SunriseAve ITALY

I am SO DEAD!

I have slept 5 hours the last too nights and now I am finally sitting on my sofa at home (the comfortable one) with a glass of wine. As soon as I have this thing written, I will dive into my bed under the huge blanket and never come out.

But let's get to the reasons of being tired….

We flew to St. Petersburg on Friday with the guys to play our very first shows in Russia ever. We had heard that the audiences there are really cool and that they treat the bands very well so the atmosphere was great from the take off. We also had a 2-month break with playing full shows and therefore we also had been waiting for these shows probably more than ever before. The flight left at 6 something in the morning and I just wasn't able to sleep the whole night before. The same happened to Jukka and also to Karri (Guitar tech) and Aki (Light tech) and we must have looked very presentable as we landed in Russia. We knew there would be a huge customs mess with all the equipment we were traveling with but luckily the local promoter had arranged a warm bus for us for the hour or something we had to wait for our guitars and stuff to get their stamps to enter the country.

After the check we went straight to bed for two hours before the interviews with Russian MTV and others and some meet and greet winners. You know when you only have a short nap, you're kind of half sleep the whole evening. Still it's amazing how the adrenaline wakes you up before the show and it was just as great as the other Finnish bands had told us. Very loud and they took part in singing the whole way. It was the first show there and we really didn't know what to expect, but the club was full and the night was perfect for us.

The next day the wakeup was at 3pm (!!!) so that helped a little for the off day. I went shopping with our record company guy Mikko and finally found the new lap top bag I have been looking for for ages. We also got the Sunrise Avenue CD and track number four, the first single was called FairyTABLE Gone Bad;=) Russian version. We flew to Moscow late in the evening just to get a good sleep before the next show day.

The club B1 in Moscow was bigger and it was probably the coolest rock club I have ever been to. Very cool indeed. We had a pretty busy day with interviews and meet&greets but since there were 5 guys doing it together, it was fun. We learned how to say "I am a jumping Frog" in Russian but I can't write it here since I don't know the Russian alphabets. There had been false information in some of the tickets saying that the show time is 8 and in some tickets it said at 9. It was quite annoying to keep the crowd waiting but what can you do. Sorry for the delay & thanx for the patience, wasn't our fault. We could have started much earlier.

The show was just fantastic again. And Raul became the new leader of Volvo Russia fan club (Sorry, stupid insider).

Ouh, and after the sound check we made a quick visit to the red square. You must do that if you are in Moscow. Actually I'm sure Moscow and also St. Petersburg are really nice in the summer. In winter it's quite much like Helsinki, dirty snow and stuff everywhere, but I am so sure it's very cool in the summer.

We were supposed to go to sleep right after the show to be fresh in Germany the next day at the Big Brother house. Nope ;=) We had the after party of our lives at Karri's room with the whole band and crew and even my little brother joined us. He was there at the show with my mom. Mom went to bed. Some of the crew guys and my brother (of course) went to the streets of Moscow in the night to buy Vodka and other drinks. They came back with bags full of stuff and the outcome was us guys wrestling and having half serious fights. It still hurts everywhere ;=)

The walls of the room were mostly there in the morning when we left the hotel but I am sure some sort of an invoice will follow us later on. Tuomas (Monitor tech) crashed his head through the WALL when the battled with Aki. Boys…

So… I slept for 2 hours at the hotel in Moscow. I didn't really have a hangover but I was so tired. And I knew that millions of Germans would watch me on TV at the BB house. It made me sweat.

Luckily we had time for a shower when we got to Köln, but then it was pretty hectic. We met some competition winners and media before the TV show and we did some photo sessions too. Then they took us to the roof next to the garden area of the BB house and we performed our Schlager "Choose to be me" for the BB guys. And then I finally entered the house…..

I was carrying two baskets full of Finnish beer and a bag full of our CD's and shirts. The entrance was dead dark before the "Big Brother" opened the door for me. The inhabitants didn't know about my visit and all I could say to present myself was yelling "Merry Christmas" in German, of course.

The time just stopped. The house was a lot bigger that it appears on TV and it was so bright and HOT. I know you need a lot of light for TV production but it was hotter than I had thought. That's probably why they are wearing Bermuda shorts. ;=)

It was all pretty unnatural in the beginning. I mean I was the first visitor since the start of the show and obviously the guys and girls had spent a lot of time not knowing what is happening in the world outside. I thought of telling them that the front man of the German pop band Modern Talking is in the cover of the latest GayMagazine, but I decided to leave mr. Dieter alone.

Anyway. They took me all over the house and I was even allowed to enter the ladies (poor side) shitty toilet. There was no toilet seat. You just stand there on top of a hole and do your whatevers… It was so bright and so strange. I just can't imagine living there or even staying there for more than that half an hour. Nice experience though…

And the Night was long in Cologne too. Even though I was tired already… So now after doing band stuff for the whole day, I will finally get my four pillows and the big blanket. Tomorrow I will go back to our studio construction and get orders from Aku, our studio boss to "scratch this and paint that" for the rest of the week. I hope they have made some progress with the place. I can't wait for the recordings of the next album to start…

Good night everyone, where ever you are. Maybe I'll have one more glass of wine…;=)

Samu