SA:On the Road: The 9th Hour World Tour: Europe 2017 week one:

The Ninth Hour World Tour / Europe 2017 / week 1:

Sunday 19.2. Travel Day- Kemi-Helsinki-Frankfurt

For a change we had the opportunity to just hang at the airport in Helsinki for a

few hours instead of having to spend the night, which of course was a nice

thing for us who live up north. Other than that this was pretty much the usual, getting

to the airport, checking in and meeting up with the rest of the band & crew at the

Helsinki airport. In the evening we stayed at a hotel in Frankfurt and met the other bands as well. Our gear was sent to Germany straight after the Finnish Tour so there was no extra trouble howling that pile of stuff with us ;-)

Monday 20.2. Nurnberg, Germany

Got picked up really early to drive to Nurnberg and start setting up the first show of 

the tour. Being that we used the same gear and setup as in Finland there wasn’t any

big stress on getting everything to work properly, or at least not that I know of. We kept the same setlist as we have so far on this tour, with the exception of Misplaced which

made a return ;-) Nice show to start the tour with and now we only have 41 more to

go…

Tuesday 21.2. Zlin, Czech Rep.

As usual on these European Tours we drive through the night and waking up in Zlin in front of the Masters of Rock Cafe was a familiar feeling. We went walking around town a bit (actually we did that yesterday as well)…and went shopping for random items that one might need on tour. In the evening we played for a rather full house of excited fans and we got a nice hot stage as well. Slowly we start to get into the touring mode where the days just fly by…but not quite yet.

Wednesday 22.2. Vienna, Austria

Once again we’re at a familiar place, no worries though we decided to be active and headed for the city, taking the tram and going to the centre to walk around and get a late lunch. Found a place not too shabby, but the waiter tried to screw me with the change….no worries , I noticed it immediately and caught the bastard. The food was quite ok though. Took the tram back and did soundcheck, inteviews and what have you,

the show was once again a great one, but then these days most of them are so instead of repeating myself maybe I should just not comment on the shows at all…..at least

if I have nothing more to say than it was nice, ok , great or whatever ?  Same thing with the aftershow ritual: after the show we take showers, get changed, eat and then we leave….that’s pretty much the same everyday ;-)

Thursday 23.2. Munich, Germany

Still sailing on familiar turf. The walkabout today for me was just joining Elias for a short round of walking….there wasn’t really anything to see except a huge postal distribution center or something like that. The rest of the day was pretty much business as usual, which means it was a good day to be on the road !!

Friday 24.2. Modena, Italy

…and then it was time for the first new place on this tour. We haven’t played in Modena ever before and it was a nice surprise to find a great crowd showing up. Afterwards there was some weird disco with people dressed up like cartoons or something, I didn’t check it out but from the pics I was shown by some of the support band guys, it was a rather interesting freak show ;-)  Our friends from Trick or Treat showed up as well and it was really nice to meet all of them again and hang out a bit before we had to leave !!

Saturday 25.2. Rome, Italy

In Rome we played at a venue that was new to us. Previously I’ve only been here at a festival but I’m not sure if the band played here in 2000 or 2001. Anyways today was a really early show, we had a long drive ahead of us and appeareantly they also wanted us out of the way so the disco could start…sounds familiar ? After the show I met my pals from Secret Rule, I played on their last album and we’re working on something new together again. It was really nice to meet up even though we had to leave pretty much right after the show.

Sunday 26.2. Travel / Off-Day (Rome, Italy-Zurich, Switzerland)

A quite long drive, we left at around 2300 last night and checked in to the hotel just after

1500 today. Went for dinner with the guys and spent the rest of the evening doing computer work and hanging out in the room. Still managed to get out for an evening snack but this day was the most peaceful so far. We were planning to go skating but the place closed really early since it was a Sunday so we’ll have to try to do that another time….and just for the record we found out the next day that Avenged Sevenfold had a show on this day which I think most of us would really have wanted

to attend had we found out about this in time. FUCK.

Anyways, the night ended in an Irish Bar eating and drinking and hanging out.

cheers,

Henkka