Saturday 4.10.2014- Denver, CO
Back in business !! Great crowd tonight and we pulled of a decent show I believe. Nothing spectacular or even interesting happened during the day. Soundcheck,
dinner, meet & greet etc…It was a bit hard to breathe because of the altitude but
we survived…anyway nowhere near as bad as in Bogota or Mexico City so…
Sunday 5.10.2014- Lawrence, KS
I don’t think we’ve played here before. Had some pizza and chilled out in the bus for most parts of the day. At this point it’s all about surviving and sticking to the routine. The show was a bit weird, hard to tell if people were really into it or not…nevertheless tomorrow is another dreaded off-day and then we have a couple of decent stretches before the final show in Puerto Rico.
Monday 6.10.2014-Off-day, Amarillo, TX
My highlight today were walking to the mall and getting cigarettes, eating at Outback
and watching Rock of Ages with the boys…don’t ask why ;-)
Tuesday 7.10.2014- El Paso, TX
Woke up rather late again ;-) After the soundcheck we just hung in the bus, got some food at MC and then started to prepare for the show.Hot, Sweaty and fun. There really wasn’t anything to do around the venue…appeareantly the Blue Men Group where playing down the street…
Wednesday 8.10.2014-San Antonio, TX
Met up with a finnish guitar player dude during the day and evening, other than that nothing really happened, we did get some good pasta in the afternoon at a place where it was really difficult to understand what the waitresses where saying….maybe it was the accent. As you can see from the entrys getting shorter, the tour is taking it’s toll and
near the end.
Thursday 9.10.2014- Dallas, TX
My highlight apart from the show was some really good slices of Pizza ;-) During the day it was too hot, at least for me so I didn’t go walking around anywhere. One of our managers flew out from Finland and he’ll be with us for a couple of days. Of course he brought some candy with him ;-) Went to the bar across the street after the show, just for the hell of it. We were only there for like 20min and then it was closing time. During the afternoon we did an interview which then turned into a surprise for us. A bunch of fans had made a really cool book with a lot of pictures, thank you very much !! We also got some home made karjalan piirakka (translation anyone? ) which tasted awesome and I got a new orange shirt, also hand made !!! Jiihaa !!! A good a fun day, just what we needed at this point of the tour.
Friday 10.10.2014- Houston, TX
..and the Finns keep on rolling in. Today some more of our friends from back home showed up for the show, we hang a bit in the afternoon and then it was time to get something to eat…found a nice mexican restaurant with some decent burritos.
Had a good time at the show tonight and it was of course great to hang out with our friends from back home as well.
Saturday 11.10.2014-Graceland
We decided to pay the King a visit during our off-day, it almost took the whole day but it was well worth it…more in the last picture update…whever I get around to do it. Afterwards all the bands went to dinner together since it was our last off-day on the North-American part of the tour.Good times.
Sunday 12.10.2014-Luisville,KY
Some friends of ours showed up and we hang around for a while both before and after the show. Me & Elias had some killer Chicken Ranch pizza.My highlight of the day ;-) The tour is about to end as you can see from the ever shortening entrys…
Monday 13.10.2014-Atlanta,GA
More or less chilled at the bus all day while waiting for the show to happend.Oh, btw the food at the venue was abysmal ;-)
Tuesday 14.10.2014-Orlando, FL
We played the House of Blues which is always nice no matter where it is, this one of course more or less in the middle of Disneyland. I wouldn’t know since it was raining and I got up too late to actually walk around so… The food was a lot better than yesterday….yay !!. The show was ok, good stage, good lights etc, etc…
Wednesday 15.10.2014-Tampa, FL
The Last show on this tour with Xandria & Delain, so of course we did a lot of pranks on each other. It was a bit hard to focus but we all had a good time together. It’s nice to be heading towards Puerto Rico and then home but on the other hand, this tour has been really awesome so it’s a bit sad that it’s coming to an end.
Thursday 16.10.2014 - Travel Day Tampa-Miami-San Juan
Slept a few hours on both of the flights and some more @ the hotel.
We went for dinner with the promotor in the evening, which was really
good, after that I fell asleep and woke up in the middle of the night, no worries
though I spent some time packing my stuff for the show tomorrow and for the
travel home. Went for breakfast in the morning and then back to bed.
Friday 17.10.2014- San Juan, Puerto Rico
First time here ever, the sun is shining and it’s really hot. We played an outdoor stage in the evening and everything worked perfectly. After that a few glasses of wine by the hotel pool and then to bed before it was time to go HOME…finally.
Saturday & Sunday 18.-19.10.2014 Travel Home
First a flight to NYC then to Helsinki and then a 7+ hour wait in Helsinki before flying home. Everyone was more or less tired and tried to sleep as much as possible. Bought some cigarettes from the airport and that was about it.
A big thank you to all our American fans for making this tour a blast !!! …and of course a big hell yeah to our friends in Delain & Xandria…see you down the road…
...and yeah I still have some pics from the tour I'll do a separate post when I get the time, kinda busy getting the acoustic stuff ready for Friday & Saturday...and I'll check through the comments as well...asap.
cheers & beers,
Henkka
Ps.In a couple of days we’ll go to Helsinki to promote our book, I bet that will be a hoot,
I’ll tell ya more about that after I know how it turned out.
Very happy to read you were so happy with our little surprise.. That last part on this day being just what you needed feels like quite a huge compliment to me :) enjoy your time at home for now, it was about time I guess. And please be kind enough to sign my book at the fair, won't be there myself but still ^^.
