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

Monday 20.3. Nottingham, UK

Had a nice day getting lost in the venue a couple of times. What a maze. Me & Marius

completed our ab-wheel challenge that we agreed upon and after the shows we all hang out at the bar downstairs and bid the norwegians farewell. Until we meet again !!

Tuesday 21.3. Off-day / Nottingham, UK

Started the off-day with a run and then it was time for Five Guys once again. Later on a small group of us went to check out the some of the caves, which was interesting. In the evening we had a bigger entourage and hit a really good indian restaurant before it was time to call it a day.

Wednesday 22.3. Manchester, UK

Once again hitting a place we’ve been before and having a good time once again. It

was raining the whole day which made me really lazy so apart soundcheck and the show etc , I spent the day in my bunk watching movies.

Thursday 23.3. Sheffield, UK

Eat, Run, Soundcheck, Dinner, Nap, Interview, Show, Pub, Bed.

Friday 24.3. Glasgow, Scotland

Pretty much the same as the day before. The buses were parked some 4km away so we spent the day at the venue…you see how lazy we’re getting, it seems like the tour fatigue is setting in and the most that you can do is play the shows and then just relax the rest of the time.

Saturday 25.3. Belfast, Northern-Ireland

After the soundcheck the band went to eat together and then it was time for a nap. After the show there was some hellish disco going on so it was quite impossible to get some sleep since the bus didn’t leave until 0830 in the morning.

Sunday 26.3. Dublin,Ireland

Home of Guinness ;-) Some of the guys took a tour of the brewery during the day and we had dinner at HRC later on. The show tonight was really good an since the upper balcony was closed I managed to check out most of Strikers set and the Thunderstone set as well. Really good bands and it was nice to finally get to enjoy their shows. After the show we had to catch the ferry in the middle of the night so I didn’t get to bed until 0600 in the morning when we arrived…somewhere….We then drove to Manchester for the day off.

cheers,

Henkka

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

Monday 13.3. Off-day / Besancon, France

Woke up really early…and was pissed off because I would have wanted to sleep longer. Anyways, we went for lunch with some of the boys and then back to the hotel. I’ve been looking for a sports store to get some running gear and I found one but it was closed today. At the hotel I spent some time doing nothing before I got really bored and decided to walk up the hill to La Citadelle as it was called. The walk wasn’t too long but quite steep uphill so I worked on a good sweat…When I was up there admiring the view  I run in to Larry our merch guy, we headed down together hitting some churches on the way and eventually went for dinner. Well back at the hotel I was just chilling, trying to stay awake (this was around 1900 so a bit too early to go to sleep), when Pasi asked me to go to the movies with him…well, why not. He’d found a movie that wasn’t dubbed so we could enjoy it….hence, we checked out Kong: Skull island or something like that, it was fun, and in 3D as well. I don’t think it would have been a movie I’d watch back home but in that moment it was the perfect thing. Afterwards I joined some of the bar hopping gang in the hotel lobby for some time and ended the night with some netflix.

Tuesday 14.3. Besancon, France

Got up just before breakfast ended and then I hit the sports store, got my stuff and went for a nice run. It felt really weird, I think the last time I ran was over 10 years ago…well, it’ll get better I’m sure. Enjoyed some online time (yeah, e-mails) at the hotel before it was time to head to the venue. Pasi, Tony & I went to do some laundry before the

 soundcheck and after a nice dinner and a nap it was once again business as

usual.

Wednesday 15.3. Nancy, France

Another new town, same procedure as everyday though ;-)

Thursday 16.3. Rennes, France

More of the same…. early in the morning we took the ferry across to the UK. It

was a rather long ride and there was plenty of time to get breakfast, do some shopping

and get really bored…only 3 ferry rides left….

Friday 17.3. Southampton, UK

Since we spent the morning at the ferry the rest of the day was spent sleeping more or

less. Once awake we met up with a friend of ours and me & Tommy went to Five Guys to have some burgers. Good stuff.

Saturday 18.3. Bristol, UK

I thought I just drop dead when I got into the Marble Factory, nothing against the

venue or the nice staff but fuck it smelled like mould here, like really bad. We all decided to spend as little time inside as possible, of course the crew couldn’t do that

poor guys. After the soundcheck some of us went to Five Guys again, still tasted good.

The show went really well but we could definitely feel the air afterwards….hopefully we

don’t have too many of these kind of situations anymore.

Sunday 19.3. Cardiff, UK

Really nice venue today, big & clean etc. Did some interviews with Pasi, checked out the city a bit and later on Pasi, Tony & I went to Jamie Olivers Italian restaurant for

dinner. It was really good ;-) Show in the evening as usual and then off-we went. Tomorrow is the last show before the off-day, that would be number 7 in a row which is a new record for Sonata, the most we’ve played back to back so far has been 6. It’s also the last show for Triosphere before they head home and get replaced by our

finnish friends Thunderstone. I’m sure we’ll have some goodbye drinks and such.

cheers,

Henkka

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

Monday 6.3. Sevilla, Spain

Never been here before and the day started rather interestingly when we found out that the local rep didn’t speak english at all. Somehow everything worked with the help of google translate…well , sometimes that’s just life. During the day some of us took a walk around the city and enjoy the warm weather. Took a late lunch at a gourmet restaurant called Burger King ;-). 

