SA:On the road:Pariah’s Child World Tour / North-America part 3

Wednesday 17.9.2014-Joliet, IL

The show last night in Cleveland went well…as it usually does. I had a weird moment with Tony during the beginning of Sing in Silence but that was about it. Woke up in Joliet, feeling more or less back to normal so the flu is over for me ;-) . We went for dinner with the guys and a fan dude who was at the restaurant paid our first round of drinks which was really nicely done. Thanks man ! Did the usual soundcheck/meet&gree etc stuff and I recorded a couple of radio jingles for our show in Puerto Rico. The show was ok, did a bit more mistakes than usual and wasn’t too happy about it but whatta hell, tomorrow is a new day. Hang out with a bunch of friends after the show and had some beers. Good times.

Thursday 18.9.2014- Off / Travel Day

We spent the off-day at Mall of America…wherever that is. In the early afternoon we all went to the mall and spent the whole day there. Eating, drinking and buying stuff to bring home. I even went to this flight simulator thing with Tony and we battled with P-51 Mustangs. First we killed all enemy aircraft and then we ended up in a dogfight. I managed to drop him a couple of times but most of the time he was whipping my butt. That’s how it goes when someone has playd flying games (Tony) and someone else has no experience in the matter (me). Nevertheless it was really fun. We checked out the aquarium thing with sharks and whatnot…and also played minigolf. Whenever I play my only goal is to not finish last because I suck at it…so imagine the surprise when I won the damn thing !!! Yeah, that just happend !! Ended the night by watching Anchorman 2 in the bus while sipping on some Ron Burgundy whisky. This was a loooong but fun day.

Friday 19.9.2014-Winnipeg, Canada

We actually had a couple of invitations to do stuff today, one was to check out a sauna that one of our fans had built in his backyard and another was to go enjoy a swimming pool….we arrived in the afternoon and it was raining so the pool thing was out, as for the sauna I really like to take my time and enjoy it without a hurry so we had to skip that one as well. Too much work… We once again rehearsed the next song that will emerge in the set and I think we’ll play it tomorrow…and then the surprise is ruined. The show went without any hickups…except Tero forgot to put up my little ”lamp” so of course I had to tease him a bit about it. Didn’t have an effect on the show though. Afterwards I watched Friends re-runs on the TV and had a couple of glasses of white wine before it was time to go to sleep.

Saturday 20.9.2014-Regina, Canada

Somehow I didn’t really get going until the soundcheck on this day. I finally managed to get out of my PJ’s and flipflops around 3:30 in the afternoon just before the soundcheck. Spent the afternoon on the computer trying to catch up with the everlasting pile of e-mails etc…and got a lot done. For dinner some of the guys ordered chinese but me and Pasi went to the MD…had a big mac, and it was shit.Well I wasn’t hungry any more or perhaps I just lost my appetite…nevertheless it did the trick ;-) The whos itself was a smooth one and afterwards we watched some TV on the bus before heading to bed. Actually we spent most of the day watching Pawn Stars or watever the show is called….trying to guess what kind of deal the people selling stuff to the shop were going to get. Very intellectually challenging…at least by tour standards.

Sunday 21.9.2014-Edmonton, Canada

Go Oilers !! I was probably the last dude to wake up….papa needs his sleep. Some of us went to the mall and had breakfast before the usual routine started.After the afternoon obligations were fulfilled Elias, Pasi and I ordered some Pizza from the next door shop which was actually really good. I tried not to take a nap before the show but fell asleep for awhile in the front lounge while me & Pasi were watching Beverly Hills Cop…for those of you who attended the show, that’s why I played the theme song during one of Tony’s speaks…just couldn’t resist. We also played Letter to Dana for the first time since…maybe 2000 or something. At least it was the first time I’ve played the electric version with SA…we did do it acoustically during the Days of Grays World Tour but that’s about it… Let’s see if it will bee a keeper or not. After the show we hung out a bit outside the bus as usual and then it was time for movies and rest…..see y’all tomorrow.

Monday 22.9.2014-Calgary, Canada

I might have forgotten to mention that the new Silent Voices video is out, the one which we filmed ourselves ;-) here’s the link to that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mIUt6K0fPQ&feature=youtu.be

Anyways, well up in Calgary my day was more or less the usual thing. We went to a nearby Casino for dinner which was good actually. In the setlist we switched In the Dark to Sing in Silence and Love for Tallulah. So the ever changing setlist is still in motion :-)

We’re gonna start practising something new now since Letter to Dana made the setlist. Let’s see what it’ll be this time… After the show we met some fans and talked about the hockey game that we did outside in Calgary some years ago.Also made the promise that if we’re ever back here in the winter we’ll have a re-match. The show itself was hot as hell but that’s the way we like it so no bitchin’ here.