ReplyDeleteSincerely a person who will now forever remember that kirja means book xD
Cheers ^^
You made it, hurray! And in remarkably good spirits for a tour this long :) congrats! It was such a treat to get imported to see you guys in foreign land.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see the last batch of pics :)
(Btw did the little keytars my friend made make it to Finland? ;) )
Yeah they did ;-)
DeleteKarjalan piirakka = Karelian pies.
ReplyDeleteI didn't google it, I swear! My Facebook gave me a post for Finnish foods and it was there...
So happy that the surprise worked out the way it did! :-) Finally I can stop biting my nails, hehe.
No rest for the wicked, huh? After the book fair you'll almost be busy again with preparations for the Russian tour. But at least that won't be a long one :-)
Take care!
Maria
Kind of sweet, that so many friends of yours kept on cheering you up during the tour. Way to go Finns (if other nationalities were included, they too)!
ReplyDeleteThose off-days just sound so hilarious with all that "doing nothing" and eating being the highlight of the day. Well, that one I can relate to... Don't envy you a bit, except for the part when visiting Graceland, that one must have been great. But of course now it's all over, at least for a while.
You managed to get one of the last really hot Texas summer days, it's been cooler ever since. But a whole lot nicer still than back home. ;)
The whole Dallas show/fanbook thing was pretty insane, so thanks again for everything and hopefully you have had/will have some good times with the book (don't forget to give Make his copy!). And needless to say (but I'll say it anyway, hah), I'm glad you liked your presents. Btw, that reminds me, did you ever find those new boots you were going to buy?
According to the pics I've seen you really had some good moments in Tampa :D Pretty crazy stuff, must have been amusing to be on stage.
Have fun at the book fair! I managed to read the book (thanks to the person who invented the e-book, whoever that was) and it was quite hysterical at some points. Really enjoyed reading it. Good job guys, especially Mape!
Never got around to buying those boots...well I'll try in South-America next spring ;-)
DeleteNothing like food from home to help alleviate the feeling of homesickness. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to know what Karjalan Piirakka and Salmiakki are?
Understandable that you would feel a little sad now that the North American tour is over, especially since you had such a blast! But I'm sure you're happy to see your family again and be in your own comfortable bed.
Acoustic stuff? Did I miss something?...may I ask what's happening Friday & Saturday?
Karjalan piirakka is kind of a rice pie and salmiakki is liquerish kinda candy. We're playing acousticly at a book fair in Helsinki on Saturday...and doing some signings and other stuff as well...
DeleteKarjalanpiirakka=Karelian pasty, comes also with potato filling.. Terveiset vuan tiältä piäkallopaekalta ;)
ReplyDeleteMmm...potato filling sounds good!
Delete2 acoustic shows? both radio rock and book fair? That is super cool! Any special surprise among the songs? Thanks again for the help with those setlists. I have all the 2014 100% covered. I hope to go on like this ;D
ReplyDeleteCheers
Yeah, two shows...not any surprises though, didn't have the time to rehearse during our 4 days at home ;-)
DeleteVery nice to know someone else agrees that Atlanta's food sucks.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you guys so much for signing me and my friend's vinyls. My brain was all sorts of fucked when I got up there and I forgot to thank you guys (and I accidentally handed Elias "Reveal the Change"... oops).
My friend didn't have enough money for the meet and greet because of the vinyl he bought, so I dug deep in my piggy bank so he could get it signed. He loves it, and he loved the show.
I only bashed the food at the venue...I've had some good food in Atlanta though...not this time.
DeleteOk, well thanks for the brief explanation. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try them sometime in my lifetime.
ReplyDeleteI knew about the book signing session but didn't know the details, for instance that you were going to play live...speaking about the SA book, is there still going to be an English version? I hope so! I read very recently on the forum that some details the Finnish version has will be omitted from the English one. Is that true? I hope not because I think that would defeat the purpose of having the band's whole story told. It would be kind of like if a mother made a baby book of her child and left out the date of birth, first laugh, first Christmas, first step and so on...this might not be the best analogy but I hope you get what I'm saying. I'm looking forward to Sonata Arctica's whole story in English if it's still happening. If not, there'll be a lot of heartbroken fans. Including myself, of course.
Anyway, hope you guys had a great time at the book fair! I'm sure you did!
Cheers,
T
The English version is being translated as we speak so yeah...it'll come out asap. Don't know if something is going to be left out or not...hopefully not. I totally get what you mean.
DeleteI feel kinda bad for Mape and the shitstorm that broke over him^^" Some stuff might not make sense to non-Finns, that's right, but fans want to know it all. How many people do you think started to learn Finnish just for the book? :-)
DeleteHeard the first print already sold out, congratulations!! I'll wait patiently for the English version and hope that Mape was just playing with us and it'll just be a translation after all :-D
Siistii! Good to know the English version is on the way, thanks for the answer, Henkka... and yeah, let's hope nothing is left out...or at least not so much that we'll loose a lot of important and interesting details. The Finnish language seems like one of the hardest to learn so, I don't know how difficult it is to translate into English. I'm sure we all appreciate Mape's efforts. Is he handling the translating too or is that being done by someone else?
ReplyDeleteFirst print sold out, eh? Congrats!! :-)
Yeah, Mape is doing the translation to English and I'm sure he'll pull it off pretty quick so..a bit of patience and it will be out...
DeleteOh, I'm in no hurry. I'll wait as long as it takes. ;-)
ReplyDelete