SunriseAve ITALY

Dortmund - Osnabruck – Köln    from Sunrise Aveue Diary

I can't sleep…

I'm in this very nice hotel room in Cologne and we had this tiny party today with Jukka, Raul and some EMI folks. The bus dropped us in front of the hotel at 12 in the day and I had to continue sleeping until 6 PM in my huge room. I just can't get it why I sleep so much and so well on this trip. We saw some Kummeli movies (Great Finnish humor) with Jukka all night in the bus and fell asleep at 5. Still laughing.

Now it was only 2 shows and again a day off. I guess that is a great way to tour; a day off after every 2 shows. Especially when some of the boys are ill like now. The flu has left us alone and apart from some crew members everybody's feeling all right.

We played for 2 amazing audiences again. The loudest audience so far was, no question in Dortmund. It was a sold out club with some 2000 listeners and I actually had to remove my ear monitor from my right ear a couple of times just to hear the real sound of the crowd. Osnabruck (never honestly heard of the place before) was also very nice but very hot too. My jeans were all wet from sweat after the show. The venue is in the middle of nowhere and as we arrived there in the night at 2 AM the club was still open. We went in with Jukka, Monitor Tuomas and Gorilla Mikko and we saw this guy (40+) dancing in a mini skirt. Nice. Seemed as if the party couldn't get better ;=)

I tried to climb over a fence in Dortmund after the show to meet some folks that have been to the show and I hurt my arm pretty bad. I didn't see the spikes that were up there up on the iron fence to get rid of the birds and their shit and I hurt my hands pretty bad. Our driver John cleaned my hands with Absolute Vodka to avoid any bad infections. THAT HURT…… Amazingly the hands are ok now and we can go on….

It's amazing how much dirty clothes you get traveling like this. Today we visited some local EMI folks homes to clean our clothes with Jukka. They also fed us and gave us some red wine. They are an EMI couple working for us together and ULI, the guy actually is also recording with his own band and Jukka was able to give him some recording and mixing tip I return.

It'll be so cool to play the Cologne Ewerk again tomorrow. That is where we shot the DVD that is out now. Feels like coming home. My mom and Mikko the guy who once sold his house in Helsinki to pay the studio costs are going to see the first show on this tour and that makes it even more exciting. The Ewerk is a big hall with a lot of air inside even when it's full of music listeners and I am really looking for that show. Köln is also my favorite town in Europe. Again today as we arrived here, I felt like I could really live here. Köln is a very open minded gay-city and the atmosphere is just awesome. And even though I really like girls, they open mind feeling makes you feel ok even though you come from the north.

So… I'll try to sleep a bit now. I have 8 hours in bed until the bus will pick us up in front of the hotel. I already missed the morning take off twice on this tour and have been following the bus with taxi after a few hours. Tomorrow I will be there in time and get to my booked gym at one in the center.

Can you believe it's only 4 bands left ion the MTV voting. Well, no mater what happens, life will go on and even if we don't get to the top 3 to be able to perform at the gala, the fans have made a terrific job. But of course I have faith in our own gang.

I will try to sleep now. The bed is huge and kind of inviting. Rock you soon,

Samu