons, stickers, patches, and even pillows!

Next stop is the final show on this South American / Central American tour. We will do the last show together with Gotthard and Unisonic in Mexico City. We are all very thrilled to do this, and i guess everybody also miss home by now. I do anyway.

So, Mexico City, are you ready? We are!



We got our own personal Pain-towels for the show in San Jose :-)


Emanuel is doing soundcheck on Davids drums in San Jose


A happy Peter with the Eleven Rack & Sennheiser rig = Pain backline!


My Jackson is ready to rock in San Jose, right before the show


Loads of Pain merchandise i had never seen before...


Live in San Jose


The line to the signing session was long...


Presents from Painheads in San Jose - handmade miniature guitars :-)

Yesterday was a crazy day in Pain world. We never thought when we left Bogota that the day will progress like it did. But sometimes i have to remind myself what band i am in... It shall never be easy, and it shall always hurt in any possible way, and we shall always expect the unexpected - never assume.
Note to self: Remind yourself every day that the band name is Pain.

THANK YOU COLOMBIA!

Damn you were loud! Damn you were hot! Damn you showed us how real Painheads kick ass in Colombia!

This show was close to a riot, and there is only one word to describe it - chaos! The guards had a really hard time holding up the security barriers... I almost passed out a few times on stage and it took me almost an hour to come down to normal pulse again after the show. You gave us everything so we gave you everything! I nearly threw up in the van on our way from the venue, and had difficulties to breath with asthma-like tendencies. Shit, you guys are killing me…! Then i realised why: Bogota is located 2.625 metres above sea level and it is more difficult to breathe here as it is, even without a hot Pain show in a sold out venue :-)

We couldn't get in to the venue before the show as the crowd outside were going totally crazy. We had to drive around the blocks several times until they could find enough guards to create a "human corridor" for us to walk through, from the van into the venue. Then we came back and ran into the venue right up on stage and kicked off the show.

After the show it was even more crazy so we had to run straight from the stage out on the street where our van was waiting with the engine running (surrounded by guards) to get us out of there as soon as possible. We had to do what we could to avoid a riot. Really.

Today we are leaving Colombia and are heading for Costa Rica. San Jose, are you also ready for some Pain?

After we had arrived in Bogota yesterday and had our second breakfast that day, we all went to our rooms and fell asleep. I woke up some 4-5 hours later when David told me we are leaving the hotel to go sightseeing. Rise 'n shine!

This is not only a very big city, the heavy traffic seems to be a problem at any point during the day (or night). After a journey through the whole city we ended up halfway up the mountains that surrounds the city. It turned out that up there on the top of the mountain there's a catherdral and you can go there by cablecar / cableway and most of the gang wanted to do this. Okay. It's easy to be cocky when you are on your way there, but when we arrived at the ramp and i looked up... No fucking way! I remember almost shitting my pants when i was in the Eiffeltower in Paris so i knew this is not my cup of tea. Same thing for Peter, Johan and Macke but the rest of the gang went up. So we refused and took a looooong walk down the mountain together with our guides, to downtown Bogota instead.

There we found a bar and ordered a few 1,5 L pitchers of beer and was just watching the heavy traffic with a smile. I will probably always remember this city as the city of buses. I have never seen so many buses and the traffic looks like chaos to me, but probably it's not in their world. I am just not used to it. After a few hours the rest of the gang came and picked us up after their journey to the top of the mountain, and we all went back to the hotel for dinner.

After dinner we went to the rock club where we are doing our show tonight, and had a "meet & greet" signing event. We met loads of happy fans that seemed to be grateful that we have finally made our way to Colombia, and i guess we will see them all at the show tonight. Right now i am in bed at my hotel room writing this blog. I have woke up 05:50 this morning again, pissed off about my jet-lag, managed to sleep a little bit more, then went to breakfast with Johan at 07:00 just to get rid of the feeling of being restless for a while. Breakfastpoints:1.

The rest of this day is planned with lunch, go to the venue and do soundcheck, go back to hotel, dinner, back to venue and do the show, back to the hotel and sleep.