Tuesday 7.3. Lisbon, Portugal

Woke up in Lisbon of all places. As far as I can remember we’ve only played in Porto before but I’m not a 100% sure. Spent the whole day walking around the city, skipped the soundcheck…partly by accident and no fault of mine. Got up to the castle etc etc , a really nice city I must say. In the evening we just enjoyed performing in front of our portugese friends and ended the night with some aftershow pizza and showers…as always btw.

Wednesday 8.3. Travel/Off-day, Pamplona, Spain

We had a rather long drive (over 900km) so we arrived in Pamplona late in the afternoon. After checking in in the really nice cathedral hotel we just hit the streets in search for food. Having filled our stomachs with a variety of dishes there was nothing left to do but get back to the hotel and call it a night. I did however manage to see the end of the Barcelona-PSG game and that was some serious soccer drama right there. Unbeliavable !!

Thursday 9.3. Pamplona, Spain

We had a late check-out at the hotel so we had a couple of hours in the morning to walk around the city and do some shopping etc, at around 1400 we left from the hotel to the venue and the soundcheck. Did some walking around before dinner but there wasn’t too much around. Some ice-cream from a gas-station and then we found a toy store and got some stuff for the kids as well. The show was a big surprise since we didn’t realize how many fans we have in Pamplona. Nice job showing up guys ;-)

Friday 10.3. Bordeaux, France

The drive tonight was really short so we got here early in the morning. Before soundcheck I escorted my gf to the airport and bid farwell for the journey home. We’re approching the halfway mark pretty soon but for now we still have a bit over 4 weeks to go. Anways, spent the afternoon catching up on e-mail work, didn’t get everything done but at least some of it….and of course typing this stuff as well. Now it’s dinner time !

Saturday 11.3. Toulouse, France

Once again we got to play in a new venue for us. Really nice stage and backstage area, probably one of the nicest venues so far on this tour. It was a nice sunny day but I didn’t want to go anywhere so I spent my afternoon reading…in the evening we did the show, ate our pizzas and headed towards Lyon…Actually something funny happened when we started the show. Somehow my keytar was off-pitch by a half step so the intro to Closer to an Animal sounded really horrific, luckily the problem went away when I rebooted the Vortex during the song but still it was weird….especially since I’ve made sure that I delete any controllers that I don’t use so this would basically have been impossible…anyways, sorry for the tech talk.

Sunday 12.3. Lyon, France

When I got in to the venue in the morning and had some breakfast I got the really good news, we only had 3 tickets left for the show tonight. What a perfect way to end this strech of shows before our off-day. I spent the afternoon on my computer and then I went out for a walk with Tommy…to the Golden Arches ;-)  The show sold out a bit later on in the afternoon and we were in for a really nice night. During the first few songs Pasi’s bass broke down, hopefully Tero can fix it before we go on…

cheers,

Henkka

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

Monday 27.2. Zurich, Switzerland

Allrighty-o, here we go with the 2nd week of the tour. After getting started everything

starts to run like a well oiled machine, now we just have to keep this up until the

9th of April when the last show will be in Sweden. In Zurich we played a nice venue

but it did have a lot of stairs for we got some free ass workout during the day. I joined Pasi for dinner, we did eat at the international fine-dining experience known as

Burger King. Everything else went just as expected and we got over the “missing

Avenged Sevenfold” - thing.

Tuesday 28.2. Solothurn, Switzerland

Another new place for us, the venue was once again really good as was the dinner

and everything else. After the show we did some ab-wheel training with the support

band guys, let’s see how many will feel trashed tomorrow. There was also a foosball table in the backstage which I think at least Elias was playing some rather intense games with.

Wednesday 1.3. Lausanne, Switzerland

Nice venue, great food, good crowd..you’ve heard it all before ;-) After the show we did leave quite early to get to our off-day in time and make sure our driver could get enough rest.

Thursday 2.3. Off-day, Marseille, France

Didn’t really do much of anything, a bunch of us went to the city and grabbed some late lunch and walked around for a bit. A couple of guys from our support band Striker managed to get into some trouble though. Apparently they intercepted some dude strangling a woman and got to fight off a bunch of guys. Everyone is alive and well and as far as I can see, no bruises or anything. Nevertheless, we were told in advance that some parts of the city is not really safe…which proved out to be right.

Friday 3.3. Marseille, France

Still exploring new places. This venue is really nice, amazing catering and great stage, I’m sure tonight will be awesome as well. Spent the day enjoying some of the sun and just waiting…as usual ;-) 

Saturday 4.3. Barcelona, Spain

Nice to be back in Spain, we missed the whole country last fall when we did the first part of the European Tour.  In the morning we went to buy some cigarettes with Tommy and later on after soundcheck, some of us went to this really good burger place in the shopping mall….the club tonight is in the basement of a mall, of all things. We had some massages during the early evening but other than that it was business as usual. When we left after the show, somehow the powercable to the trailer broke and it took a couple of hours to fix that….I think…I was in my bunk watching a movie so I’m not too sure how long it took.

Sunday 5.3. Madrid, Spain

Arrived a couple of hours late which was a bit of a bummer but these things happend. I went to the aiport to pick up my gf who will be with me for a couple of days here, as to what we’ll do, it’s really none of your business ;-)  The evening went really great and we had a good and loud crowd once again. The next few shows will be in new places which of course is really interesting, hope everything goes well.

cheers,

Henkka