SA:On the Road: Pariah’s Child World Tour Latin-America 2015 part 4

Sunday 15.3.2015 - La Paz, Bolivia

Hell whatta night, respiratory problems, headache etc etc…basically the same trouble most of our posse got. It was to be expected and in the morning I finally got a pill for altitude sickness and managed to sleep an hour or two. Met up with the other guys from the band at around 1400 to eat a bit. The food was really good but we’re all feeling really weird with this high altitude. Appeareantly La Paz is around 3600m above sea level, so tonight will be an interesting challenge. Our previous ”high” shows have been in Quito, Bogota and Mexico City and although it’s been a bit hard at times, this is something else…I’ll tell you that. Better get some more rest before we go to the venue at 1700 for the soundcheck, I hope the crew are all alive still. Our TM just came back from there and said that everything is more or less perfect, equipment wise so at least that’s not gonna be a problem……Later on we went to the soundcheck, and indeed everything was working great, nice stage, nice lights, good PA etc… Continued drinking Coke Tea and chewing leaves etc stuff to try to stay alive. A quick stop at the hotel picking up some stuff…for some reason it bacame quite the confusion with 2 crewguys left behind etc etc…I won’t go into that but eventually we all made it back to the venue. The show wasn’t too hard but we had to move around ourselves a bit easier than usual. Of course Tommy had the hardest job but he did really well…we didn’t switch from song to song as fast as usually and we had extra oxygen on stage for Tony & Tommy so all in all it went really well. I’m really proud that we managed to pull it off  !!! ..and yeah it was also very cold like around 12-14 degrees. None of us ever though that we’d freeze on a South-American Show (yeah, we’re idiots and didn’t think it through, I know). After the show it was time to go back to the hotel and try to sleep for a couple of hours. I couldn’ t get to sleep because of the altitude…really weird. At 0500 we left the hotel for the airport and the flight out.

Monday 16.3.2015 - Travel Day (La Paz - Lima)

Not too many hassles and as soon as we got on the plane and the door closed, it became a lot easier to breath…so I fell asleep. Just woke up for 5min to eat whatever little cute sandwhich (crap) they were serving before passing out again. It feels great to be able to breathe again. Upon arrival there was the usual customs hassle, last time it took us 3 hours to get through this time a lot less ;-) Met up with a whole bunch of fans when we came out, signed stuff and took pics and then got everyone inside the van and the suitcases and gear on the truck….at the hotel we realized that the hotel manager was someone we knew from years ago in Buenos Aires (we’d previously stayed at a hotel that he was managing there) which was really nice. Meaning that since we were hungry he opened the restaurant 1,5 hours earlier so we could eat right away….and the food was fucking awesome. This is probably the one of the nicest hotels on this tour so far !! After dinner we had time for a nap before we did some interviews…still tired it was a bit harder than usual to do station ID’s etc but we got everything done….then it was time for the first Hard Rock Cafe of this tour ( I guess you have to do dinner there once a tour or something…for some reason which is beyond me ). Anyways there was some confusion how to get there so it took like forever but eventually we found the place. Had a nice dinner and enjoyed a local talent competition (or at least that’s how we percieved it )….back to the hotel, a couple of autographs and pics and we got Peru soccer jerseys with our names and numbers on them !! Really cool and FUCK now I realized that I forgot to mention that in the Chile post since we got jerseys there as well (you probably saw them on FB or something anyway). So far (including the last tour) we now have Colombia, Chile and Peru, thank you all !!! And for the rest of you…try to keep up ;-) hahaha just kidding. Anyways, I went up to the swimming pool at the top of the hotel to have a smoke and a drink with Tommy before going to bed and by the second smoke a security guy came and told us to go to our rooms…didn’t really understand all of it but he got his message through. He was very nice though so no harm, no faul. Goodnight.

Tuesday 17.3.2015 - Day off no 2 (Lima, Peru)

It’s nice to have the luxury of another day of in the 5 week tour.(irony remark btw) We went to the Inca market in the afternoon and bought a bunch of stuff for our families back home, and some stuff for ourselves as well. After that we had dinner at the hotel, or at least some of us did. In the evening we all went out to….(drumroll) dinner again but some of us just had a couple of beers because we then continued to the Smashing Pumpking show. It’s was nice to go out and just party but I’ll have to say that Kasabian, the support band was waaaay better. Never really got the idea of SP. Just wanted to check it out for myself and I’m still not a fan. Anyways, we had a good time and eventually we got back to the hotel and went to bed.