Reality check:
When i realised we were going to South America i was thinking "wow, this will be damn hot". So i packed sun lotion, shorts, swimming trunks and so on. Hahaha! We have barely seen the sun and have not been beyond 19 degrees so far! We have been in Argentina, Uruguay, Brasil and now Colombia, and still no shorts in the sun. Of course i am just being stupid and didn't remember that this is on the other side of the globe from where we live, so at this time of year it is not that hot. Note to self: check weather report before packing...



Macke, David and Hede before we went to the mountains


We witnessed a fire on our way to the mountains...


This is the cableway up the mountains... I would never do that.


Peter and i just decided that we will not go up there! :-)


Palmtrees again, hehe :-)


Downtown Bogota, Colombia


Downtown Bogota; Johan in the foreground, mountains the the background.


Having a break with some beers


This is by far the coolest concert ticket i've ever seen! :-)


Outside the rock club after the "meet & greet" event

We left our hotel at 11pm and went to the airport of Sao Paulo. After a long check-in and some food we departured at 03:25 towards Bogota, Colombia. We all fell asleep immediately, even if i always have problems to sleep more than 30-40 minutes at a time, in an aeroplane chair. I wake up all the time so this night didn't really bring me the sleep i needed. The flight was 6 hours and we crossed another two time zones and landed 07:25 in Bogota. We have crossed the bigger part of the Amazonas djungle on the way here. Right before landing we had breakfast on the plane (breakfastpoint:2).

It took us a few hours to get out of the airport and to our hotel in Bogota, but here we are now. We just had breakfast #2 today, and will now spend the day relaxing, probably sleeping... The only schedule for tonight is a "meet & greet" event, and tomorrow we finally have our show here.

Bogota seems to be a beautiful city with about 7 million people. I really like the mountains that is surrounding the city, and the clouds are hanging lower that the top of the mountains!

I miss my beloved at home.



Beautiful Bogota where the mountains are higher than the clouds!


Arrived in Bogota


Having breakfast in the hotel in Bogota right after arrival


Live in Buenos Aires. Photo: Zynthia Zelaryan


Live in Buenos Aires. Photo: Zynthia Zelaryan


Live in Buenos Aires. Photo: Zynthia Zelaryan


Live in Buenos Aires. Photo: Zynthia Zelaryan


Live in Sao Paulo. Photo Raul Meireles


Live in Sao Paulo. Photo Raul Meireles


Live in Sao Paulo. Photo Raul Meireles

Another day in paradise...?

Anyhow, another day with no plans passed. David was working hard to get through his 36 beers, and i was watching movies again. We went to our shop next door to have some beers and food again, and the staff there knows us by now so they know what we will order, hehe.

Around 7pm we took two taxis to Churrascaria Novilho de Prata to celebrate David with a birthday dinner. This place was really something different and a new experience to most of us. They serve a great variation of meat, on a sword-like stick at your table. They have most different types of meat, and they will continue to come with new meat until you flip your little papersign from green to red. You have this little sign at your table next to your plate. The servicepoint here is 11 and you could barely put your glass back on the table before it was filled up again.

One thing that struck my mind was that i have no problems with my pollen allergies! Jiipeee! I haven't even noticed until now that i have no disctractions what-so-ever from that, which at this time of year is a nightmare. So that's the good thing - the bad thing is still the jet-lag waking me up at 5:30 every morning.

Today is the last day here in Sao Paulo, Brasil. We will go to the airport in the middle of the night (as if current jet-lag wasn't enough) and fly to Bogota in Colombia. That will take us 6 hours. Fortunately we don't have a show tomorrow when we arrive there, so we can have a rest and be fresh on thursday for the show. The plans for today is just to hang out at the hotel and rest as much as possible to be on the positive side when we have to fly the whole night and cross another two time zones. I will personally watch a few movies and read a book. The promotor has left the city and we don't speak spanish or portogese. Just like the other days here in Sao Paulo it is raining and only 18 degrees. So this is like Stockholm without the allergy.


Live in Buenos Aires. Photo: Ignacio Cangelo


Live in Buenos Aires. Photo: Ignacio Cangelo


Live in Buenos Aires. Photo: Ignacio Cangelo

So, what do you do in a city like Sao Paulo with 11 million people, when you have 3 days and no plans? This is supposed to be a sunny city, and it is all cloudy outside and "only" 18 degrees.
By the way, breakfastpoint at this hotel: 2.

