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Tangled on Tour 2001 - Tour Diary by Chris Porcianko
European Tour 2008 - Tour Diary by Chris Porcianko

Tangled on Tour 2001 - Tour Diary by Chris Porcianko

I don't know where and how to start with this because I really haven't read many tour diaries in the past, of musicians on the road, playing in places that they only previously dreamt of and finally having the opportunity to play in front of so many people and new found fans.
Within this diary I have written, it is all pretty much about our tour with Gamma Ray and Sonata Arctica on Gamma Ray's "No World Order" European tour.
Within the diary you will read about road stories, bad smell descriptions, funny hotel/hotel party stories, bus trips from hell and back, road crew stories and most of all, you will read how we got through it in one piece and survived, so we can do our next album and repeat the madness all over again in the future heh heh.
It is all good fun and I will try to keep you all entertained for the duration of the diary :)
So here we go...

Wednesday 26/9/01
We meet up with our tour manager for the tour whose name is Jorg, many tour managers seem to have a legacy or stigma attached to them because they are the prime decision makers.
Either way somewhere in the past hard decisions have been made by tour managers and some people have suffered as a result... we were very lucky that our tour manager is no such person.
He is the decision maker and although he has to make order and sense out of all the chaos, we all felt calm knowing that the tour was going to be smooth and well organised.
At approximately 10pm we were to load our gear into the trailer that was attached to the tour bus, but as always you have to be realistic and remember that although you are beginning a tour, it sometimes does not make you exempt from having to load and still put in your fair share of input, so that everything goes smoothly.
The saying "many hands, makes for light work" is true, but when you have many, many road cases, they must be stacked in an orderly fashion, so all the expensive gear does not break and make hell break loose.
Another thing is, most of the crew were already in Bochum where the first date of the tour was to commence.
After all the gear was loaded in, and we were refreshed from the Hamburg rain (which is normal of Hamburg, this I will elaborate on further heh heh), at 1am we were rolling and we just sat back in the bus and had a couple of beers with Markus from Helloween and Henjo from Gamma Ray.
Many beers were being consumed and of course we opted for the taste of Warsteiner beer instead of Jever, because Jever is a very bitter beer and for some of us it was too bitter to drink.
Anyways, Markus is playing bass in Gamma Ray temporarily live until Dirk Schlacter, who is the bass player in Gamma Ray recovers from his knee operation.
Either way, Markus like Dirk is a comical guy who we had many laughs with and we all shared many jokes.
The atmosphere in the bus was cool for us because we are all Gamma Ray and Helloween fans from way back, so for us this was a trip and a half.
After a few hours conversing, joking, laughing and a couple more cans of Warsteiner, I decided to retire to the upstairs lounge (the bus was a double Decker, cool huh....) and have some much needed rest.
After waking up with my back slightly sore and out of alignment (actually felt like a bull hit me heh heh ), I decided to take a look around, I had never been to Bochum before, so I went into the venue and...

Thursday 27/0/01
The madness begins!!!!! muhahahahahahahahah
I went upstairs to the lounge in the Venue for breakfast to find a wide variety of foods that made us feel at home, after eating breakfast all of us in the band hung around inside the venue and we were introduced to the Gamma Ray crew which was cool, because these guys are the lifeline of the tour.
We finally were introduced to our new mates from Finland, Sonata Arctica, these guys are cool and we all hit it off well from the start, which was really cool because we were sharing the same tour bus for the next 5 weeks.
We finally at 3pm get into our own tour bus which is really cool,classy,cramped,and comfortable,has a DVD/Video CD player, pretty much the whole bus has everything that we need to call home for the next 5 weeks.
As anyone can tell you, the bunks/beds we had on our bus were great, but you HAD to crawl into them because of the size of the bunks, which can be interesting when you are over 6ft tall and you have to pretty much do the limbo or crawl sideways to get into the bunk.
Nevertheless although the bunks look like catacombs when you walk down the middle of the bus, they are very comfortable.
Anyways back at the venue, the stage is all set. The props are up and the doors open at 7pm, people were lining up outside for hours, so this was really cool to see them all rush in and shelter from the rain outside as well, in Germany the fans are die-hards and they would wait through a sandstorm if they had to, such is their dedication to the music.
We take to the stage at 7pm for a half hour set which judging by the response we received from the audience, we went down really well, the people were really cool and they just went nuts.
This is definitely a place we want to come back to in the future, the venue is great, we had no soundcheck, yet we had a good sound, the crowd liked us, what more could anyone possibly want... a shower, a drink, food and good company, and that is what we got.
We watched Sonata Arctica kick ass live, saw Gamma Ray kick ass as well, so after the shows were over, we met many people, signed some autographs, had many laughs with new friends and old friends from the previous year that we met (greetings to Chico, thankyou for the shirt and vodka, dzienkuje!!!) from our show at Wacken.
We had to leave at approximately 2-3am for our next destination, so after saying our goodbyes to our new found friends and fans, we were rolling onto Osnabruk.
In the bus we were trying out this drink called Salmiakki (not sure isf this is the correct spelling!) which the guys from Sonata Arctica gave to us as gifts, this is great yet a truly evil drink from Finland.
Let me tell you, this stuff is cool if you want to have a couple of shots, but if you intend on drinking a lot then be prepared to feel a little hungover the next day, this stuff that tastes like Sambuca or Ouzo is truly evil shit!!!!!! heh heh heh it can surely beat drinking warm milk or cocoa before you go to bed if you have a cold, that's for sure.

Friday 28/9/01
We wake up in Osnabruk which is a cool place surrounded by forests and is basically situated in rural Germany.
We have breakfast somewhere around 2pm which is weird when the only time you see the morning is when you are on the bus, driving through the dark to the next gig, thats the mornings we see.
It seems strange yet at the same time for those who like to sleep, a good thing.
We hung out with the guys from Gamma Ray and Sonata Arctica and just generally talked about normal things, which is really cool to see because behind all the experience, tours, road stories, CD sales, they are people who are just normal who like a joke and a laugh.
Whenever we were sitting at a table having something to eat or drink beer with Markus, we all put on these false (really bad attempts, mind you) english accents, so throughout the day you could hear Markus saying to us "Onya Mates, have a pint of lager" or "awww bloody 'ell" just for a laugh.
Anything silly or funny is good to know when you know that later you have to be focussed before and during the gig.
All the fun and games makes the day go well and nobody feels homesick.
We took to the stage at 7:45pm opening as usual with "two minds, one soul" and everything was going well for us until I started having technical problems with my amplifier.
If you ask any guitarist what they fear the most during a live show, they will tell you the following (A) breaking a guitar string during the gig (especially during a solo) OR (B) having your amp play games with you during the gig.
I unfortunately had to deal with part (B) which kinda pissed me off because I was worried that my amp was going to fry, we are lucky that we have experienced people in the crew who are always there to help when equipment goes down.
This evening I had Piesel (guitarist from Iron Saviour) who is also Kai Hansen's guitar tech, help me out with my gear and luckily with some calm thinking my amp survived and Piesel turned the power off to my amp before it went into total meltdown.
Logic prevails in the end and thanks to Piesel, I had a relatively calm gig considering the technical problems that I had with my amp.
Afterwards the party we had with the guys from Sonata Arctica was great and very funny, the venue after the gig was transformed into a massive nightclub where the DJ's play nu-metal stuff and some old grunge stuff which was cool, plus it was very funny to see Jani from Sonata Arctica do the disco dance and do the splits on the dance floor heh heh. It was a classic!
At 2am it was back in the bus to sleep and go to the next show.

