SunriseAve ITALY

On Da Road! from Samu's Diary

Yeeehoooo!!! Here we are in a double-decker bus with the boys. We are driving from Frankfurt to Kiel for the tour start and only Karri, Aki and me are awake even though the night is still young on our scale. Nobody feels like having a drink, everybody is just waiting for the shows and now they’re recharging batteries in their beds. That’s good. I must say I have been waiting for this moment for a very long time. Sure it’s nice to be in the radio and on Video channels and all, but live shows and especially touring is the reason I do this at all. I heard the tickets have sold very well everywhere, so we will have a good bunch of people in every town. Some are even sold out already. And that means if you people are as great & loud as you have been before – we will have loads of fun!!!!

We are playing shows all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland first and then there are a few one-off shows in a few countries and even we don’t know yet where the trip will take us until we get home. There are still a few new countries and cities our management is trying to set things up for a show before the Christmas. I have the same bed I had on the tour 2007. Ok, sure it’s not even the same bus, this one is brand new, but when I put my things on the shelf next to by bed at the sleeping department, I felt like coming home.

Yesterday we performed at the World champion boxing title game again. We did the same thing a few years ago when the Russian Gigant Mr. Nikolai Valuev won his game against his American challenger, but this time the luck was not on Nikolai’s side. We performed “Not again” as he walked into the ring and we were told some 100.000.000 people were watching. I didn’t have the best hair day, but I can blame the huge Russian fighter for getting my hair up the wrong way. We stood 1 meter from him before getting on stage. And he had his (Scary!!) hood & gloves on. You just think “what if I look him in the eyes in the wrong way…” Honestly, he seemed like a very nice and friendly guy, but when someone is the world champion in boxing and is 212 tall and weights 120+, you better not annoy him right before his big performance. And they gave me a photo pass right next to the ring. Got some pretty cool shots ;)

Anyway. Tomorrow is the 1st day of this tour for us all. It will mean long sound checks and probably double times checking many things just so everything goes right in the evening for you people. We still have a few new things to go through with the guys at the rehearsals. We have played many shows in Finland and we learnt that some parts could have even more energy, stuff and action. We will also get the first touch with the “Black Sheep” girls. They are the band supporting us through the tour and at least I haven’t heard one single song so far. Hope they’re good ;) Sure we will have our dear friends “Clark Kent” from Finland with us on stage in Köln. But that is still a bit too far away now. My thoughts are in tomorrow ;)

We have been advised by our management and high-level doctors to avoid any unnecessary contacts with big groups because of the swine flu. And we have decided to follow that advice. We don’t want to make a big thing out of it, but sure this is something we need to look at seriously. This means that we will not be able to join people before or after the shows as we normally do. The reason we are on the road are the shows and we need to make sure that we stay as healthy as possible. And also make sure that we can do our best every night for the people who have paid the tickets and traveled to the venues for us. If one of the band members would get sick, we would have to cancel all the shows for a week or so. At the worst case. We will not take that risk and we will make no exceptions here. We hope you all understand that we can’t take time off from this now if we get ill, the dates are booked. It’s also for your safety. The less people get infected, the better it is.

I will sink into my “´home for the next weeks “ now and watch one episode of “24” and fall asleep. Tomorrow I have a short Girya-training with Sami at 12 and after that I am married with my guitar for the rest of the day. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be right here right now with these guys.

Rock you soon ;)