We have been told what we can do and what we can not do, what we shall avoid and what we need to keep in mind. Do this, do not do this and so on. Having all that said, it leaves us with few options to actually DO something in this part of the world. After i had woke up way too early again (still jet-lagged) and had breakfast, we took a walk right outside our hotel. It was pretty obvious that there is nothing to do around here if we don't go further, and we are not allowed to. Okay. So i went back up to my room, tucked myself into bed again with my computer and watched a movie. After a while Peter came in and had bought a bag full of Smirnoff Ice for me - he is so sweet... Then he asked if he could borrow my toilet. This is when things started to go wrong. He was in there for a long time and i was still in bed watching my movie. When he finally came out he was yelling something about his poo that would refuse to flush away. He was running in and out of the toilet with different ideas of how to get rid of the smelly damn things swimming around in there. It was four large fellows that just wouldn't go away. Finally he gave up and left my room with a smile and said "your toilet is fucked up now". Thanks...

After the hotel service personell had been in my room to fix the poo-problem, i finished the movie and then went downstairs. Next to our hotel is a small shop, like a combination of a pub/coffee shop/bakery/hang-around. There i found the rest of the gang drinking beers. They had found beers in 1 Litre bottles and were so happy. As no one still had found anything better to do, we hang out in this place for the rest of the day. We drank their beers (and Smirnoff Ice) and ate when ever we felt hungry. When it became dark outside Eric suggested that we all took a cab to a local bar he knew, to continue the party. So we did. I have no idea where we were, but it was a really nice place and we continued our party there.

The next day (today) is Davids birthday. After waking up too early again (DAMN!) i picked up Johan and had breakfast already at 7am. I hate jet-lag. Anyway, we woke up everybody except David, then went to this local shop next door again and asked to buy 36 bottles of beer to our drummer who turns 36 today. It was 8:45 in the morning and they just looked at us, shaking their heads and gave us a quantity discount, hehe... We actually emptied their fridge completely, and it was before 9am!
Then we went back to the hotel with 36 beers, kicked in the door to Davids room and started singing "happy birthday to you" and served the 36 beers to him in bed. The look in his face will be priceless forever!

It is even worse weather today, raining, and we have still no plans what-so-ever. Wish us luck.



Johan having a walk next to our hotel in Sao Paulo


Lining up the 1 Litre bottles of beer at the shop next to our hotel


Sunday dinner in Sao Paulo: Meat, bacon, egg, cheese, ham...
Goodbye calm stomach!


The poo-man, in the streets of Sao Paulo


Eric took us to a bar somewhere in Sao Paulo to continue the party


Party in Sao Paulo


36 beers for breakfast in bed - for the guy who turns 36 today!


Surprise! :-)


Live in Sao Paulo


Live in Buenos Aires

Woke up with a jetlag around 04:00 as usual when i am in the wrong time zone. Was tossing and turning until 5:45 when i finally got up and packed our pags. Went for breakfast (brekfastpoints:1) around 06:00 and then we left to the airport. There we ended up in loud discussions with the staff at the counter who refused to take our all our luggage. First of all they could barely understand english, which in my world is needed of you work in an airport, and second, they were not willing to make any exceptions and help us out in any way. I can not recommend this airline to anyone, but i guess i shouldn't mention their name here... Anyhow, with our local promotors help (who could translate) we managed to get out of the situation after more than an hour of heated discussions. We jumped on the plane that took us to Montivideo, Uruguay.

This was a pretty short flight and we landed in Uruguay about 45 mins later. But we had a fantastic view over the shorelines of Buenos Aires on the way there, and i had a laugh when i realised that there's a cultural difference around the whole flight-thing in this part of the world. While the plane is still "climbing" its way up towards the sky, with a steep uphill slope, the "fasten your seatbelt" sign turns off and people starts to walk around in the cabin - or shall i say climibing around? It looks funny i must say, as we are used to not being able to walk around until the plane has straightened properly.

After a short break in Uruguay, we entered the plane that took us to Sao Paulo, Brasil. This was a much longer flight, i think around 2,5h and the landing was somehwhat ugly! The plane went down to land but the heavy winds were throwing the Bobardier plane back and forth and when we finally hit the ground it was almost sideways :-)
In the emergency instructions it said: "in case of emergency and landing on water, you have to bring your seat". What? Bring your seat? I have never seen this before and had a great laugh about it, as it looked funny in the instructions. Hede took a great picture of this.