Saturday 29/9/01
Oh no, I looked like 'hangover boy" today when I woke up a little worse for wear and most of us definitely had hangovers because we all pretty much looked like ghosts heh heh heh
Tonight the gig was in Lichtenfels which is really cool and the venue was really nice and big.
Many great bands have played here in the past including Manowar, Gary Moore, Rage, Helloween etc.
The vibe is great, we have a shower/bathroom next to our dressing room (oh, woweee!!!!!!) and of course there is the usual waiting and waiting and err umm waiting.
Stories from the past speak of some bands getting drunk DURING THE DAY to kill the time, which to us seemed dumb, with us it was nothing like that at all, so to kill the time I started to teach Tony and Tommy from Sonata Arctica some English words with a Maltese accent, (courtesy of our good friend Shane back home), so in event I was calling Tony "Charlie ", he was calling me "Joey", we spoke about fishing for "La Pookey" and watching "chef chef chef ougiy", which anyone who knows the Maltese language will tell you that "chef chef etc etc " is actually fireworks.
Anyone who knows me, knows that even the silliest or craziest humour no matter how juvenile, makes me tick, I mean c 'mon I loved the Monty Python movies, doesn't that tell you something hah hah.
Luckily our show tonight went really well and I was fortunate enough to have no problems with my amp, we all had fun onstage and the crowd liked us as well, which was really cool.
Tonight was the first chance most of us in the band had a chance to see the full set by Sonata Arctica, these guys are awesome and they are very tight live, we were blown away.
Gamma Ray as usual also kicked ass big time and it was really cool to see our Danny up there with them playing keyboards for the tour.
Its a big bonus for him because for him Markus is one of his favourite bass players and they shared the same stage, mega-cool I say and we are all proud of Dan :)

Sunday30/9/01
Today we played in Koln / Cologne which is cool because the venue once again is nice and it looks like being a packed night with many people.
Yes, yes the show was as usual really cool and Sonata Arctica and Gamma Ray played awesome sets.
Some of us had the opportunity to meet fans that have our CD and were singing all the words when we played live, it was really cool to meet them and thank them for their support. Greetings to Cora and Sonya.
Some of the people who could not get in time to see our set at Bochum came all the way to Koln to see us play, this is pretty cool to know and its a huge buzz knowing that we have loyal fans everywhere.
Joe, Tom and myself also had the opportunity to be driven to the Cologne Dom/Cathedral in all its gothic splendour and 1000 year history.
It is so huge and beautiful in its appearance that we were all in shock, it was like being back in time or something, it proved to in our memories.
Another memorable experience we will never forget is when our friend Christoph from Mindcrime (and all his crew who showed us the Dom and parts of Koln...hello!!!) was driving us back to get to the bus on time.
I can tell you, I was impressed with his driving experience and I thought his indecision on where to turn at the last minute was amusing, this guy was a racing car driver in his past life for sure.
Either way due to some slight driving misdemeanours, the police had pulled the car over and luckily Christoph got away with a small fine instead of a big fine, had they of seen the other driving tricks he was doing heh heh heh.
In a way we felt bad for him too, because he took some risks to get us back to the venue on time and for this we thank him a lot, so if you are reading this Christoph, wherever you are, Prost!!!! Danke!!!! And a Big Hail to the Eisen Pimmel!!!!!!! heh heh heh

Monday 1/10/01
Today is our first day off and we are in Hamburg in a nice hotel called the Astron, which is very nice.
Jack, Dan and myself decided to go CD hunting and get our laundry done, its pretty boring but never the less a necessary evil unless you want to walk around in stale clothes.
When Jack and I arrived back to our hotel rooms we came across different room numbers on our room doors, so thinking that we were on a different floor, we went back to the lifts to see if we were on the wrong floor, and we found that we were on our floor.
We also had found out that Tom, Joe and Dan had changed the numbers on the doors in order to stooge us into thinking that we were on the wrong floor heh heh heh "bastards!!!!" Nevertheless I saw the humour in it and Tom and myself decided to change a couple more numbers heh heh.
There was a dude across the hallway who came out of his room and was Australian, he noticed our accents, so he decided to see what was going on with all the noise we were making.
Is just so happened that Craig is one of the guys who sings in Australia's "Ten Tenors" which had been touring Germany and playing to packed out opera theatres.
He was cool and we all talked Australian football for ten minutes and then we decided to change the room numbers on Sonata Arctica's rooms as well heh heh, tonight ended up becoming crazy and a big party followed on from there.
By the time some of the guys were slightly drunk with the guys from Sonata Arctica, we all heard noises as if someone was taping something to the door with duct tape, heh heh heh we were right, it was the guys from the Ten Tenors taping jars, tapes, CD's and even a spanner to the door, which we could not stop pissing ourselves from laughing.
The thing that really had us all in hysterics was when they tried to tape a mountain bike to our door, when we opened the door to see this virtually brand new bike attached to it, we could not believe it, the funny thing is the dudes gave us the bike, so as a result some of us decided to ride the bike up and down the hallway and we took the bike on tour with us, which subsequently at the end of the tour we passed onto Mikko from Sonata Arctica.
Nevertheless the Gamma Ray crew that was with us could not believe what was happening and when we got hold of a master key and made our way into one of the crew guys room, he wasn't impressed as we thought he would be, maybe we woke him out of his comatose state, who knows heh heh heh.
After all the madness had quietened down, we decided to get some rest at 4:30am, the joys of partying heh heh.

Tuesday 2/10/01
Hamburg for us guys in Vanishing Point is pretty much our second home in Europe, we have close friends there and it's always really cool to catch up with them.
Tonight's show was at the "Markthalle" venue which is situated in the centre of Hamburg.
The venue is nice and the staff always look after the bands, which is cool because the whole set up in there is great and very band friendly.
Before checking our gear, I met some people out the front (Gabriella, Rena & Tim) who were waiting to meet all the guys in the bands, should we ever use the entrance they were standing at.
I introduced myself and I could not believe that they had been there for 5 hours already, just standing there waiting and getting drenched from the Hamburg rain, and if you ask anyone who has been to Hamburg, if it rains there, it pours down.
Anyways the venue tonight was packed full with people, after all this is Gamma Ray's home town and tonight was testament to the fact that they have many friends in Hamburg.
Our show tonight went really well and we had a lot of fun onstage, we were actually surprised because we were told in the past that the Hamburg crowds tend to be a bit quiet, luckily for us this wasn't the case and we had a very enjoyable evening.
Sonata Arctica as usual kicked ass and Gamma Ray played a cool set which saw Dirk Schlacter get up onstage for the first time on this tour to play after his knee operation.
By the vibe that was around, tonight was an awesome night and much fun was had by everyone who was there and attended the gig.
There was many guests there including our best bud Andreas from Megace, Limb & TC from LMP music and staff, Alex Strapoli from Rhapsody, Jan from Paragon, Sherree and Thomas from Wacken, all the staff from All Access (greetings Jorg!!!) and many others.
Tonight is definitely a night that we wont forget and if anyone asks you what the vibe is like in Hamburg, tell them that Hamburg is the place and it rocks, simple.
The CD shopping extravaganza there is damn cool as well, just ask Dan and Jack heh heh.

Wednesday 3/10/01
Berlin, tonight we played at a venue called HOF 23 which is a nice venue, yet this place gets damn hot, while we were playing it felt like we were playing in front of an open fire place, there just didn't seem to be any way out from sweating your ass off in there and just trying to have as much fun as possible.
The vibe was great, we had a good response and it was nice to see people who never heard of us before, yet really liked our music.
Tonight, Sonata Arctica played a killer show and it looked like they were having heaps of fun on stage. As usual, Gamma Ray kicked ass and it was a cool night in Berlin, we hope to come back here one day to at least see some sights while on tour if time allows that would be awesome! Special mention goes to Tony from Sonata Arctica for his fantastic spray-painting techniques hehehe.

Thursday 4/10/01
Today we had a day off, and instead of resting we decided to spend as much time as we could and check out Frankfurt while the sun was out. All of us did the usual and went CD hunting in the shopping district and while walking around we saw many great sights like the Frankfurt Opera House. Other sights we checked out (of the walking kind) were quite amusing and cool at the same time but, provided, a strain on the eyes from looking in all different directions other than looking straight when walking. The Hotel we were staying at was The Queen's Hotel in outer Frankfurt which is really nice and the staff were really great and helpful. All in all after the day in the city was done we all pretty much kicked back and had an early night this evening.
Boring huh?

