TOUR DIARY 2006

TOUR DIARY, European Tour 2006 with Doro and Benedictum

31.12.2006 Ok, we are sitting on a bus driving towards the Frankfurt airport. Going home! Nice. We will arrive Frankfurt in 5 o`clock in the morning and the plane leaves sometime during the afternoon so there`s a long wait ahead of us. The last show of the tour was truly amazing. Everything was just perfect. The sound was good, we were good, the crowd was good. It was such a pleasure to play. As was the whole tour. And we had this special moment during our set. We were doing The King and The God when the guys from Doro`s band came on stage dressed as this 3,5 tall monster! It was like some kind of Eddie. I felt a moment there like I was playing in maiden or something. And the monster was throwing some kind of white powder on us, alot of it! And the crowd went nuts! We wre all white after that! Thanks guys! :) It was alot of fun. And then we hit the stage with Doro`s band, us and benedictum,during one song. We will be home around midnight tonight. Can`t wait. It`s been one hell of a ride. Winterborn signs out. 30.12.2006 Crailsheim. Drove over here during the night again. And again nice town. Teemu and I took a walk round the town again, and the weather was nice, again. And the last show of the tour. So the atmosphere was really high. And the stage is really big as well as the whole place. And it`s sold out. Looking forward to the show. 29.12.2006 Andernach Juz live club. Weird place, Teemu and I took a walk around here and it was pretty nice. Like in country side. but still in town. Nice weather, sun was shining which was great mood lifter. Still sick but luckuly Teemu is feeling much better. .... Ok, the show is done. It was a good one. Really nice audience, the front rows were crazy! And the place was packed. It was really alot of fun. One more left! 28.12.2006 Ok, back in Germany, in Aschaffenburg. And miracle, we managed to do the show. We bought a truck load of medicins and pills for Teemu and did every trick in the book and he actually did sing tonight. Not too good, but did it anyway. At least something. Jukka and I are still sick too. So it seems that this last week and 6 gigs in arow won`t be too easy for us. We liked the venue. It had a really nice atmosphere. Unfortunately the stage was smallest in this tour, so not too much running around, not too much moving at all. The first night that I think at least my playing suffered because of the flu and fever. A very beatiful town. Still 2 more to go. By the way, Rami was in great shape this morning :) 27.12.2006 Fuck! So here we are. We had unfortunately cancel our only show in Belgium. Now this really sucks!!!! Teemu couldn`t sing, so thats it. Damn shame, it was a nice place here in Antwerpen, and the crowd seemed very good indeed. Fuck! So the mood is not too good let me tell you that. We are afraid about tomorrow. 26.12.2006 We did a show in Bochum, and I, Teemu , Jukka and Saimis ( a.k.a Mr Deadwater here) were sick. It was close that we didn`t have to cancel this show. I couldn`t sing at all, throat was not well, and Teemu had a really hard time trying to sing all the parts. He was really sick too. now this sucks big time! So the only one without a flu is Rami. but the show was amazingly good concidering the circumstances. But not the best audience, no. not for us. They seemed like very suprised after some of our new stuff which is a lot more heavier perhaps. We hope we will feel better tomorrow. 25.12.2006 We played in this place called Halle 101, in Speyer. Very cool big venue. We had an excellent show, one of the best and the crowd made a huge noice. Unfortunately three of us seem to be sick. I had a fever the whole day and wasn`t really feeling that good going on to the stage. But managed to do a good show. Teemu was complaining about he feels too. Lets hope he is not getting really sick. 24.12.2006 Merry christmas everybody! We had our second day off here in this same place. We had a nice christmas dinner with the whole tour crew, like a one big happy family or something. It was pretty nice. But of course we miss traditional finnish christmas food, like kinkkua ja laatikoita, perkule! We are leaving here tonight, have some distance to do before arriving tomorrows venue. Cheers! 