Wednesday 3.12.2014. - Verkatehdas, Hämeenlinna
As the master planner I am, I realized that it’ll be a lot faster and cost roughly the same to fly to Helsinki and then take a train to Hämeenlinna, instead of sitting in the train for 7-8 hours from Kemi. Tony & Tommy agreed so that’s just what we did. A merciful morning flight at 10:15 from Kemi took us to Helsinki in about 1,5 hours. Upon arrival we then went to the Tikkurila trainstation, jumped on the train and about 40min later we were in Hämeenlinna and headed for the Hotel. The Restaurant was closed but fortunately the chef was kind enough to make us some burgers anyway so a big thumbs up ….and they we’re delicious !!!
Got some time to just chill before the soundcheck which of course always is nice. We haven’t played together since Russia which was about a month ago so it’ll be exciting to see if we remember the songs when we get onstage tonight. If I’m not completely mistaken we’ve only song from Pariah’s Child that we’ve played on club shows in Finland is The wolves die young apart from that we’ve also not played Letter to Dana in Finland at all so it’ll be nice to see if our fans like it or not.
Anyways, the show was ok, it took awhile to get it on but we managed to do it after all, didn’t make too many mistakes and it felt really good to be back on stage. Afterwards we had some drinks and checked out a bit of the Hämeenlinna nightlife, which was rather crappy.
Thursday 4.12.2014. - The Circus, Helsinki
At 11:00 we left towards Helsinki and probably the busiest day of this tour. (As always). For today we got some meetings setup as well as a book signing session in addition to the usual soundcheck, show etc stuff. I slept in the bus and some more at the hotel before it was time to head to the book-signing-thing. We also got the news that our book is now available in English as an e-book. The signing went well and the whole day actually just swung past really quick. The show was better than last night, at least for me and I think it was better for the other guys as well. Afterwards we had some drinks….went to a bar for awhile as well….maybe I’ll take it easy tomorrow ;-)
Friday 5.12.2014. - Lutakko, Jyväskylä
Was a bit tired after last night so I took a nap in the bus….before long we were back in this cozy hellhole (said with affection) with nice people and usually we’ve had great shows here so I’ll bet tonight will be another one of those. Didn’t do too much today since yesterday was a bit busy, it was time to get my powers back for the show….and yes, get over the fucking hangover ;-) Elias, Pasi & I had some late lunch at the hotel which pretty much got me back to life. Chilled a bit in the room after that and then it was time for our soundcheck. Since the setlist last night was good we decided not to change anything for the first time this year ;-) I guess we’re getting lazy. The Show was a hot one and the last one with our FOH Mikko for this year since he has previous commitment to attend to tomorrow. Ended the night at a bar across the street from the hotel, playing some table football….
Saturday 6.12.2014 - Rytmikorjaamo, Seinäjoki
What better than to end the short stint in Seinäjoki on the Finnish Independence Day ? I don’t actually know, probably a lot of things are better but for now this is cool enough. Spent the day sleeping, first in the bus and later at the hotel. After the soundcheck we had a nice dinner at the venue and then it was time to get ready for the show, our last
for this year….and number 99 if I counted correctly. Damn it, we would have wanted to get to 100 but maybe it’ll happend somewhere down the line. For now this will have to do. So close.
After getting home tomorrow we’ll be done for this year and the next SA activity will be the show in Oulu on January the 14th, 2015. So we have a decent Christmas Holiday this year. To wrap it up, we did 99 shows this year and released 2 studio albums & 3 music videos and some singles. I’d say we did our share of work ;-) Now I’ll focus on finishing my solo album as well as the Silent Voices single. It’s nice to do some studio work for a change. On behalf of the Sonata gang, thank you all very much for this year and I’ll be back with more news about other projects before Christmas. Now I still have 2 hours until showtime so I’m gonna listen to some music for awhile and see y’all at the show here in Seinäjoki….and happy Independence Day !!!
cheers,
Henkka