Friday 5/10/01
Today the show was at Langen which is just outside of Frankfurt. The venue is called Stadthalle Langen which is situated in the town of Langen the set up is made up of a bunch of people who organise and promote gigs who are a kind of Heavy-Metal Union/Club who put their hearts and all their hard work on the line and they proved to be truly professional in their approach and teamwork. Today's show was a breeze and the atmosphere amongst the crowd was great, for us regardless of my technical problems with my amp it was awesome because there was approx. 2,000 people in the crowd who were just going crazy and enjoying the music.
I wished we could have played for longer but that's the way it goes! Can you imagine playing a gig and having Kai Hansen on one side of the stage and Markus from Helloween on the other side watching your show? Either could we before we began this tour, pretty cool huh?
After we finished our set, and Sonata Arctica's crew were setting up I was dared to run across the stage and back in my boxer shorts, t-shirt and white sport socks much to the amazement of our tour manager, we all seemed to have had a laugh and I nearly slipped ass over on the slippery stage with my sport socks on. Nevertheless, the rest of the crowd seemed to have had a laugh, so did the rest of our crew. Who could have imagined that Silvio was to better this in Helsinki... BASTARD hahaha!!
While I was writing this diary, in the tour bus Markus from Helloween came onto the bus and asked what I was writing here and when I told him what I was writing he said "Hello" to everyone who reads this so there you have it from the man himself!
Tonight we had beers with Markus because this was his 3rd last show before he was going back home, so in a sense it was logic to have a couple of beers with our new friend.
For the 6 of us in the band, this was really cool since we grew up in our teenage years listening to Helloween and Gamma Ray. Tonight's show will definitely go down as one of our best and favourite shows that we have played in our career.
It's funny and weird at the same time when you are enjoying yourself and you don't even realise what day it is because everyday in a way seems the same yet you are in a different city and playing to different people.
Tonight we also met Alex who is one of our biggest fans.

Saturday 6/10/01
Tonight we played in a town called Kaufbeuren which is located in Southern Germany, the venue is called the Zeppelin Halle and is actually an old beer brewery, so it has great acoustics and it definitely is nice to play in a place that I'm sure is over 100 years of age.
Mikko from Sonata Arctica and myself went into the town during the day for a look around and we found ourselves in the middle of a festival with beer, food and heaps of people strolling around in traditional Bavarian clothes. The atmosphere was great and it was a great day weather wise amongst all the rainy days to be out.
We didn't even realise that it was the time of the Octoberfest duh duh!!
We kicked off our set at 8pm and we went down well. We have been very happy with every place we have played in considering that, to many European metal fans we are still a new band.
Sonata Arctica played a great set, these guys have their shit down and for a young age they at every show amazed me with their professionalism and musicianship.
They are great guys and we are happy to have them as great friends now.
Gamma Ray kicked ass as usual, and the crowd went crazy for them singing the words and generally head banging like many fans do.
What can one say when always witnessing a band like this, I'm not sure apart from the fact that I know many friends back home are jealous.
Who could blame them?
We met up with some good friends of ours Marion and Manu and we also met up with the crew (Rina, Gabriela and Tim) who waited outside the venue in Hamburg, we were blown away to hear about them travelling 13 hours by train to come to see the show, now that's dedication!
We also met Alex from the "Metal Observer" who was really cool and we met lots of fans of ours who came to the show with both CD's for us to sign etc, it was a cool night and we had a great time.

Sunday 7/10/01
Today was the big show in Stuttgart which had us playing on the same bill as Freedom Call, Sonata Arctica, Primal Fear and Gamma Ray. The venue was pretty big and many bands have played there previously.
We started early at 5.50pm for a short set which went well, the crowd liked us and it was good to see that bands sharing the bill liked us also. The guys from Freedom Call were cool and we hung out with Ferdy Doernberg who is the keyboard player from a cool band called Rough Silk as he also plays with many other bands including Axel Rudi Pell. Tonight he was doing live work with Freedom Call. He was a cool guy as well as a great musician who we are now happy to call a mate. The bonus for us was that he really dug our music now Joe and Ferdy will be swapping CD's.
Freedom Call's set was great and it was cool to hear them do a cool mixture of songs from their Crystal Empire CD and debut album.
Their sound was great and the crowd went crazy for them! Sonata Arctica played next and were H-U-G-E, their sound was massive and they played tight. The heat in the room at times felt as if someone had turned the heating on full with there being no room for ventilation, which proved hard for all bands at one point or another yet, the atmosphere was fantastic and overcame the minor comfort setbacks.
Primal Fear were good and they played their metal with style and showed no signs of slowing down. These guys rock big time and it was awesome to see Ralph Scheepers sing since I never had the chance to see him sing live with Gamma Ray......... until tonight! Gamma Ray were awesome and displayed their usual musical prowess, kicking ass and enjoying the crowd's enthusiasm.
Before finishing tonight, they had Markus from Helloween come up on stage to play "I Want Out" which was huge then they followed by playing "Future World" with Ralph from Primal Fear singing. Talking of musical bliss we thought we saw it all until, we heard the opening riff to "Ride The Sky" we went totally crazy and some of us felt as though we dropped our cookies hehehe
Tommy was in a state of bliss, Joe was grinning from ear to ear so was Silv, Danny was rapt, I was as happy as could be and our beloved Jack was a little "sick" resting in the tour bus.
It was a cool live ending to a great yet long day which was enjoyable for all of us, it was cool to see all the bands watching each other as well as showing support, it will surely remain in our memories for many years to come.
This evening was the last for Markus on the tour, so for all of us, it was a kind of sad/happy ending because we all became friends with Markus and we all shared many beers on the tour with him.
We would have shared many more if it wasn't Jever beer hehehe
We all swapped our contact details with him and we all promised to keep in touch, the man is a good bloke who is as real as they come and would rather be amongst the fans and general people instead of all the VIP treatment that bands receive on tour.
It was a bit of a sad ending (but nevertheless in the immortal words of Freddie Mercury and Queen... the show must go on)

Monday 8/10/01
Today we woke up in the bus to discover we were already in Prague (which is in the Czech Republic). Today was our day off, so Joe, Jack and myself decided to go and do the tourist thing armed with cameras and check out Prague.
I can now happily say that I have been to Prague and the reports by many people saying that it's a beautiful city are true.
It is truly a place to be seen by your own eyes and the historical buildings, the Castle, Charles Bridge and the many little side streets that sell little souvenirs etc, are fantastic!
We ventured down many streets, brought CD's cheap!!, brought souvenirs, cheap again!! Dined on KFC (twice!!), took photos and we even went to the famous Prague Torture Museum which was thrilling, shocking and entertaining at the same time.
It was really cool to check out all these places and just wander around in a city we have only read about and seen on TV.
Oh yeah a couple of hints... it's cheap for CD's, KFC menu deal bullshit meal will set you back about 5 German marks, the taxi's are cheap (do a deal with a taxi driver,DONTt go for the first offer,DO a bit of bargaining), watch your wallet because it's easy to spend copious amounts of money on souvenirs.
Always do your conversion calculations and don't wander around here at night alone, not that anything could happen, but it's better to be safe than broke or broken!
Other than that Prague rocked and it is truly the golden eye these days for tourism in Eastern Europe.
Check it out!