Tuesday 23.9.2014-Off day, Canada

Spent the off-day in Kamloops like so many times before. I didn’t really do anything but eat, drink and laundry. Had to spin the dryer some extra rounds since it was totally shit and that was the highlight of my day. I tried to launch one of the rockets I got at walmart earlier in the tour but I didn’t have enough battery power to trigger it. I’ll get some new batteries from Tero and give it another go at some point. We were all really tired for some reason so just after midnight it was a quiet bus.

Wednesday 24.9.2014-Vancouver,Canada

Slept about 10 hours or so and I feel goood. We couldn’t park at the venue so the bus is a few blocks away. Let’s see what kinda setlist we come up with tonight. After the show we’ll have the last bordercrossing so I hope all goes well. I think I’m gonna head out to town…see ya !!!

cheers,

Henkka

SA:Pictures from North-America part 2

More random pics in random order ;-)

Enjoy !!

Backstage in Winnipeg there's a vending machine and in addition to snacks you can actually

also buy guitar strings...great idea !!

A small aquarium in the outdoor/hunting store during the off day somewhere in PA.

Elias posing in that same store....

What I ate part 21: Cobb salad at the Mall of America.

What I ate part 20:Breakfast in PA, still don't know in what town we were...

What I ate part 19:Breakfast in Toronto a few blocks from the venue.

At the aquarium in the Mall of America, jellyfish eating my brains...

My special lamp so that I can change sound even if the houselights are down. High tech stuff.

Trying to take pics of the Niagara Falls in the middle of the night....

...still trying.....

Got a NYR watch as a present, thanks a lot !!

In front of the Orbit Room (Alex Lifeson of Rush owns this bar) in Toronto.

Pasi having a crazy hair day !!

Our merch guy Ryan managed to find this Ron Burgundy scotch, which we drank while watching

Achorman 2 after a long day at the Mall of America.

..and here is Ryan presenting his electric cigarette case with all the bells and whistles.

Scary looking beer !! ( I think it was in Montreal)

Selfie in front of Rock'n'Roll hall of fame in Cleveland...and no I still haven't been there just got out

of the bus in the morning to take this pic.

Some ground rules at the Altar Bar in Pittsburgh, PA.

More gifts and the first time we tasted the spice jäger....still prefer the original (which we also got btw) and by now the bottles are far gone...thank you !!

Cool SA tattoo...

and more cool tattoos...

..and one more, great job guys !!

A nice self-made vase, thank you very much !!!

cheers,

Henkka

SA:On the road:Pariah’s Child World Tour / North-America part 2

Tuesday 9.9.2014-Quebec, Canada

The show last night went quite well, apart from my wireless midi picking up too much interference so I told Tero to switch to cable when it kept cutting out notes. He changed it during the intro of Fullmoon and the rest of the show went well despite of the fact that I had to stay on my riser ;-(  Oh, btw thanks for the Black Swans T !! If anyone missed them, there’s a pic in the previous post. Well we got on with it and woke up in Quebec,

went out for a late lunch with the boys, well fed and happy it was time to do the soundcheck and the meet & greet. We practised some ”new” stuff, meaning a song we haven’t played yet on this tour, there will be one or two more songs added to the rotation of stuff we’ve been playing on this tour so far…maybe even more, who knows ?

I did a video interview with Elias and pretty soon it was showtime. No glitches and no hickups this time…hell yeah !! We had a good, loud and crazy audience and truly enjoyed our show. Afterwards it was time for a couple of beers and pretty soon it was time to go to bed as the bus rolled on towards Ottawa.

Wednesday 10.9.2014-Ottawa,Canada

It’s been a real long time since we’ve been here so it’s great to be back. We decided against switching any songs in the setlist, just messed with the order a bit. Our venue for tonight was a small bar with a small stage, nevertheless we managed to fit on stage…somehow. During the day I went walking around by myself and managed to find a juicepack for my iphone, which I’ve been looking for for some time now. We all went out for dinner after the soundcheck at a local irish pub. Great food. Kristian the photo dude from Sweden who has been hanging with us since Montreal, also joined in for the occasion. The show itself went rather well, Tony even switched the sounds for me just during the solo off Fullmoon…perfectly on time I might add, thanks dude ;-) No equipment hassle on stage but our FOH wasn’t too pleased with the PA. Well the crowd seemed to like it and appeareantly heard what we played so rock on !!! Actually before the show I watched the Achorman in the front lounge for the 150th time or something and after the show most of us watched Talladega Nights…also for the xxx th time. Tried to watch Jack Reacher again in my bunk but I fell asleep.