The trip to the city from the airport of Sao Paulo was very interesting. I don't think i have ever seen a city this size with that many skyskrapers! This place is huge! We saw it from the sky as well, but it was even more prominent during the long drive towards downtown. Unfortunately this was a day with no sun in Sao Paulo :-(

We went straight to the venue "Blackmore Rock Bar" and were surprised. We were a bit late for soundcheck that was supposed to be around 4pm, but realised that the place was not in a condition for us to start anyway. Most equipment were in bad condition and things were missing. This is around 4pm. At 8pm we are at the exact same level and haven't even started our soundcheck yet - we were supposed to be on stage at 9pm, after a support act... The entire day and evening passed and we had to make compromises to almost everything, and this affected our support act as well. It was not heir fault but they had to make a shorter show and without any soundcheck at all. I am sad to say this, as the fans who have paid money to see our show deserves betterif you ask me! The good news is that it was a good show anyway, from a performance perspective, and certainly from the audience perspective. I hope our fans (that have been waiting for so many years for us to come to Brasil) was happy anyway! We did our very best, i can promise you that!

After the show we went to our hotel and i went straight to bed. Some of my colleagues did not though... But now we will stay in Sao Paulo for three days until we are heading for Bogota, Colombia, on wednesday. I have no idea what we will do here, but i am sure will will find something out. It's Davids birthday tomorrow so i guess we have to throw him a party anyway? :-)


Johan and David having breakfast in Buenos Aires airport


Leaving Buenos Aires


About to leave Montivideo, Uruguay


The airport of Montivideo, Uruguay


My gear on the flight to Sao Paulo, a book and a beer


Bring your seat if we land on water... Photo by Hede


Just arrived in Sao Paulo, Brasil


Arriving at Blackmore Rock Bar in Sao Paulo


The stairs that shall take you to the stage...


Backstage in Sao Paulo

I had no idea you guys in Buenos Aires were so crazy - seems like we have loads of Painheads here as well! The show went great and we ha d a really good time on stage. We had some technical issues but everything was solved in time by our great crew as always.

There were loads of loud Painheads everywhere, at the hotel, outside the venue, everywhere, and you all showed us your love and dedication. Thank you!!!

Now we have a very early flight tomorrow morning to Sao Paulo, via Montevideo, so we have to call it a rap and sum up at the hotel.


Soundcheck in Buenos Aires


A fan with the Painversion of the Argentina flag, and Peter, backstage after the show


Another fan who also made his own Argentina flag for the show


Funny, the backstagewine was TrumPETER :-)


Backstage before the show


Our Sennheiser beltpacks for the wireless systems - came along to South America as well

I guess you can imagine how we all feel right now... I am at the hotel in my room in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It took us some 21+ hours to get here from Sweden and man it was a long trip... First we flew to Madrid where we had to spend 5 hours until the next flight to Buenos Aires. What happens if you put this band and the crew in an airport for 5 hours? I guess you can imagine.

When i am writing this i am still sitting in my living room having breakfast. I have packed my bags and are ready to go in about two hours. I only have three bags; one bag with clothes, one "handluggage bag" with the Eleven Rack, and one case with my Jackson guitar. The guitar by the way, came back just yesterday from Jackson (adjustig and set-ups) and i must say they really take good care of their customers! Such a great instrument just became even better! Thanks guys!

It is now less than a week until we leave Sweden and Europe for our South American tour. Since we came home from the show in Norway i have been busy working hard on the 8th Sin album "Cosmogenesis", and also about a week ago my grandmother Anna-Greta Bohlin died at the age of 88 years. Now it's only two more people alive with this family name. So the first thing i have to do when i get back from the tour is to go to her funaral two days later, where she will be buried next to my grandfather Per Bohlin. May they now both rest in peace together.