Tuesday 9/10/01
We woke up this morning, from our crusty hotel to get ready for our 11.30am departure. In what can be defined as an interesting hotel with a reception dude with a nonchalant attitude. Maybe he hates his job or maybe he hated the fact that we all including crew, hung out in the foyer lounge making asses of ourselves joking and he could not enjoy himself too.
Anyways, we leave to only 5 minutes later have a shit situation happen where the trailer of the other bus hit the road by bottoming out and basically engraving/ploughing 2 channels into the road surface that were approx 2-3 inches deep and 6 feet long. We held up trams, buses and many cars (basically we made a traffic jam that could not be avoided).
The police came and re-directed traffic, people were looking from every direction, people were losing their minds, nerves were fraying, chaos was reigning supreme \m/.
All the bands and crew were a little bemused and surprised at the road conditions, who the hell is the civil engineer, is it a circus clown? hehehe must be because it was getting beyond a joke and at one stage with all the traffic it was looking more like a street parade of people with varying pissed off looks on their faces instead of a traffic jam. Trams from over a kilometre away, had to empty out their passengers and they had to walk the rest of the way... you'd be pissed off if you had an important lunch meeting hehehe
After 45 minutes the Prague dudes with heavy machinery and a crane that could lift a tank, helped move the trailer and bus, luckily no-one was injured the damage factor was minimal and we were on our way to tonight's show :o)
We arrived to the venue which is called The FUTURUM about 1 hour late which taking the situation into consideration was pretty good going.
What can one say? The crew are professionals.
The venue in Prague was the smallest of the first part of the tour and held maximum 600-700 people, as you could imagine how packed the place was inside with all the die-hard people in there, Prague absolutely rocks big time!
For us it was unbelievable to have people going crazy over our songs and set, it was like a heavy metal utopian world of serious and hungry fans who just want to let loose and have fun.
I was happy to see my cousin and friends from Poland there and we also caught up with our good friends from America Kit and Jen, it was a mini re-union for us and we all definitely had a great night.
Sonata Arctica played a great set and the crowd was chanting their name at the start of their set, they guys kicked ass and Tony was in top shape delivering each song with great finesse, emotion, passion and class.
It seems that every time I see them play I am always blown away.
Gamma Ray simply crushed the audience and the audience got what they wanted.
These guys are proof that you can still be making albums and not slow down or compromise an inch, these guys kick ass.
We all pretty much went out after the show and checked out a metal club called Hells Bells which was good and had a great atmosphere and many people until late. We got back to our bus relatively pissed, intoxicated (yeah whatever) at approx 4.30am, 1 hour after we were meant to leave. Needless to say, our bus driver Oliver wasn't too impressed, in fact he said to us "Fuck Off" instead of "Hello".
He's a funny character who likes a joke and is a cool guy to hang out with, just never get on his bad side because he doesn't take shit from anyone.
We left Prague for Brno with many great memories and we will definitely come here in the future.

Wednesday 10/10/01
Brno is around 2 hours drive from Prague and is the 2nd biggest city in the Czech Republic from what I know.
The venue tonight held 1500-2000 people and man was it hot in there and hot onstage!
We felt like we were in the depths of Satan's bunghole it was that hot!
The crowd was going crazy, covered in sweat and constantly cheering. One can describe crowd participation at these shows to be similar to soccer chants... these people don't mess around, they live for their music :o)
We went down well, Sonata Arctica went down well and Gamma Ray went down well.
Tonight's show will definitely be one of the hottest we have played in our career and our clothes were soaked!
You could actually see the moisture and steam on the windows and the walls inside of the venue, it was not the safest of venues, in fact how the balcony did not fall with all the people on it is beyond me. Nevertheless, it was a great night and luckily there was not a fire or riot breaking out in the venue otherwise we would all be finished.
Nevertheless, the night rocked, the promoters were nice and hospitable and the crowds were great.
Any band that tours Europe should definitely play the Czech Republic, it's a must!

Thursday 11/10/01
Austria!
Vienna is a nice place, I remember hearing from friends and some of the crew that it is a pretty cool place to check out... so we did.
Anyone who knows us, knows that we are keen CD collectors so we searched everywhere and found not many shops at all, which was kind of weird because later in the evening, at the venue there was a guy selling tonnes of CD's very cheap... if only we had known.
It's like you are searching for your watch while you're wearing it, we looked everywhere in Vienna only to have the best selection right under our noses hehehe
Anyways, tonight's show was great! The people were very receptive, it was cool to hear the positive feedback after the show.
Sonata Arctica played an awesome show and so did Gamma Ray.
The after show party was very cool and all up Vienna was a great gig!

Friday 12/10/01
Budapest!!
Budapest!!
Oh Fuck Hungary rules!!
The city is nice, the sun was shining and the view from all corners was breathtaking. Tonight's show will definitely be a memorable one. I could not believe how great the crowd were, these guys are damn hungry and just want to let loose. Sonata Arctica kicked ass as usual and it was cool to see a lot of people know their songs.
The mid set crowd participating - I sing you follow, was a classic with Tony getting the crowd to do some yodelling metal style.
I was pissing myself laughing backstage in our dressing rooms because we were all yodelling and being generally silly. Gamma Ray absolutely crushed the crowd and went absolutely ballistic. It was obvious that they are very well respected and that is truly deserved to them. They earned their following through years of hard work. Oh yeah and we played well and the crowd loved us!
A quick hello goes out to Kit and Jen our buds from America who showed us around Budapest during the day and were very hospitable, we were happy to catch up with them this day seeing that the previous year in Hamburg we all partied big time.
Another thing I was really happy to do was finally introduce Kit to Kai from Gamma Ray because Kit has been a big fan of Kai's music for many years, so it was really cool that his dream was finally a reality, cheers bro!!!!!
We will have many more good times in the future :)
We hope to come here again next tour.

Saturday 13/10/01
Today was our day off so in effect we should have arrived at our hotel in Cesena, Italy at approximately 12.00pm, but and I mean a big BUT, our 2nd bus driver who's a new dude, decided to turn a different way, making us have an extra 3-4 hours on top of our journey. Now I know shit happens, but really, c'mon fuck!! How can one lose thyself and bus/crew and finally after 3-4 hours say "Um I tink we are lost?"
Heh heh our normal bus driver Oliver was not happy, in fact he went apeshit and the 2nd driver dude did not drive with us again.
We made it to the hotel at approximately 7.30pm, yeah there goes a day off wasted and of course the hotel just had to be 50-100 metres away from the beach on a day of 25 or so degrees!

Sunday 14/10/01
Cesena is a nice place with a quiet vibe that I think is situated in North Italy.
The venue was small with a capacity of 800 people and the stage was small as well.
The crowd was gathering outside the venue during the day and they waited in the hot sun so that when the doors opened then they would get a front position close to the stage. Outside the venue also was another interesting thing happening before our eyes, damn bootlegger bastards were setting up a stall of bootlegged/false/cheap shirts.
Unfortunately due to unforseen circumstances, nothing could be done, after all we are in Italy and if you put two and two together then I'm sure you will know what the reason/answer is.
Nevertheless the gig went well and we played well, but during the show we thought that maybe the crowd thought that we sucked, luckily it was not the case and after the show we met many new friends who loved our gig and music, pretty cool huh?
Sonata Arctica had a great show and they are truly a band that shines, we are honestly very happy to be on tour with them, because not only are they a great band, we are friends as well.
Gamma Ray played great and the crowd lapped it up, they knew the words to their songs and they chanted like a soccer crowd.
All in all Cesena was great and everybody enjoyed themselves.
Another thing that really spun us out was the fact that dudes in the crowd were slamming to our music, hehehe they went nuts during "Father " and "Surreal". It was rather funny watching them trying to slam to the off-timing stuff we do.
Truly remarkable and memorable.

Monday 15/10/01
Florence, ah Florence, what would you expect a majority of us guys to do today when the sun is out and it feels like summer. Would you expect many of us to go sightseeing and doing the tourist thing? Dude, no way! Most of us washed our clothes and let them dry in the sun, hehehe very glamorous yet necessary thing to do unless you want to walk around in unwashed clothes.
So a majority of the day was spent doing washing until it was dinner time where the master cook, a lady who walks around with a smoke in her mouth cooked a 3 course meal for the band and crew. The food consisted of vegetable soup, pasta and chicken that was phenomenal, even though there was so much of it and to not eat would cause offence, we found room in our stomachs for it.
So we got up on stage at 8.00pm to a crowd who are vibed and ready to let loose, and let loose they did! The moshpit was unbelievable tonight with the crowd going apeshit in the moshpit to "Surreal" and "Never Walk Away".
It was great and we were glad that there were no injuries which was a relief to know after a hell of a show. Tonight we were all happy with the gig.
Sonata Arctica played a great set and we all noticed from the top level that the moshpit was truly bigger than any of us expected, now I don't mind when people want to mosh, but when people standing against the front barrier cant move it's another thing and it is dangerous when people in the pit are pushing others into the pit and against other people.
Apart from this situation during the night, it was a great evening and there were no injuries, All up, today was a great one and we hope to play in Florence again.

