Three days and two shows, both in Sweden, but very far from each other. Ludvika is a 2,5h drive west from Stockholm and Sorsele is a 1,5h flight and a 3,5h drive north from Stockholm. Crazy travelling when i am thinking of it afterwards. Have a look at the map and you understand what i mean, hehe... We did both these places this weekend, and it marked the end of this season with Pain. The only bad experience this weekend was the lack of sleep due to our tight schedule and long travels - about 6h in total during these three days. Not enough for an old and grumpy man :-)

The festival in Ludvika was "Gamrocken" and the one in Sorsele was "Rock out Wild". I brought the red/black and the black/silver Jacksons on this trip, using the red in Ludvika and the black in Sorsele. Everything except the sleep was great during this trip and it was a fantastic ending of this season with Pain 2013. Playing in Ludvika is always a treat as this is Peters hometown. It doesn't matter how big or small show it is, it's always good. Someone threw up a bra on stage when we played "Dirty Woman" which hasn't happened for a while, hahaha!

 

Johan, Emanuel and myself drove to and from Ludvika in my car, so i had to be sharp and alert both ways. So the late night after the show and early evening next morning was not the best fundament for my driving to Stockholm/Arlanda the next day. We came a bit late to the airport and were all tired, we went to the wrong terminal and had to run with all our luggage to the right terminal and came just in time for the flight to Luleå. It turned out that most bands that were about to play the festival in Sorsele was on this flight. We arrived in Luleå and were all (about 30 people) picked up in a large bus to drive us all to the festival in Sorsele.

 

The experience of Sorsele will probably always remain strong in my memory. This is very far north in Sweden and the environment, surroundings and climate is all different to what i am used to living in Stockholm. This is a beautiful place and the nature is just stunning. But the crazy part is the mosquitos - they are everywhere, all the time, and they are aggressive little maniacs! We had to cover our bodies with anti-mosquito grease all day and especially before the show. The place were the festival was held is a ski resort in wintertime (Nalovardo), so it was a very nice atmosphere to be around in high summer season, and all bands stayed in separate ski-cabins close to the backstage area. Really something we're not used to, and it was cool!

 

The show in Sorsele can be one of our best shows ever, or at lest top 5. It's true. Now you wonder: why is that? A small local festival in the middle of nowhere in Sweden? I'll tell 'ya: it's a matter of so many small things that all came together at the same time, and when this happens it doesn't matter where you are and if it's big or small. You just know it. We had such a great treat this evening and everything was 100% right. As an example, we had the best monitor sound on stage ever, and this makes you perform so much better. It sounded like being playing to a CD with headpnones! (i have to find our what company was doing this, and thank them). We were all in a very good mood, joking around all happy, fooling around on stage. We had great audience that treated us very well and maybe also the lovely nature environment of a ski resort in summertime together with the fact that it was the last show could also be a brick in this game. I don't know. But we were all agree afterwards that this was one of the best ever. The funniest detail must be that we had such feeling after the last song so we decided to do an improvised extra-extra song just for the fun of it, and David had to ask people from the audience to "borrow" his drumsticks back. He had no spares after the ones he threw out after what he thought was the last song! :-)

 

After the show our cabin was invaded by more or less every other band from the festival, as well as other random people i had no clue who they were. But the party became loud, wild and late. The next morning (or actually just a few hours after the last partymaniacs left our cabin) i woke up around 8 of a massive BANG! It was a great thunder that woke me up, so i got up and headed into the shower and while i was in there the next BANG came and then the electricity blacked out. Funny to be standing in the shower in a dark room with no electricity :-)

 

Anyway, all bands took the same way back with the large bus to Luleå airport and then all flew to Stockholm were everybody split up in various directions. The season is now over for Pain, and it feels like we had a blast. I hope you all have liked the readings of my reports, i get many kind messages in my official facebook page (www.facebook.com/bohlinmichael) and it's very nice to hear your reviews. It keeps me writing.

 

Keep up the spirit

 

//Michael