SunriseAve ITALY

Oslo-Hamburg-Magdeburg-Berlin-Vienna

I'm in a plane on my way to Vienna, Austria. Flight 98 this year, still counting... It was supposed to be our first day off in Germany, but Riku and I will spend it promoting the album, DVD and the tour in Austria. The Austrian EMI girls are very cool and relaxed and it will feel like a day off. The last time it was just so much fun to see them park the car in the radio station garage. Took ages and finally I had to do it.

We kind of owe the day for the Austrians. The last time we were supposed to do promotion there, we had to cancel everything because of the chemistry problems in the band and probably because of the fights and stress I got really sick and we had to cancel all the shows and everything for a couple of weeks. And of course we needed to find a new guy to play the guitar too. But we're fully back up now and it's a good way to give a little payback to the Austrian promotion team and of course the fans who missed the shows and stuff the last time.

The tour has been just amazing. Really amazing. The set we play is kind of long but it goes by so fast. Soon you're playing Wonderland and the end is near. We have been really shocked with the amount of listeners in ever city. There are 18 shows in Germany alone and still there's enough people for every place. Being on stage has felt more and more relaxed after every show and probably it was good to start with a bit smaller crowds in Scandinavia and then hit the bigger Central European clubs. Yesterday the bigger production and our own big stage worked like clock. The local crew and of course our own boys Karri, Mikko, MP, Tuomas, Aki and Basty are doing a fantastic job.

I was a bit worried having 11 guys inside the two-floor bus for such period. I mean we never really traveled this much together, not this tight. So it's the band and our own crew and Basty the tour manager who share the space. But somehow it feels as if the bus is half empty in the night when we drive to the next city and that's good. There's a huge lounge downstairs with DVD, Play station, kitchen, WC and stuff. The upper floor has 12 beds and two cool lounges in both ends with all audiovisual equipment. It's so cool to play the guitar in the front and see the cars go by. As stupid as it sounds, we all hated sleeping in a nice hotel on a day off in Hamburg. Everybody agreed with Sami who said at breakfast that he had missed the bus bed and the rest of us. I'm sure all this will change as we spend some more days together. We will get enough of each other. But all feels very cool so far.

And one thing…. Every time we've played Fairytale Gone bad, there's been a lot of people raising some kind of signs for us. The first show in Hamburg is said "JEE, " in Magdeburg "NOW" and yesterday in Berlin "WE" and I must say yesterday I was already waiting for the words to appear. Somebody said it would go through the whole tour. NOOOOOOOOO!!!! ;=) I can't sleep until I know what the whole story is. Maybe "Jee, Now we can celebrate HIFK as the new ice hockey champion of Finland…" Could it be…? Anyway the trick is really cool and who ever are behind it have given us some odd but nice feelings on stage. I can't wait for the next show and the next word.

Our driver Mr. John Dear told me there would be new clean sheets in my bed when I come back tomorrow. It's not that I drool much, just to keep it clean. He's a cool guy, somewhat scary when you first meet him, but inside he's a real teddy bear. I'm sure he will learn to love my car and the Finnish Kummeli Movies.

So we're about to land now. I'm gonna wake Riku up and put his seat in the upright position. I hope Jukka, Sami and Raul are having fun in Berlin & Dresden hile we have to work ;=) Jukkas producer partner Aku is also still in Berlin together with my singer colleague Max "Maximilian Largo" from the Band Killer Aspect. Could bet that they are snoring off their hangovers…

Rok U Son,
Samu Haber

PS: Remember to vote at the MTV thing!