Tuesday 16/10/01
Today the gig was In Turin which is a very nice city, although we were in the suburbs of Turin it seemed nice and we went into the city to check out the sites. Some of us wanted to see the Shroud of Turin which is said to be where Jesus Christ's Burial cloth is and has his face imprinted on it, some of us wanted to see this yet we could not because the Shroud has been covered for 20 years and only last year it was revealed during the jubilee celebration that was held in Turin.
We had a look around anyways and we made it back just in time for soundcheck. The venue was ok considering they connected the mains power the morning we arrived, hehehe this is a new place, yet there are no dressing rooms or showers, there was not even a place the band could stay backstage before the show.
We had to be escorted by security to the stage which is kinda weird and strange because we are no superstars, we are just six guys who enjoy playing music.
Nevertheless the show went well and the crowd liked us, which was cool considering that these people are die hard Gamma Ray and Sonata Arctica fans and they didn't really know of us our music.
This tour is helping us in a lot of ways and we are very fortunate to play in front of so many people. Sonata Arctica went down great as did Gamma Ray, the crowds know their music and therefore they always get a great response. They deserve it.
All in all irrespective of the lack of food, warm showers and general daily information the club owners should be giving the management and crew, it was a cool night. The runner (person who takes the band members to various locations, including hotel showers for places/venues without) was a classic.
The way he drove the hire car and changed gears I questioned whether he was a manual driver or if he just didn't care, because at one stage during the drive we could not stop laughing at how many times he ran red lights and didn't give a shit for the speed limits.
I'd like to see him do that in Australia hehehe!
I'll never forget when he rang our hotel room and said "Hello, I am the runner, are you READY?" Heh heh! It was almost as if he was a rapper in a past life.

Wednesday 17/10/01
Today was our day off, and we pretty much spent the whole time in the bus on our way to Madrid, Spain.
The trip from Turin to Madrid is approximately 1360km which was a long road. So what can one do?
Well by now, you would have read I have not mentioned anything about the bus and want we can do to kill time.
We have a CD player, play station, DVD player, video recorder, reading material, windows to see the passing views, and if you are tired you can sleep in your bunk which is comfortable and peaceful as long as they are no bumpy roads to drive over.
The drive to Madrid was long, yet cool, considering most of it is highway and it is rather smooth. Food and drink was not a problem because we had 2 fridges, a microwave, hot water jug and bread toaster on board. The seating is comfortable because all the seats are leather and the bathroom is small, yet ok.
Did I tell you about the tour bus rule concerning never taking a dump in the bus toilet...? Well some anonymous phantom decided to break the rule when everyone was asleep and you guessed it, we suffered for some hours. I hope the person has the fate of having 1,000 camels fertilise his lounge room carpet hehehe My guess is that it was Sonata's live sound guy but there is no positive proof and we were reluctant to find out if it was actually him hehehe!
All up the bus is rather comfortable and there are always rather interesting conversations and tour stories to listen to which are very funny, especially when you hear about past tour occurrences which are classics. Believe me, when I say that, everything you could imagine to happen on tour from the stories we have heard... has happened.
Of course you can drink cheap wine from Italy, that is cheaper than a bottle of water (works out to be the equivalent of $1 per carton) but you won't feel any better for it. All you can do is just kick back, and enjoy the ride. Special mention goes to our 2nd bus driver dude who managed to scratch the left hand side and yell obscenities at himself for being stuck on a narrow road and not knowing what to do, so in a fit of panic he did some damage to the bus and because of this, he was told off by our bus driver Oliver.
We arrived out our hotel at midnight for a few hours sleep before the madness began for another day. Of course we loved every minute of it.

Thursday 18/10/01
Madrid, Spain... what can one say that can out words into equation that can describe our first time in Spain?
Spanish metal fans are very loyal with their metal music, we are talking that Spain has a great and growing metal scene, make no mistake, we will definitely be here in the future.
There are no questions left unanswered about Spanish metal fans, they're awesome!
When we walked onto the stage, the crowd applauded, cheered and made us feel welcome. We played a good set and taking into account that we are still a relatively new band, the crowd got into us and went off!
Imagine a soccer crowd mixed with a vocal metal crowd, then, you can imagine how fantastic Spanish metal fans really are.
Sonata Arctica kicked ass, Spain remembered them from the tour they did the previous year with Rhapsody and Stratovarius. The people knew their lyrics and they went crazy on pretty much every song.
Gamma Ray as usual kicked ass big time, I have never stood on a concrete floor and felt it vibrate from the crowd jumping and going crazy, and if that wasn't enough when Gamma Ray played "I Want Out" the crowd went absolutely apeshit! It's a good thing that the security kept their cool and understood that people were just having fun. Oh yeah, Madrid was babe city! A great evening was had by all.

Friday 19/10/01
Barcelona, Barcelona, Barcelona aaahhh! This is the shit man!!!!! Oh my god, what a night, what a night damnit!!
The stage was massive enough to park several cars on it, I could not believe that we had so much space, ah man it was a dream!
We moved around onstage as much as our instrument cables would allow us to hehehe. The crowd went crazy and it was really cool to see that the guy who was holding the Aussie flag was one of our friends Simon who we met in Hamburg the previous year (how you goin' man?)... It was very hot inside, yet the atmosphere was incredible, so much sweat, smoke and loud music ah it was great!
Once again, the crowd enjoyed us, once again the crowd enjoyed Sonata Arctica and of course Gamma Ray kicked ass.
We spent a couple of hours after the show meeting people and signing autographs which was cool. Which is normal for us to do every night after our gig to go and sign autographs and meet up with new people and friends. As we left on our way to San Sebastian we were told that the venue in Barcelona was the same place that Sepultura filmed their live "Under Siege" video, so for some of us, it was a memorable yet great night knowing that a cool band made a damn cool live video there, that many of us have in our collections.

Saturday 20/10/01
Today the venue was in San Sebastian because originally, we were meant to play tonight in Bergara, but due to the concert being sold out the venue was changed so more people could see the bands.
San Sebastian is a great place, some of us went sight-seeing, during the day and to say that it is a cool place would be an understatement.
San Sebastian is simply beautiful. It is located from what I know, on the Atlantic coast line, the scenery and the atmosphere is breathtaking! We wished that we could have stayed here longer than just one day. The venue was massive and the stage was equally huge, it was so far the biggest place we had played in and it was absolutely full from the front to the back and the seats that were on both sides of the venue. The crowd was incredible and just let loose big time. For me, apart from having many technical problems with my amp it was a great night and truly for all of us in Vanishing Point an evening that will remain in our memories forever.
Sonata Arctica played a great set finishing off with the song "San Sebastian". Gamma Ray's performance was for us truly great, it was easily the best show in our opinions and the audience were totally into Gamma Ray's music.
If two encores is an example of what the vibe was then you can tell, that tonight was incredible!
We had the time of our lives playing in Spain, from the reception we received from the people, they liked our stuff and we can not wait to come back here again.
A special mention and hello goes out to Santiago from Rock Hard magazine Spain, thanks for the interview and warm words man, keep up the good work!

Sunday 21/10/01
Porto, Portugal was the next city we played in on the southern part of the European tour. Porto is a nice place and the venue is situated right on the harbour so the view from the venue was fantastic.
From a distance, there was a bridge in view that was designed by the same dude who designed the Eiffel Tower in Paris France. Needless, to say, we would have loved to had a look around Porto but due to late arrival and the rain we had to kick back at the venue which was ok because it was one of the most modern and comfortable venues we have ever played. The organisers, staff and people were fantastic in their assistance and they made sure we were ok and that everything was taken care of. It was a spin out for us because one of the organizers was the female vocalist in a band called Oratory who are a well known band from Portugal as well as being label mates of ours that are on LMP.
Our show went down well and it truly felt for us that we were back home playing the Esplanade in Melbourne, the people were singing the words to our songs and they went off to our music.
We finished the concert smiling from ear to ear and we will have to get back here in the future, we just have to come back.
We met a guy named Rodrigo who was in a wheelchair and who's a Vanishing point fan.
We had photo's taken with him and it was a warm moment for us to see the joy in his eyes, although he could not speak, his heart was buzzing with joy and we were very happy to see that we made his day :)
It was a moment of happiness that we were and still are honoured to have been part of.
It is people that you meet in your travels who really put things into perspective and remind you that music is the universal language that helps people connect, regardless of age, distance or language.
Sonata Arctica kicked ass as usual, the people in Portugal, loved them :)
Gamma Ray played a good set as well taking into account that some of the members that day were in bed with the flu.
Porto is a great place, the venue, organizers and the fans were absolutely fantastic.
We will be here again in the future.