Anyway, Pain has never been touring in Sound America before, so this is the very first time. For what i have heard we have shitloads of fans over there and they have been waiting for us for a long time. So i guess it's finally time to conquer new ground, and i am really looking forward to it! But at the same time, the distances in South America is just mental... It feels like we will not do anything else than be on stage and in a plane for the whole tour. Again, on the other hand, i will not have any pollen allergy problems over there (that i have right now, really sick!).

But i am now very eager to see how the South American painheads are doing, and how many they are! :-)

Went up at 5am to have breakfast and a shower. Got picked up at 7am by David and Andre and went to the airport. We all knew we had a terrible long day ahead of us so we tried to get into good-mood already in the morning to make it through the day. We met the rest of the gang at Arlanda and it was raining like hell, typical Sweden in April. After a morning drink in the bar we boarded the plane to Oslo. We had a few beers at the flight and then arrived in Oslo around 11am. There we had over 3 hours to kill until the next flight to Haugesund. So we found a place with enough place for all of us, and had pizza and beers. We also met the guys from Vader at the airport who were waiting for the same flight.

Finally in Haugesund we went straight to soundcheck followed by dinner, then straight to the hotel for a couple of hours of sleep. We needed that for sure. Haugesund is a really beautiful litte town, located at the west coast of Norway. I was watching the beautiful view from my hotel window and saw that Doro and her band were having a photosession by the harbour below - good idea!

We haven't played in Norway since 2008. At that point we played the Norway Rock Festival in Kvinesdal and we had a great time. I remember Ronny Le Tekro and his band was at stage before us and he also saw our show. Ronny and TNT is one of those guys i really respect, so it was cool to see this, especially in Norway! Helloween and Alice Cooper was also on stage after us that night and i remember we had a really good time backstage with some of the guys. Especially Markus from Helloween who we talked into trying Swedish Snus... do i have to say he didn't like it? Hehe... Alice Coopers guitarplayer came up to us at the brekfast in the hotel the next day and just said "you guys are fucking crazy" then he just walked away again.

Okay, none of us had played a song since November last year when we ended the 2011 tour in Stockholm. You feel a but rusty and get that feeling that it was a couple of years ago since you were on stage - it was not, we are only talking about 4,5 months... :-)

2011 is over for Pain. We have done 47 shows in 15 countries.

Thanks to our fantastic crew who makes everything possible. Hede, Kimmo, Macke, Emanuel, Kjellgren, Jens. I guess i am not expressing my gratitude as often as i should, sorry for that!

Thanks to all our drivers, tourmanagers and catering personnel that has been working with us this year. I guess you won't hear "thanks" as often as you deserve either... So - Thanks!

Thanks to Raubtier, Engel, Turmion Kätylöt and Black Light Discipline. I had a blast with you guys! New friends in the Pain family, and more crazy memories to be told :-)

Thanks to Jackson guitars, Sennheiser, Rawk/Xzavier, Dunlop strings and Avid Technology. Because of you i had the best gear and the best possible sound available. Your support makes me feel safe and calm when i know i always have the best (and best looking) gear.

Thanks to my colleagues at work, who keeps up with me and my irregular travels... They never know if i am at the office or on the road from one week to the other. I really appreciate your support.

But most of all, thanks to YOU, all our Painheads that has been supporting us. We are nothing without your support, and and i am always proud of our Painheads around the world - respect.


Now it's time to draw back and lick our wounds. I will continue to work on the 8th Sin album "Cosmogenesis" that i think will come out at some point next year, and in December i will lay down under the knife to do a surgery. After that i will be in bed for a couple of weeks.

I'll write here again next time we are on the road. Lots of you seems to like this blog, that's why i do it.
Keep in touch at the official Pain forum (found through our site www.painworldwide.com). You can also find Pain and 8th Sin pages at Facebook and MySpace.

//Michael Bohlin



Pain 2011 passes


Denis Goria in action, filming for our upcoming DVD


The filmcrew is making final preparations for the show


The filmcrew is making final preparations for the show


Rigging for DVD recording in Stockholm


Rigging for DVD recording in Stockholm


Denis Goria in action, filming for our upcoming DVD

In Sweden we call this day "Fathers Day", and it is when all fathers are being celebrated by their children. It was just a co-incidence that the date for our last show became the same as the annual Fathers Day.

