EXCLUSIVE NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DIARY BY NORTHER’S HEIKKI SAARI – PART 1

[Finland’s Norther bring just the kind of Scandinavian metal we love around here — big, epic, heavy, fast and undeniably catchy. Though the band is relatively new to us, they’re well-established in their home territory, having already released five full-length studio albums, the latest of which — N — came out earlier this year in Europe and drops September 30th in the U.S. on Century Media. They also happen to overlap members with Wintersun and folk-metal masters Ensiferum, two MetalSucks faves. So when the band contacted us about an exclusive road blog from their first-ever North American tour, we couldn’t help but say ‘yes.’ Be sure to check out the band’s music on their MySpace page when you’re done perusing their tour blog and photos.]

9/18/08

Alright… It was 3:32 am when I hopped in a cab along with our beloved bass-boy Jukka on our way to our rehearsal lair to pick up the gear when I made the first notes to our tour blog-to-be. We gathered up our gear and after this we grabbed another cab and continued to the airport after going to Kride’s place to pick him up. Petri and Tuomas arrived by their own taxi.

And so the trip starts… Everyone was feeling more or less fine, although the ‘early’ wakeup at 3 at night required some extra coffee. We got our asses to the plane to first fly to Amsterdam, then to Detroit and finally to Montreal. Yes, it’s a long way to go, but not so bad for us, anyways. The only thing that got us somewhat worried/pissed was that Petri had to fly alone… Petri had to take a separate flight, since he’s going to continue straight to L.A after this tour ends to join another tour with Ensiferum! It’s not like he can’t handle himself, no problem at all, but we just wished that he could join us as well. And I guess Petri would rather have flown with us for the next 10 hours, rather than flying alone. :)

Anyways, after our arrival to Amsterdam we had a couple of extra hours at the airport, so we went to grab something to eat. After this, the others decided to take a little nap, but I decided to stay awake. The reason for this was to catch the time zone difference during the next 8 hour flight, so I took a coffee instead.

Maybe an hour later, we got ourselves to the plane and headed to Detroit. I decided to order a couple of beers & red wine to calm myself down a bit.

Listening to aircraft radio, I eventually fell asleep. I tried to sleep as less as possible last night since it’ll be a total Hell to catch up on sleep because of some time zone shit, so this would be the way for me to correct it: listen to some good easy music, grab a couple of beers/wine and eventually fall asleep. :) (and no, I was NOT talking about passing out).

So off to Detroit. Now we can say that we have visited the US, for 50 meters at least. Hah. Yes, we had to go through customs (again) and back to the international site (again) and do security check for the third time today already, to get to the connecting flight.

Since leaving from Detroit, we’ve been on our way for maybe 18 hours already, and about 8 hours of that is just waiting around and wasting time at the airports and waiting for connecting flights! Yes, WE are perfectly aware that there are direct flights available from Helsinki to Montreal as well, which only take about 8 hours…but we like flying…

9 / 19 / 2008

Today started a bit better than yesterday ended. We had some good sleep and we went to this nice place to have a good healthy breakfast, lots of vegetables and stuff, so now everyone’s feeling ok!

Yesterday after hotel check-in, we went to see Nefastus Dies (the opening act on this tour) guys in their rehearsal lair. The place was this big ass band hotel style thin; lots of bands practicing in the same place. It was just like our rehearsal space, only a lot bigger! We stayed there for maybe an hour talking this and that, waiting for the drums to come in from Pearl. I checked everything with the Pearl delivery guy and everything was as it should be, so we’re ready to go! :)

We’re now on our way to The Trash Bar to throw our first show. It seems we’re running late about 50-60 minutes, but what the heck, we’ll get our sound check anyways so it doesn’t really matter.. ;)

From behalf of all in NORTHER,
Heikki Saari