Monday 22/10/01
This day was our day off and what else would you expect us to do on our day off?
a) Do the tourist thing and take a look around?
b) Do our washing/laundry thing?
c) Spend time on the bus?
If by chance you answered a), the hehehe we wish we had the chance to have a look around.
If you answered b), then we wish we had time to do our clothes because they were starting to get a little bit um err stale.
If you answered c), then you are an absolute champion and you have qualifications to be a tour manager!! Only kidding of course, The reason we were on the bus, is because we were driving from Portugal to France which is a considerable effort in one day in time and distance. Anyways, on the bus we spent time sleeping watching videos, listening to CD's, talking bullshit and just taking in the views via the windows.
It gives you a lot of time to think, which sometimes is really cool and can be constructive yet when you think about family and loved ones back home you realise just how much you miss them,
Anyways (again!!) enough of my crap, we arrived at the hotel in Bordeaux, France at 9.30pm which was cool enough for some of us to go and eat out and for some of us to have an early nights sleep.
That was it folks, glamorous huh?

Tuesday 23/10/01
Bordeaux, France was were our first show in France was to be, so the venue was really cool and set out very well for a concert. The only thing is that tonight the concert was in a big auditorium which to anyone who knows sound acoustics will tell you that a good auditorium will have a very clear sound. Well, just our luck, the sound was crystal clear on stage yet there was no bass existant whatsoever. So in effect, it was a little too clear for a heavy metal concert. Sometimes, some chaotic noise frequencies are good enough to get a vibe yet the lack of these frequencies can make concerts sound a little too nice. This place nevertheless rocked and our first experience with a French crowd was fantastic to say the least. They moshed (to our stuff hehehe), sang and let loose because for us being the support band, it is normal for people to stand and watch with arms folded observing every move you do. Luckily, on this tour, we had good responses at every place we played at.
After our show we met many people including many new fans so it was cool for us to sign autographs and get photos taken. It seems France is a country, that follows heavy metal and progressive metal so the vibe here was pretty cool.

Wednesday 24/10/01
Lyon is a very nice place, and like Bordeaux the people here were very friendly. We were fortunate to be playing in front of great crowds in big venues on this tour. Tonight's gig had a massive crowd turn out yet it was held in a smaller venue, that holds a maximum crowd capacity of 650 people. So in a way it was small, but it was jam packed with people and the atmosphere was great!
From what we heard, it was Kai Hansen who requested to play here because he liked the vibe and this venue has sentimental value for him.
The stage was cool, the sound was great, the crew was fantastic, but we didn't know what to think about the dressing room Sonata Arctica and us shared. It more or less resembled a bathroom with a fridge and a table full of food. It was pretty funny!
Nevertheless, our show went well and the crowd enjoyed our music, there was a mosh pit happening (again hehehe) and we walked off stage happy.
Sonata Arctica played a great show and apart from having technical problems, with Mikko's keyboard dying half way through their set, they kicked ass.
Gamma Ray kicked ass as usual, and the crowd went crazy.
All in all it was a great night and much fun was had by all. Lyon rocked big time!
Hopefully next time we will have a proper shower at the venue that will not be in the middle of a thoroughfare with strangers walking in and out of the place. Pretty funny huh?

Thursday 25/10/01
Pratteln's venue would have to be one of the friendliest band venues in Europe, you ask any band that has toured Europe and they will tell you the same thing. I know it sounds as if we are, picky, but when it comes to playing at a venue that has a warm shower, a great size stage, decent backstage rooms, great staff, great cooked meals and last but not least a washing machine and dryer who can complain? The guy who runs and promotes this venue has our double thumbs up!!
Tonight's crowd was to be approximately 1500 people and judging by the vibe it was going to be a great night.
Alex and some new found friends of ours, drove all the way from Frankfurt to come and see us. Of course they came bearing gifts (alcohol, very strong alcohol that was home made and aussie style cookies) which was very cool. Alex's home made brew looks like domestos is called domestos yet is quite a nice tasting cocktail, but, let me assure you as good as this stuff looks it is truly evil! So as you could imagine, it was very popular with all the bands and crew.
We also had a close fan Nani, who brought to us and gave us her artwork she did for a university exam in which she chose to do artwork about Vanishing Point. I can honestly say, that all of us in the band were and still are today, blown away with her work. We were speechless, and it was fantastic to see her artwork, and read the descriptions she wrote pertaining to each piece of work which were all in depth and excellently presented. We will never forget this ever.
Tonight's show for us was really cool and everything went very well, considering most of the time we have a line check. The sound out front was good and the crowd enjoyed us.
During Gamma Ray's set, I wandered out into the audience to meet up with friends and to my surprise there was Schmier the main man from thrash pioneers Destruction standing by the bar having a drink. As always I had to go up and say hello and ask if it was cool for some photos to be taken, of course it was and not only that, the true gentleman that he is, he shouted me a bourbon and coke. Along the way you meet some well known people who are a bit reserved and quiet or you get to meet well known people who are friendly and very down to earth. I can happily say that Schmier is the latter and very down to earth. There's no bullshit with him and we all enjoyed hanging out with him.
We also caught up with our new mate, Cede from Freedom Call, so of course we had a few drinks and many laughs along the way. Tonight was also another reason to celebrate because it was our sound guy Ernie's birthday, so in a sense all of us and crew got merrily drunk and had many laughs. These are really great times and today was surely one of those days we will remember with a smile :o)

Friday 26/10/01
Back to the land of croissants, good food, great people and to a venue only 5 minutes walk from the world famous Moulin Rouge, which is situated in the souvenir shop and red light district of Paris. It is a little bit dirty yet it has a certain atmosphere that is interesting while at the same time, you can't help but walk in to one of the many porn (das good) shops there to have a look and a laugh. I find it amusing because in Europe people walk into porn shops like they walk into supermarkets, while in Australia, some people are some what secretive about their secret hobby of collecting video art! The vibe Paris has, is nice and tonight's venue, in which we were performing at was very nice and had a great atmosphere to it. A bonus for us was that we had very cool conditions, including, a great dressing room that had a shower which actually had hot water running. The crowd tonight was really good and responsive, the overall vibe we had was good and we made a lot of new friends in Paris. Judging by the response that Sonata Arctica received they are well-known in France. Gamma Ray got a huge response from the crowd also. Tonight's show was truly supreme and a great night was had by all of us guys.

Saturday 27/10/01
Today we played in Vosselaar, Belgium at a venue called Biebob, which is famous for being small, has a good vibe and is popular for having many bands passing through playing shows here.
The venue I mentioned is small. Backstage access is via a small stair case/ladder that leads to some rooms that have a damp smell happening, which eats into your clothes. Lucky in a way I had a blocked nose from a head cold.
Anyways, tonight's show was truly supreme, Belgium has many people who know of us and we seem to have a warm connection with people in Belgium. The sound tonight was good considering we didn't have a sound check. Sometimes it is hard for all three bands to have a sound check, either way being the opening band sometimes can be hard due to time limit restrictions etc.
Although sometimes, it is hard, it is great that we get to play in front of many people and we are very lucky to have such an opportunity.
Tonight I didn't have a chance to see Sonata Arctica and Gamma Ray because I went to a heavy metal CD shop a few doors down to get some rare stuff. The shop is really well set out and they know their music very well. If you are ever in the same area, I recommend you go and check out the "ISP Company" because I'm sure you will walk out of there quite a few dollars less, their selection is awesome.
After the shop, we bumped into many friends of ours from Germany who travelled all the way to see us and we also caught up with good friends of ours Dirk and Sylvia. Dirk played bass in a great band called Shadowdance who supported us at our Brussels' show in August. Dirk mentioned that Shadowdance had split, I know that the new band he will put together will be good and you can guarantee that we will keep you posted. We had a couple of drinks outside and we even autographed a car believe it or not?
It was a classic and of course it being a quiet neighbourhood Jack just had to do his famous dog bark that started every dog in the area in a barking frenzy. As usual, it was a classic and we couldn't stop laughing.
At approximately 2.30am and after saying our goodbyes to Ernie our sound guy and PIESEL, we made our way back to the bus for the journey to Gothenburg, Sweden!

