SA:On the road:Latin-America 15th anniversary part 1

Monday 3.3.2014-Travel Day

The great thing about living out in the woods is of course the connecting flights or actually the

lack of them, so we flew to Helsinki in the evening and spent the time there watching Pasi sign

1000 singles (we, the Kemi guys did it at home and Elias managed to do that as well). So, he signed 

the Cloud Factory single as well as the 3rd single from which there will be a video as well :-) …

like a real music video. Anyways, a few beer and Tommy & I started to watch the Sons of Anarchy series from the beginning….again…

Tuesday 4.3.2014-Travel Day

…after the inevitable passing out while watching the SoA, I woke up at 0427. Just like that, you ask ? And the answer would be Hell NO ! I set my alarm to 0430 and asked Pasi to call me when he was ready for the early breakfast at the hotel. Did indeed drag myself downstairs, ate some and then picked up my luggage from the room for the 0500 lobby call (for those of you who don’t know the lingo, lobby call means that at that time everyone, including yours truly has to be in the lobby of the hotel at that time). At the airport I managed to fuck up, meaning that when I drove my trolley on to the escalator somehow I got it all wrong an all my stuff and a couple of racks ( I think it was Elias amp) were shattered all around.After I quit laughing my ass of about my accident, I got the stuff together and we could do the check-in, the drink and board the aircraft (trying to avoid the plane world here, don’t know why ) for our flight to my favourite place in the whole wide world, the Frankfurt airport.

How do you think I spend the time at my favourite place, especially when there’s about 5 hours to 

kill before the nice 12+ hour flight to Mexico City ? Anyways the flight was as boring as usual, drinks

dinner,sleep...the basic stuff.

…and of course we missed the connecting flight to Monterrey, meaning an extra night at the Mexico City airport. Had some drinks (a lot actually) , slept a few hours and then it was time to leave.

Wednesday 5.3.2014-Monterrey,Mexico

A short flight, some 20min by car and we’re at our hotel. The crew went directly to the venue to set things up and I had a late lunch with Pasi,Tony & Tommy. Our hotel got upgraded to the Sheraton so we’ll be having a nice time, at least the few hours that we get to spend in our rooms. Tomorrow we have to fly to Chihuahua and play a show there and Friday is also more of the same, with flying in in the morning and playing at night.

At around 1800 we went to the venue and did the soundcheck. It’s always a bit nervous when starting the tour after a break, and especially with the jetlag kickin in and all, we had to work quite hard to make it work. Nevertheless we got through the show with only some minor issues. Tony forgot to introduce Pasi our new bass player and at the beginning of Kindom for a heart I forgot the number of the sound that the song start with so I missed the intro, trying to figure it out. Sometimes your mind just go blank at the most inconvenient time. Apart from that and the fact that the stage sound was very difficult (the subwoofers were located below the stage so it was pretty crazy to play) the show was ok I think. Not a perfect 10 but a solid effort and a starting point for us to build on. I’m sure tomorrow will be even better.

Thursday 6.3.2014-Travel Day + Chihuahua, Mexico

Got to the hotel just before 0100 at night with the possibility to sleep for a few hours. Since the lobby call was set at 0615, there wasn’t too much time so I headed straight to bed. In the morning I managed to skype home for a bit and even eat a bit of breakfast before leaving. Poor Pasi was misinformed about when we were supposed to leave so he got downstairs about 45 min too early. Well, at least he had time to enjoy the breakfast in peace. Off to the airport, check-in and then the flight to Chihuahua. I did an interview per e-mail in the plane, which was the most exciting thing during the whole flight ;-)

We might change some things with the setlist but I’m not sure yet. Our second single from Pariah’s Child is out so maybe we should give that one a try. These first three shows we’ll probably keep the setlist we have at the moment, just to get started and kill the jetlag and make everything work. Btw this it of course the first time in Latin America for Pasi but also for two of our crewmembers. Pekka our drumtech and Joonas who’s doing the stage sound on this tour. So far everything has gone well, but we’ll see in a week or so when the lack of sleep and brutal schedule starts to take its toll on people :-)

Anyways, time to take a nap.

cheers,

Henkka