23.12.2006 Hello there! Its was day of and we spent it here in a place called Route66, somewhere in a little town very near Dusseldorf. This is a nice restaurant and we are now just relaxing with the boys, shooting pool, drinking and eating. Everything is free of charge tonight so you know what that means. :) We took a little trip with the guys to Dusseldorf by train. nice town, had some really good time just hanging out. 22.12.2006 Tonights show is in Flensburg Roxy. The last show before christmas break that lasts the next two days. We wouldn`t mind playing those days too but you know, it`s christmas. It`s been nice to play this many gigs in a row, it really starts to show and hear in the bands performance. There`s a good vibe going amongst the whole tour personel, something like a little christmas spirit or something. Talk to you later, have a soundcheck to do now. Bye! Winterborn wishes merry christmas from the road! 21.12.2006 We arrived this morning to this really beatiful town called Hellendoorn. And tonights venue seems nice. It has good atmosphere in it. And great food today, thanks to the girls in the kitchen! Teemu and I took a long walk around the town and enjoyed its nice atmosphere. The show was once again good from us. It`s good to play this often so you can build up some routine ,which makes it easier to just go with the flow on stage and enjoy beeing there. Tonight we have a long road ahead of us, 7 hours drive to Germany and the next venue. 20.12.2006 Hello Netherlands! The land of windmills and other shit. ( and joints). We arrived today in this pretty nice club. The catering was good and everything worked like it should be. We got to do a decent sound check today which was good. The actual show went really well, one of the best we`ve ever done. It was such a joy to play and perform as good as we did. Have to tell you that nobody knew us before, but now they do! People really liked our stuff and we met some really nice people. Great night! And great stagesound tonight, thanks to the monitorguy! 19.12.2006 We drove this morning to this next venue in Ubach-Palenberg. The place is called Rockfabrik, and it has the smallest stage in Germany I guess.But somehow we managed to fit there and make a good show. Once again it was so great to be on stage. But the sound on stage was worst ever! God damn! Couldn`t hear a single fucking note what i was playing. The stage monitor guy didn`t know difference between right and left. Thanks a fucking lot :) 18.12.2006 Ok, we woke up outside this truckstop, nice ha? But fortunately we did go to the city today. Teemu and I booked a hotel room which was great, to sleep in a real bed. Cologne was really beatiful city and the cathedral " Dom" was amazing! We took some good band photos there, you will see those later on. So, a nice day off.   17.12.2006 Okay, today we were supposed to go to see Cologne, but something went wrong. We ended up beeing in a bloody truckstop the whole fucking day. It was a real mood killer! It was a somekind of misunderstanding I guess. So that was the first day off. 16.12.2006 We stayed over night in Austria, Wörgl, and headed to our next venue first thing in the morning. Todays venue is Kaufbeuren All-karthalle. Now this is a nice place to play in. Great food, a really big stage and the sound is very good indeed. we took a walk around the small village nearby with Teemu. It was really nice and the weather was like in June in Finland. Very warm and the sun was shining. The actual gig went pretty damn well and once again the crowd was great. Only thing that wasn`t so great was the fact that I broke a god damn string during the song The Real Me. And it was the only tuning that I hadn`t a spare guitar for so i had to tune another one during this intro in Winterwar. But it went quite smoothly actually. And Fabio, the guitar tech changed a new string for me during that song. he is such a great guy! After the show we met some really nice fans and had a good time. And it was also very nice to see few new friends of ours, Mr. Stefan and Mr. Gunther. So to wrap it up, real nice day! 15.12.2006 Today we played a show in Wörgl, Austria. The gig place was called Komma. Kind of a small place but the crowd reception was great. Some fans were waiting for us at the venue. Thanks to you and everyone else who came to see the show. Wörgl is a beautiful small town surrounded by mountains. Great sights, some of the guys in the band took a walk in the town during the day and took some pictures. Special thanks to our bus driver Scott! 14.12.2006 We left from the last venue right after the crew got all the eguipment on board. We had a long way to go to Austria and now we`ve been travelling the whole day. It gets pretty fucking boring to be on the bus for this long. But to make it easier, boys decided to have a party on the bus. A really good party! We slept late and then it has been all about watching movies. And sleeping. 13.12.2006 This morning we arrived to this days venue called Aladin in Bremen. Kind of cool place, a bit of different from the others so far. Otherwise the day was like all the others. We went to see the town after the breakfast and then it was again the waiting period of the day which takes most of the time on the road. But you`ll have to just get used to it and come up with something to do. This guy from a german radio station came to see us just before our show and recorded an introduction for this station. it was like this: Hi, we are Winterborn and you are listening Rock Station Kiel! he told us that they love the album down there and they have been playing On the edge of Eternity there. It`s great that a song that long (10 minutes) gets some time in the air these days. Thanks guys! Tonights show was the best we`ve had since the beginning. The crowd was great and we really loved to play there. Thanks to everybody who was there and made the night as good as it was for us. It would have been great to be able to play some more songs as the audience wanted! After that the party began for some of us. And somewhere during the night we broke the desibel record of the bus! Its allways load us hell but now it was even louder. 