Sunday 28/10/01
Today was our day off and during this day, most of the time was spent travelling on the bus and on two ferries to get to Sweden.
Our journey took us via Denmark and finally we arrived at our hotel in Gothenburg at 6.30pm. It was very dark and very cold, in fact the wind just blew through you regardless of how many clothes you wore.
This was our introduction to the Scandinavian winter and the local folk said it was still relatively warm.
I'd hate to see how cold it really gets. Either which way, Gothenburg was a very nice city from what we saw and it seemed very peaceful. We all had an early night after a day of constant travel.
A quick note for any Australian's who are going to visit Gothenburg, be prepared to pay a lot of money for a beer, Jack and myself were at an Australian bar in Gothenburg and I shouted Jack and myself a Coldie each and to my amazement it worked out to be close to twenty dollars Australian currency, which is very steep heh heh heh.

Monday 29/10/01
Today we were playing in Gothenburg and the venue was very nice, it was a student union hall in which many concerts throughout the year are held.
The stage set up was good with there being a lot of room onstage and the organization was fantastic.
For me it was also a very cool day because I met Tom who is the vocalist in a band from Gothenburg called Everygrey, which I am a huge fan, if you have not heard their music, go and check it out.
Anyways back to the events of the day, it was the first time we were getting mixed by Ukka (I hope that I spelt his name correctly) and he had not heard us play before, so without a proper soundcheck or even a line check some of us ( including myself, well ok, I admit, mostly myself) were a little unsure of how the sound was going to be and the overall vibe of the show.
I mean you can't blame me for feeling a little nervous for playing live in Gothenburg and in front of some very well known musicians that the metal world respects.
Despite some minor glitches, our show went really well and much fun was had by all of us, I must say, the sound guy did an awesome job and he deserves credit.
Backstage after the show we bumped into, took photos, drank some beer and hung out with the dudes from In Flames, Evergrey and Hammerfall which was very cool.
Jack was in heaven talking to the guys from In Flames, seeing that they are one of his favourite bands, Joe was having an in depth conversation with Oscar from Hammerfall talking about all things metal \m/
Sonata's set went well and so did Gamma Ray's set which ended with Gamma Ray doing I Want Out with Joacim from Hammerfall getting up onstage.
Tonight was cool and after the venue closed, we ventured to a bar that was having the after show party to celebrate Daniel Zimmerman's birthday.
For me it was very cool to catch up with Wojtech who is in Lost Horizon which I'm sure is a band in the future who are going to be huge.
It was very cool to converse with him because we are both from Polish backgrounds, so of course we spoke mainly in Polish language and had many laughs along the way (Czesc stary, co nowego heh heh), we all got along very well with him and we will be keeping in touch in the future.
Anyways at 3:00am we had to leave to go to Stockholm where the next show was going to be.
We left behind many new friends.
We will back here one day.
A special mention goes out to Thomas and his buds who drove over 300 kilometres to come and see us play, thanks man :)

Tuesday 30/10/01
I don't know were to start concerning Stockholm, it was a very nice venue, in fact we were one of the first bands to play at the venue and all the conditions we had were first class.
Our backstage room was very comfortable, we had a shower with hot water, cold beer, good food and most of all a comfortable atmosphere.
Today's show was meant to be in a different venue but due to tickets being sold out very long ago, the decision to move the whole concert to a bigger place was put in place and thus tonight we had a crowd of around 1400 instead of the maximum 550 people in the original venue that was booked.
Tonight we took to the stage at 8:00pm the response we received was great, many people in the crew mentioned that the Swedish crowd can be somewhat cool towards support bands, which at first we noticed but it did not take long for the crowd to loosen up and get into out music :)
It is a very cool feeling to have a positive response knowing that many of the people there don't know our music, yet they liked and enjoyed what they heard for the first time.
Judging by the responses we received I think that the Swedish people liked what we were playing and like the previous night in Gothenburg, Stockholm was fantastic, and we cannot wait to come here again.
After our show tonight and when everything was finished, we met up with many friends of ours who included Ronny, John and Nobby from Dionysis.
Any fans of Nation would know that John and Nobby were both in Nation which to many of us guys in Vanishing Point were a great band, many people would also know that Ronny used to be the drummer in Sinergy for their first album.
We had a great time catching up with them and it was cool to meet John after all this time listening to his playing on CD, believe me when I say that John can shred on guitar with the best of them :)
It was a big spinout for Tom and myself to walk from the backstage area to talk to these two dudes who were standing out there in the freezing cold weather, the security guy told us that they had been standing out there for over 2 hours wanting to speak with one of us.
Anyways we got talking with them and they were totally in shock and very happy to talk with us, we apologized and said that we didn't know that they had been waiting outside in the ice-cold temperature, had we have known earlier, we would have got some passes for the dudes just so they didn't get a cold.
They said that they were in a band and that we were an inspiration to them, which to us was a very nice compliment, to be honest Tom and myself were floored in a positive sense.
These sure are good times and to hear warm words like the ones the guys complimented our music with, definitely make all our worries and troubles seem like nothing.
Its times like these that we realise how lucky we are :)
A quick and very special mention also goes out to Anne and Arne who came to see us all the way from Norway, it was a great pleasure to finally meet them and we had a great time together with many laughs along the way.
For those who don't know, Arne is our webmaster in Norway who has a Vanishing Point website in Norwegian and English language, so check it out :)
I remember that when we played onstage that night, I remember seeing a couple standing there with Vanishing Point shirts singing our songs, something inside of me told me that it was Anne and Arne, I was correct :)
Stockholm Rocked!!!!!!!!!!! That's all!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday 31/10/01
Day off!!!!! Day off!!!!! Day off!!!!! umm ahh and you guessed it... a day off.
Today's day off was spent on the ferry/ ship that travels overnight from Stockholm to Helsinki, Finland.
And you guessed it, all we did was party, I mean what can you expect from a boatload of people who by 11pm are totally drunk and in party mode, and that wasn't just us who had a couple of drinks, it was the whole damn place!!!! heh heh heh
We witnessed karaoke singing in Finnish and Swedish which was interesting and there was this dude who always came up onstage and wanted to sing, the funny thing was, he was too drunk to even try to read the lyrics as they came across the television screen heh heh heh nevertheless it was good value and he provided good entertainment that was short lived for the karaoke bar.
After all the laughs some of us decided to go and get something to eat, some of us decided to hang around and drink, Silvio and myself decided to go and have dinner in the huge buffet restaurant that served some classy food, we ate like we hadn't had any food for many hours (actually come to think of it, we did'nt eat for many hours) and I could only manage to eat not much at all, so while we were eating I decided to have a couple of glasses of wine with the food, wrong move.
As I was going to get a refill and try to have some more food, I could not help myself, I started to laugh at everything and everyone, ask any of the guys and they will tell you that I am a clown when I am slightly drunk.
Anyways after all the wine and food we went to the nightclub that was on the ferry and check out what was happening, everyone from the bands to the crew were there and having a drink.
It was not long before all of us guys in the BANDS and some of the crew started to dance to silly doo bee doo be dum dum techno/Euro/disco songs...
Imagine a bunch of long haired, inebriated people dancing to Britney n stuff, neither could we, but neither could we stop from taking the absolute piss out of each other and the people there by holding the disco dance floor to ransom heh heh..
It was like a really bad version of the film called "Fame", we were the most silly people there but at the same time everyone kept on dancing with us heh heh heh, it was like a really bad un-choreographed version of "Fame" because when the ship was rocking from side to side, so was everyone on the dance floot, it was very funny.
It was kind of like a disco survivor type of thing because everyone was bumping into each other, we were all falling all over the place, drinks were spilled on the dance floor (Tommy) some dudes were doing like a drunken Cossak dance (Jani and Tommy from Sonata ) someone danced like Michael Jackson ( Kai ), someone was really getting off and dancing to Britney ( Danny Klupp ), all of us were trying to moonwalk and of course most of us fell on our asses ( me included, duh ).
The great thing about it was that after all the shows and just before the last show in Finland, we all just let loose and had fun, it was a very enjoyable evening, we dont know what time we got to bed, dont know how we got to bed and most off all we didnt have any fear of sleeping 25 feet below the water line, scary huh...
Sometime during the morning someone was knocking on our room door and would not stop, so after 10minutes of this going on, I got out of my bed and checked what was going on, well would you know it, there was Tommy standing there with a drunk smile on his face, when I asked him what the hell he wanted, he just said " I just thought to come down and say hello and see how your doing", what a prick heh heh well as you would have guessed the door was slammed shut and we forgot about him and ignored his knocking on the door until he gave up.
A couple hours later (felt like we only had 15minutes of sleep)., we arrived in Helsinki and boarded our bus to go the the venue which was the...