So, to be able to spend time with my children, i drove back to Stockholm right after the show in Örebro. My girlfriend came with our car so we could go right after the show, while the others stayed and came next day with the tourbus as usual. But as i came home after the show, i could sleep at home in my own bed, and wake up fresh. My youngest daughter came around lunchtime and we had some applepie. Then i left to the venue for soundcheck in the afternoon. After soundcheck i met my oldest daughter and went to have dinner with her before the doors open.

Everything this day was delayed a lot. Load in, soundcheck, doors, showtime. The reason was mainly that this show was filmed for an upcoming DVD and the preparation for this is huge. They had to build up the camera cranes and it was loads of extra people working in the film team, i think it was eight cameras.

After all we could enter the stage for the last time this year, about 45 minutes too late. The venue was full and the expectations were high. I personally squeezed out the last drips of energy that i had left, to make this as good as possible, and the payback was a good show but a fucked-up Michael afterwards. I was so exhausted that i almost vomited after the show, but i also had a cold coming up again which didn't really make it easier. When i came home after the show i had fever. I think i got the same as Peter, who had a really bad cold as well. Anyway, the show itself was great and we had a good time, and Andre Skaug was visiting us on a couple of songs. As we were "home" in Stockholm we had hundreds of friends showing up and the whole feeling was just fantastic. Bands, friends, families, journalists, photographers and others - they were all there.

I will wrap up this tour in a separate blog, but for now - thanks to everybody involved!



Camera preparations


Camera preparations


Camera preparations

Today is Johans birthday! We celebrated him as much as we could in real Pain-manner. He got birthday cake in the tourbus, and we sang to him. We had a nice dinner with him at "Wongs", then we celebrated him on stage in Örebro, with help from Raubtier and crew. The whole audience sang for Johan and we had funny hats and balloons :-)
Overall it was a really good show, and we had loads of fun. Hulkoff from Raubtier joined us on stage at "Shut your mouth" and we joined Raubtier in one song as well. It was all like a big funny party on stage.

Örebro is also the place where Björn (our merchandise guy at the european part of the tour) lives, so he came to see us together with his family. Nice to see him agian!

Tomorrow is the last show on this tour and in 2011. Stockholm!!!



Johans birthdaycake!


Johans birthdaypresents from Pain, Raubtier and Crew. Delivered by Hulkoff


Blue birthdaycake, shared backstage


Kulturhuset in Örebro, Sweden


Pain in Örebro, Sweden

!!! 11-11-11 !!!
You shouldn't have too high hopes, that's what i learned today. Normally, eleven is my lucky number, but today i seriously doubt it.

I woke up early as usual, and realised that i got almost no sleep this night as the party in the bus was serious. Normally i sleep like a stone even though people are having a party. Also, the party normally goes on upstairs and i have my bed downstairs, so it's fine. But this night it was all over the top, on both floors and outside the bus. So i was terrible tired all morning and just tried to figure out when i could get my sleep back.

Then we arrived in Mariestad and i walked into the venue to get something to eat. That's when i first saw the stage. I was like "is this a joke?". As long as i have been in this band, i have never played in such small stage ever. The stage-set we have is pretty big, but it can also be transformed to adapt to different stage sizes. But this was something else... I started to think that this day will be interesting.

As we have such fantastic crew, they always tries to get the best out of every situation, and in some crazy way the found a way to use small parts of our stage-set in this venue anyway. We made our soundcheck and it felt like it will be okay after all. Then i got reminded again that this is a Pain tour. When we were about to eat dinner, the whole place went dark. The power system in this building was not really top of the line so to speak.. Mixing consoles started to blink and all electrinics went nuts. Something really bad had happened to the power system and it was clear that our gear was too much for it.

So, terribly hungry, we were sitting in a dark restaurant with candles on the table, waiting for the power to come back so they could start making our food in the kitchen. The mood fell pretty low with most of us at this point. Eventually they managed to fix the power system and everything started to function again, including the kitchen and we got our dinner.

I went out to the bus and went to sleep. I really need to get my sleep! I fell asleep right away and woke up two hours later by my alarm clock. I don't know if this was a good idea, but to wake up 50 minutes before showtime, and feel like a zombie (even more tired than before) is taking it's toll sooner or later.