12.12.2006 Berlin day off! Slept again very late so we wasted a lot of good time to see the city. Your day ruting gets up side down on the road. You`re awake in the evenings and nights and slept during the mornings and some parts of the days. But finally we went to see Berlin and had alot of fun there. It was very nice and the whole city was in a christmas mood. Nice day. In the evening Saimis, Jukka and Mika went to see the nightlife with this very cool croatian guy "Drasen". Boys had a really good time with the guy. Thanks mate! 11.12.2006 BERLIN! We did a bloody marvelous show in Berlin. The playing was good and also the whole package. I think the sound on stage was fabulous tonight, at least for me. The audience was absolutely great and once again it was nice to see that some of the people knew some lyrics. Teemu and I were feeling sick and pretty weak before the show but managed to deliver the goods quite well. Maybe it was the food or just sleeping very little the past week. We don`t know. Our new song called Winterwar ( about Finlands winterwar against Russians in the WWII) is so fuckin great to play live. It`s a killer song! The crowd seems to think so too. ITS GREAT TO BE ON STAGE! WE LOVE IT! 10.12.2006 Ok! Something about the gig in Jolly Joker in Braunschweig. It was great! Big stage and a really good sound and a lot of people! We really enjoyed hittin the stage tonight. We changed one song in the set list. Replaced The king and the God with a new song called Winterwar. It seems to work better in a short set like this. We planned to make a few changes to the set list every now and then. 9.12.2006 First week on the road soon behind us. Everything has been great. We like the crew and things run smootly here. During last night we travelled to Jolly Joker. A quite big venue in Braunschweig. Nice big stage. Looks promising. We will tell you tomorrow how it was. And big hello to all our friends there! 8.12.2006 First gig in Germany today. Town called Affalter. The venue Zur Linde could be called at least interesting, kind of Gasthaus in the countryside. But the gig went very well and the house was packed. German audience was really great. 7.12.2006 We drove all night thru the Alps back to Germany. It`s our day off and we went to visit this town Regensburg. It as really nice to spend a day of with the band and see the beatiful old town in christmas mood. 6.12.2006 We arrived the Live Club Milano after a few hour drive. Had plenty of time to relax before the soundcheck which was the fastest we`ve ever done. A couple of minutes. We didn`t play a single note together! In the evening Benedictum warmed up the audience pretty good and it was great to go on stage and start rockin. The sound was amazingly good considering the short soundcheck The band sounded a lot better than yesterday and the crowd was just great. They gave us a good energy to the stage. It was really nice to see some fans singing along the whole gig. Just great! Thank you! And Doro ended up the night with a really great show. 5.12.2006 Well, the morning was like you could expect after a little party. Today we met the tour crew for the first time. Really cool people and its great to work with such a pro`s. And the whole Doro band was really cool. They sounded really good already in the soundcheck. The show went pretty well conserning it was the first show of the tour. The crowd was living along with the band and it was great to finally play. We played one new song called Winterwar to celebrate our independence day. And there might have been a little party with Benedictus after the show. 4.12.2006 We arrived today at the first venue in Treviso, place called New Age club. Cool little place just outside of town. So we had the day off because we were supposed to be in Florence today. So we just got to know Benedictum better and in the evening we had a pretty damn good party in the local pizzeria. We probably broke the desibel record of the place. And the party continued at the bus with some guys of Benedictum. 3.12.2006 Travel day. We travelled the whole day from our home town to Helsinki, from there to Berlin. From the airport we got picked up by this guy we nicknamed Pertti. A really nice guy who drove us to Frankfurth where we met our first support band Benedictum. A bunch of really really nice yanks. Then we got a call that the first show had been cancelled, DAMN! Well, we drove to Italy all night straight to the show for Wednesday,. Nice day, alot of travelling. We had a lot of fun.