Thursday 11.9.2014-Toronto, Canada

Slept really well once again and went out for breakfast with Tommy as soon as we got up. After some online time, a bunch of us went searching for Alex Lifeson’s (of Rush) bar which was supposed to be pretty close…and we found it…it’s called the Orbit Room and of course it wasn’t open but whatta hell. Been there done that. I picked up A Frank Sinatra book by Donald Clarke at a local 2nd hand bookstore on the way back…and then it was time to do some e-mail business shit until soundcheck.

Friday 12.9.2014-Off day, PA

Spent the off-day in a hotel parking lot, as usual. Managed to use the hotel swimming pool, get some dinner and some wine. That’s pretty much it.

Saturday 13.9.2014-Baltimore,MD

Appeareantly there were some festivities going on and Obama was in the hood. This ment that I got a chance to watch parts of an airshow (Blue Angels I think) from the rooftop next to the venue. Later there were some firework extravaganza which I also watched from the same roof top. Lots of people in the street and a whole bunch of cops and military personnel. The day was otherwise the usual drills, soundcheck, meet & greet etc. No technical problems during the show, which is also nice. Another day at the office. Thank you Baltimore !!!

Sunday 14.9.2014-Pittsburgh,PA

Woke up with a sore throat and feeling like shit. Jiiihaa, here it goes. I haven’t had the flu on tour since January, if I’m not completely mistaken (I do tend to forget these rather quickly though ;-) ). Anyways, we went out to eat with the boys and did all the usual stuff. I took a nap before the show and felt a little bit better after that and downing a bunch off pills. The show went by rather quickly and since the stage was quite small I focused on the playing, which was more or less all I could do at that point anyways. After the show I was looking forward for the day off, usually that’s not the case.

Monday 15.9.2014-Off day, OH

Got up from my bunk at around 1600 and went to the mall with our FOH Mikko, bought a pair of sneakers to replace my old and stinky ones and had some dinner. After I got back to the bus it was movies and chilling until I returned to my bunk to continue my recovery ;-)

Tuesday 16.9.2014-Cleveland,OH

Woke up just before noon, feeling a lot better. Took a selfie in front of the Rock’n’Roll hall of fame when we dropped off some of the guys who wanted to go there. Went back to sleep and by soundcheck time I could clearly feel that I’m on the winning side of this bug….now we’ll just have to wait and see who’s next. Hopefully the rest of the dudes can skip this. At the moment we’re getting ready for the meet and greet and I’ll post more pics when I get around to it. Speaking of which, I got a couple of Jäger bottles and a New York Rangers watch as a gift, you’ll see more of that in the next pic update. Thanks a lot, highly appreciated dude !!!

cheers,

Henkka

SA:Pictures from North-America part 1

Hola,

here are some pics from the first days of the tour...in no particular order since I'm a lazy bastard....

Driving to Canada....

...still driving...this was after the first 4 shows....

Elias showing off his appreciation of Kiss @Times Square NYC.

@London Heathrow on our way to the US.

Annoying flight pics part 258....

The back door to Club Soda in Montreal.

We got some beautiful gifts in Montreal, fly with the black swan !! Thanks a lot.

Mac & Cheese poutine in Montreal...was actually really good, not the healthiest choice though...

A beautiful drawing of the SGHN cover @ the meet & greet in Montreal ! Well done !!

Lunch in Montreal @ some local sports bar...

Selfie time in Montreal, showing off my 5 dollar glasses I got in Philly.

Cool tatto @ the meet & greet in Montreal, the photo is not too god sorry about that....

Backstage in NYC investigating nerdy tech stuff ;-)

Soundcheck in NYC...

Walking around in Philly....

The bumper sticker on our support bands trailer...

Pabst Blue Ribbon on ice, listening to Lana del Rey backstage @ The Palladium, Worcester, MA.

Some parade in Worcester...no idea what was going on.

Morning workout in the bus....

cheers,

Henkka

SA:On the road:Pariah’s Child World Tour / North-America part 1

Monday/Tuesday 1.9. & 2.9.2014 - Travel Day

So, now it’s time for the longest tour for us EVER, It’ll be 7 weeks of USA & Canada.

Let’s see if we survive. The basic flying out drill started on Monday with at short evening flight to Helsinki, had a nice dinner, some beers and off to bed. Nothing new here folks ;-) In the morning we got up, hassled all our gear through check-in and took the flight towards the US via London. Upon arrival, we were once again on familiar territory, standing in line….like…forever, waiting for the luggage and finally getting to

our hotel.Had dinner at the hotel and one too many drinks at the bar before going to sleep at before 10 in the evening ( I think).