Wednesday 18.3.2015 - Lima, Peru

Woke up feeling a bit ”shaky” luckily we had all day to rest before it was time to get to the venue. Allready at the soundcheck we felt that this was gonna be one hot motherfucker. The backstage was even hotter…Tero measured 34 degrees celcius on stage. Fuck. The show went quite allright, we even played Picturing the Past for the first time since 2000, so for most of us it was the first time ever. It went kinda ok, not great but not a total disaster. Of the Ecliptica songs we now only have Blank File and Destruction Preventer left to do live. BF we’ve done on the Days of Grays World Tour but DP is new for most of us. Let’s see if we get one or both practised before the tour ends. Tomorrow we’re playing Bogota which is quite high in altitude so I doubt we’ll practise too much at the soundcheck. Nevertheless, today was a nice show but really hot and everyone was more or less exhausted after it. Tomorrow we’ll have to get up at 0600 to go to the airport and fly to Bogota and in the evening we’ll play the show…the day after is a travel day, lobby call at 0530 and we’ll be at the hotel in Monterrey around 20-21 in the evening so this is by no means an easy finish….I better go to bed now, it’s 2:30 in the morning so I still have a couple of hours to sleep….getting old, I guess.

Thursday 19.3.2015 - Travel Day & Bogota, Colombia

Woke up really tired but that seems to be the norm these days, we got howled to the airport and well onboard the plane I slept the whole 2,5h flight. In Bogota we went straight to the hotel, had a late lunch and the band went to sleep for a few hours while the crew went to set up the show. Soundcheck, meet & greet etc the usual drills…after the show we found out that in the middle of it the cops closed all the exits and didn’t let anybody in or out, accusing the venue of letting in minors and not having the right permits to arrange our show. They wanted to cut the show short but for some reason that didn’t happend. Weird shit. Our monitor desk crashed as well which was a bit confusing, since we use in-ear monitors, if the desk crashes we can’t hear anything on stage so it’s impossible to play,…our monitor guy Joonas managed to fix it rather quickly so we could go on with the show….this was in the beginning of the encore btw. Anyways, straight from the show to the hotel since tomorrow we get to enjoy another beautiful day traveling…starting with the 0530 lobby call…meaning that’s when we leave the hotel.

Friday 20.3.2015 - Travel Day (Bogota- Mexico City- Monterrey)

A long and boring Travel Day. First we took the flight to Mexico City, then did another check-in and had some food before flying to Monterrey. That’s basically it. 2 more shows to go and then we get some time off back home.

Saturday 21.3.2015 - Monterrey, Mexico

Familiar hotel, familiar venue. Great to be back. Spent the day sleeping and in the evening we had a really kick ass show with a great crowd. This was so awesome that we had to celebrate, even though we have and early flight tomorrow.

Sunday 22.3.2015 - Travel Day & Mexico City, Mexico

Of course I didn’t wake up until our TM came into my room, shit. Well I guess this happends once on every South American Tour so this was it. Slept the whole flight as well as the whole day at the hotel. In the evening we had our grand finale, the last show of this tour, once again Mexico City didn’t disappoint us and we had a really good time, goofing around a bit but definately not the most crazy tourending show ever. I guess we’re getting old and/or tired. Afterwards we took it really easy, just a few beers and then back to the hotel to rest and get our stuff packed for the long travel home. This has been an awesome tour even though it was quite long.Thank you all for showing up !!!

Monday 23.3. - Wednesday 25.3. Travel Days (Mexico City - Kemi)

Got kicked out of our rooms at 1400, left for the airport at 1700, the flight started at 2100 and lasted for around 12 hours, during which I watched Foxcatcher and parts of Horrible Bosses 2 or something (I fell asleep during it and woke up around 1,5 hours before we landed. 6 hours of enjoying Heathrow and then after a short 3 hour flight we hit the Hilton Airport at Helsinki-Vantaa. Some the bunch got to go home though, good for them ;-) …Of course the Wednesday morning flight wasn’t a direct one, we flew to Jyväskylä first but eventually we all got home. Thank you, good night, I’ll be back from the European Tour in a few weeks.

cheers,

Henkka

PS.yeah I have a bunch of pictures and I’ll upload them when I get the time.