Showtime. We managed to fit the stage even though we couldn't move at all. After just a few songs, in "The end of the line", Buffeln from Raubtier had a bright idea to come up on stage to give Peter a shot of booze. Not that smart. Due to the small stage size, he pushed me over when he was leaving the stage so i fell backwards towards the drums, and managed to get hold of a moving head right before i hit the floor. After the feeling i got through this whole day, i got totally pissed off when this happened and started to yell at him. This was not intentional and he was very sorry about this, and i had to apologize afterwards. The whole situation just made me so angry, but not really at him. Poor Buffeln :-(

Next stop is Örebro, and also Johans bithday!



Our backline tech, Emanuel. Faceless.


Welcome to Mariestad


Less than 50% of our stage-set could fit in the venue in Mariestad..


Loading the bus after the show, at 3:30 am in Mariestad


Mariestad by night

We arrived in a very sunny and nice Gothenburg around lunchtime, and the first person i met was Patrik Douglas. Patrik was touring with us (actually with Engel) on the European part of the tour, and it was very nice to meet him again! Just like yesterday we had many friends visiting us at the show. All our friends in Engel came to pay us a visit, as well as Peter Iwers from In Flames, the great guys from Jackson Guitars, Baskim from Meta 4 Music and many more. The Painhead Sean from France was also at the show, i wonder how many shows he has seen now? Also, do you remember when i wrote about this Italian Painhead that was at every Italian show and then also in Barcelona? She was at the show as well... I am stunned...

Anyway, the show was great, and we got many comments afterwards about the fantastic sound! Especially from people who has seen many shows in this venue that said that "normally it sounds like shit here, but tonight it was fantastic, and that guitar sound!". Things like this is very inspiring to hear, and i am bound to say that the reason is Kimmo Ahola, Venue SC48 and Eleven Rack. It's a winning concept. Period.

After the show, Peter Iwers brought us all to his own bar/restaurant that he opened up this summer. It is called 2112 and is a really nice placei must say! We tried the In Flames whisky and some other good stuff. I promised Peter and myself that i will visit this place again and try out the menu - it looks really promising!

Tomorrow we will be in Mariestad, and it's 11-11-11! My lucky number is 11, so this will be interesting!
:-)



This is the first thing i saw in the bus when i woke up this morning...


Beautiful day in Gothenburg


Parked outside "Brew house" in Gothenburg


Playtime again, more planes and stuff bought today. Buffeln and Hede is happy


David and Johan is building tanks...


Special guitar pick from the bar/restaurant 2112


Pain with Peter Iwers from In Flames, at 2112

Back in the tourbus again. Back in black. We left Stockholm late last night together with Raubtier and our whole crew. David didn't go with us as he was busy and arrived today with train to Lund instead. Same with Johan, who doesn't even live in Stockholm, so he also joined us in Lund. Our crazy French photographer Denis Goria also joined in Lund, as he will do some documentary for some possible future stuff. We drove all night and arrived early morning in Lund. First we picked up all our gear that had been in a warehouse after the european tour, and then we continued to the venue. We realised that some very important gear was left in Germany in our other tourbus, so our German tourmanager Marcus Müller had to pick up the gear and drive all the 700km to Lund and leave it before our soundcheck. Sweet. Now we don't have to remind ourselves that this is a Pain tour.

It's fun to be back with Raubtier again, and with Johan. I have missed him a lot. The crazy Raubtier guys went to a store in Lund and bought really expensive radio-controlled mini-helicopters. They went out on the backside of the venue, started them up, flew about 2 minutes, and then crashed them all completely. That was very expensive 2 minutes of fun... Jeez

I like to play in Sweden, among all our friends. Our guestlist on every show in Sweden is completely packed. This night we had friends from Xzavier/Rawk and Avid, among many others. The show was good and it was packed in "mejeriet"! Lots of energy, and after a couple of songs it felt like last show was yesterday.

Tomorrow we will end up in Gothenburg. The home of great metal, and we have loads of friends there. I am really looking forward to see them all!



Johan is back! (-stage, hahaha)


David is polishing his metal painheads


Raubtiers metal was already shiny


Soundcheck in "Mejeriet", Lund. Venue SC48 as usual. Kimmo Ahola as usual.


Back in Black - our home right now


David before the show (and Denis is always around...)


Audience in Lund