Wednesday 3.9.2014 - Teaneck, NJ

In the morning we made a Wal-mart stop to buy stuff for the bus and I pretty much spent the rest of the day sleeping until soundcheck. As usual the first check on the tour is a bit of a mess but we sorted out the stuff and felt ready for the show. Eventually when we got to go on stage of course there were some hassles with the backing tracks at some point and whatnot but we somehow managed to power through and play the set that we planned on doing. After the show most of us where really tired, it’ll usually take a few days to get over the jetlag….

Thursday 4.9.2014- New York City, NY

Got up at 0800 in the morning, the jetlag…remember ? ;-) We had to make some stops on our way to NYC to pick up some drumstuff etc but it didn’t take that long to get to the venue. Originally we were told that this was supposed to be a drop¨n¨go meaning that the bus couldn’t stay in front of the venue…however as a really nice surprice we could have our home parked in front for the whole day. Yeah !!  We went walking around and got some late breakfast/lunch whatever at Times Square. During the soundcheck we sorted out some of the issues from last night and in the afternoon it was time for a slice of pizza….I opted not to take a nap in order to try to get in the right sleeping pattern as soon as possible. Don’t know if it’ll work or not but I’ll give it a shot. We switched some songs in the setlist and off we went. The show was a hot one but we had a really good time and it felt better than the first one. I’m sure we’ll be in a groove within a few more.

Got to bed quite fast after the show since….take a wild guess…I was tired as hell, but so where everyone else so we’ll suffer together….hahaha.

Friday 5.9.2014- Philadelphia, PA

Again I got up around 8 in the morning. Maybe it’ll be better tomorrow ;-) Went walking around and had ”breakfast” at a Wendy’s of all places…It was hot as hell in Philly so I pretty much hung out in the bus playing this stupidly addictive game called Flow. Didn’t feel as tired as the day before which was really nice. At the soundcheck we did some more fine tuning with the monitor stuff and played through a couple of songs. Had a meet & greet / signing session, actually we’ve had those on every show so far and I’m sure we’ll do it for the rest of the shows as well. Spent the evening at a very hot and moist backstage watching TV…during the show my sustain pedal broke down as I was about to start Fullmoon. Well, Tero switched it to a new one in a few seconds so I could start the song…no other hassles during the show, at least not for me which was nice. It was a nice show (…and hot once again)…and since it was Tommy’s birthday we of course had to play a little trick on him. During the encore when we played San Sebastian, at the end of the song there’s a drum break and after that the rest of us just stopped playing. Tommy bashed away for some time, quite surprised about it but I think he realized what was going on quite quickly. We then proceeded to sing happy birthday to him with the audience before ending the song. Afterwards it was the usual routines with showers and cigarettes and leaving for the next place.Nobody really stayed up that late because we’re still….y’know…tired ;-)

Saturday 6.9.2014- Worcester, MA

Living the dream jiiihaa, finally slept until around 11 !!! Yes, this is a great day indeed. Went out to eat just after getting up and then I spent some hours working on business things. (it usually takes some days from the beginning of the tour when you just don’t seem to have the energy to sit on the computer). Anyways, this time around we wiill play the smaller stage since the main hall had some renovations going on. I forgot how many times we’ve been here but it’s always been a lot of fun and I don’t expect tonight to be any different. Had the usual meet & greet, went out to eat some more and then it was showtime. We sold out the place so it was hot as hell but realizing that we left the side doors to the stage open and it wasn’t really half as bad as expected. Elias footpedal crashed so Tero had to make all his soundchanges, which he managed to do quite well actually ;-) Another thing that was both funny and tricky was that the stage was really dark so it was hard to see the setlists etc…it caused some minor hassles during the show but all in all we had a really enjoyable night. Thanks a lot everyone !!

Sunday 7.9.2014-Travel Day Worchester-Montreal

Spent the morning and day driving the bus towards Montreal where we stopped at a hotel somewhere around 10 miles out of the city. We found a nice restaurant and had some excellent supper before it was time to relax and watch Bad Grandpa. What a funny movie, we were laughing our asses off since we hadn’t seen it before. After that we just hung out having beers with the support bands and getting to know each other a little bit. Nice, easy and stressfree. Now we only have 30 shows left before going home ;-)

Monday 8.9.2014-Montreal, Canada

Hello Canada !!! Woke up outside of the venue at some point and then it was time to eat…there seems to be a pattern here…all we do is eat, play, drink and sleep… Anyways I found a nice western store which had some really cool boots and jackets but unfortunately they were out of my pricerange ;-( Well, I’ll wait for Texas and maybe I’ll find a pair of boots there. Did a nice interview and then the meet & greet, dinner and now I’m waiting for the show to start….

cheers,

Henkka