SA:On the road:Finland 15th anniversary part 3 11.2.-16.2.2014

Wednesday 12.2.2014 Lutakko / Jyväskylä

Rolling Rolling Rawhide. Some of the shorted drives of this trek and after a stop at a truckstation

for coffee and cigarettes we finally get to Jyväskylä. The band headed out for dinner and when we got to the point where nobody was hungry anymore it was time to take a nap. Around 1800 we walked to the venue where our crew had set up the stuff for soundcheck. The only ”out of the routine”-thing today was a quick photoshoot at 1900 before the doors opened. A quick dinner at the venue and the I took a walk with our new drumtech Suikkari. I run out of deodorant so i needed to get some….which I managed to do. After that I tried to watch the Sweden-Czech Rep. icehockey game and actually was able to watch some bits of that before it was time for work ;-) Tonight was a really hot show (which I like) and some excited people enjoying or performance, so all was fine and dandy. Throw in a quick aftershow sauna with Elias and you have a happy dude. Ended the night with a couple of ciders in our room while watching the classic Dinner for One and Roadhouse. Easy going, for a reason that you’ll see below.

Thursday 13.2.2014 Kylpylähotelli Rauhanlahti / Kuopio

Was pretty tired when I woke up to the alarm clock at 0930, nevertheless Tommy joined me for breakfast and then, finally: Finland-Austria olympic ice hockey. Jiiihaaa. Of course we had to leave before the end of the game but I think it ended 8-4 to Finland. Another short (around 2h) busride later we arrived in Kuopio.Tonight we’re playing in a spa/hotel so this might be interesting. I plan on catching some Ice Hockey games during the day and early evening. We’re gonna start to play very late I think it was around 2230. I’ll let you know how this works out, now it’s time to do some e-mail interviews before we arrive in Kuopio.

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Watched the Slovakia-USA and Canada-Norway hockey games, took a nap, some lunch and dinner later on, how was your day ? We played at the hotel night club which was a bit interesting, having to walk through the audience to get on and off stage etc. but it was entertaining that’s for sure. Midway through the set some old timer started to yell out his lifestory which was really weird, he even wanted to tell his story in Tony’s microphone when given the chance but just in case you get some ideas: Our shows are not open mic or amateur hour even if we sometimes play in nightclubs. What an idiot. Other than that the fans seemed to enjoy the show and everything went well. Our backstage was in one of the conference rooms downstairs so naturally we ended the night with evening drinks, watching crap on youtube on the big screen that was featured in the room.

Friday 14.2.2014 Rytmikorjaamo / Seinäjoki

Up at 0930 and the bus started moving towards Seinäjoki @ 1000. Some coffe & cigarette breaks later we got there and as usual it was straight to the hotel for the band. I had a really good nap on the bus so it was easy to just focus on hockey and dinner. Punky our trusty Production Manager / Light designer, hooked up the big screen in the dressing room so we could enjoy our great hockey team beating Norway. During the show my M3 melted down for awhile, as I looked down on it the screen just showed some random commodore 64 graphics, luckily it worked after rebooting. This was during the end of W & R btw. I remember that we had some problems with the midi wireless here last time so it might be connected to that somehow since the M3 totally jammed and was non responsive to anything else than turning the power off. After the show I met my one of my sisters and her friends before it was time to go to the hotel.

Saturday 15.2.2014 Logomo / Turku

One of the better venues in Finland and  a really nice way to end this part of the 15th anniversary tour. Started from Seinäjoki at 0900..etc etc…arrived…since we were going to drive home after this we canceled most of the hotel rooms of course it helped knowing that the backstage here @ Logomo is great so no worries about not being able to rest or even worse, not being able to watch hockey. Spent the day doing basically nothing, but by this time you already know this is how I prefer to spend the showdays. Somehow playing for about 2 hours every night requires a bit of an effort so you need your rest to keep the energy level up. With the brutal schedule in Latin-America I know that’s gonna be one big sleepfest when we’re not on stage ;-) One of my other sisters showed up for the gig and my main concern was of course about the M3, but it worked fine so hopefully that’s the last we hear about that crap. My plan was to renew my setup after this world tour so I’d need the damn thing to work for another 2 years…please….pretty please ?

Aftershow we took some quick showers and packed ourselves into the bus and the long ride

home…

…and finally in the morning we arrived back home, having dropped Elias  & Tero off

at Tampere (with the gear for the Latin-American Tour), and Pasi @ the trainstation in

Oulu. Now we have 2 weeks to enjoy what’s left of the Olympics and enjoy domestic life

in between interwievs before it’s time for the next adventure which will last almost 4 weeks

during which we’ll get to see 6 countries and the ever so lovely Frankfurt Airport ;-)

until then, 

I remain,

Henkka