Thursday 1/11/01
Nosturi in Helsinki, Finland...
The Nosturi is a venue that is popular with many bands having played there and it is actually an old ship motor assembly building, so it has a really cool vibe to it and taking into account the cold weather that we were experiencing, the Nosturi is actually situated right on near the sea water, so it was very cold.
During the day, Joe, Mikko, Danny, Jack and myself decided to go CD shopping and have a look around in the 1degree temperature which was blowing a strong north wind gust accompanied by a rain that was falling on top of us like small ice pieces, this kind of weather none of us other than Mikko were used to, neither was Danny heh heh heh.
Anyone who knows Danny will tell you that he lives in his shorts, and do you think that he wore long pants today...
NO WAY!!!!!! he wasn't cold at all, in fact he put on his Vanishing Point jacket just so he could put his hands in his pockets so that they would not freeze heh heh heh.
I was not suprised that many people were looking at Danny with absolute horror concerning his clothing sense and our body temperatures dropped half a degree by looking at him heh heh heh he is a classic, how he does it, I will never know.
Anyways after returning from our CD spending spree and cold snap we had short showers, soundchecked and some of us sat down to have dinner.
Tonight the doors opened at 8pm and there was a line of hundreds of people waiting to get inside the Nosturi for the evening, which was sold out.
We took to the stage at 9pm for what was going to be an unforgettable yet extremely funny last show of the tour.
Any band will tell you that it is custom to have a total prank night on the last evening and everything that can be stuck together, lubricated, go missing, be thrown, and even covered with condoms is normal and that everyone on the last show just goes into stupid mode heh heh heh.
One of many examples was when our CD intro was playing as we were walking onstage I noticed that my microphone stand was very low, as if a Minime from Austin Powers' "The Spy Who Shagged Me" was going to sing through it heh heh, so after adjusting the microphone stand I noticed that covering the microphone was a condom heh heh.
I tried so many times to get the fucker off the microphone, but it kept slipping because of all the lube that was on it, eventually I got a grip of it and I lost it to have it slap really loud into the microphone that all the audience could hear and laugh to because the PA sound system was turned on, I could not stop laughing myself and either could the rest of the guys, another thing was there were messages stuck to the fold back speakers and all around the stage that had very funny smart-ass remarks and quotes from tour happenings that some of us had forgotten, by the look on Christian's face who does our lights, he was the culprit.
Little did we know that later on in our set, more things were going to happen...
During Samsara some of the guys from Sonata Arctica walked on stage and began brushing their teeth while Dan from Gamma Ray played odd time signature drum beats to try to throw Jack out of sync with the song, we were all laughing our asses off on stage and it was very amusing to have all this going on and still have the people in the crowd enjoy what we do.
Luckily enough we finished Samsara with not many mistakes and still standing after laughing so much heh heh.
As Kai told us earlier on in the tour, we made many new friends here tonight in Helsinki, the crowd really liked our music and we were very happy to have been received in such a nice way, Finland has many cool bands that most of us in Vanishing Point have CDs of in our collections, so for us it was a great night and a very memorable experience.
For us this was the last concert of our whole entire stay in Europe and it truly was a sentimental one.
When Sonata Arctica took to the stage, the crowd went nuts once again and the whole place was alive.
During Sonata's set a whole lot of tricks were going on, one included Kai taping a box of breakfast cereal to a stick and tipping the contents over Jani's head while he was playing, Dan from Gamma Ray as usual got behind his drum kit and did blast beats during Sonata's slow song and the funniest thing that we all saw was Silvio getting up onstage with a white towel wrapped around him and shaving cream on his face.
He made Tony hold a mirror while he started to shave himself on stage and when the towel was torn from his waist he had a white sock taped to his dick (like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers band photo shot) which was amusing, to be honest with you, I thought myself running across the stage in boxer shorts in Frankfurt was silly, but this took the cake heh heh heh.
It was definitely a classic what Silv had done and everyone in the place was pissing themselves laughing, I must say I could not believe he did it, come to think of it, either did the rest of the people there heh heh heh.
After Sonata's set, Gamma Ray took to the stage for a blistering set which had the crowd going nuts again, all of us were in party mode and we were all goofing around like idiots.
A highlight for us all was to be invited onstage during a Gamma Ray encore to sing backing vocals to "I Want Out" which to all of us is an absolute classic song, we were jumping around and just generally having a great time while Tony sang the lead vocals with Kai standing back and playing guitar, it was a moment I don't think any of us will ever forget.
Many years ago we listened to Helloween and Gamma Ray, we never ever thought that we would be on a tour of this scale let alone share the same stage for a classic song.
All up tonight was great, actually it was excellent, we had so much fun and we met so many cool people in Helsinki, that we can't wait to go back to Finland.
We had to say goodbye to the guys from Sonata Arctica tonight and we knew that it would be the last time that we would see the guys from Sonata Arctica for a while, its the way it goes, all of us were teary and we all didn't want to say goodbye, yet we all know that friendships like these are not forged for just for a couple of years, they are made for a life time.
We boarded our bus and travelled to Turku which is in southern Finland to board our Ferry ride back home, all in the bus were silent, and we finally let it set in that we had no more shows to play, it finally set in that we had completed the tour, it finally had set in that 6 normal guys from Melbourne, Australia completed a European tour playing with two great bands and finally some of us were going home for the first time in 3 and a half months.
When we arrived back to Hamburg, we said our goodbyes to all the guys in Gamma Ray and all the crew. Once again it was weird saying bye to people that 5 weeks before were complete strangers and now good friends, once again we know that one day we will cross paths again... in another place, another country and another tour :)
The tour bus took us to Altona train station in Hamburg most of us prepared ourselves to get home, we purchased tickets and said goodbye.
It was the last time I was to see 5 guys I consider brothers of mine for another month and a half, it was the last time I was to see the guys who I finally was able to achieve my lifetime ambition and dream with.
The train took them to Frankfurt and I stood there until I could not see the train anymore with a bit of a lump in my throat, that's the way it goes and I was happy for some of them that after all this time they were at last going back home to see their families, I was sorry for some because they wanted to stay behind, as for me... I was off to another place for another journey :)
We want to thank everyone for their kindness, warm words, help, patience, friendship and last but not least their support...
You guys are the best...
Take care and stay safe / see you sometime, somewhere on tour...
All the best.
Chris (Vanishing Point)

European Tour 2008 - Tour Diary by Chris Procianko

For over 7 years we had tried to make it back to Europe , for 7 years we never thought we would make it back to European soil , for 7 years we shared many good , bad and funny times and thankfully 2008 has been a really good year for us supporting many good bands , now we are back in Europe supporting our Finnish bros in Sonata Arctrica as well as playing with our new mates in Pagans Mind .

Special thanks goes to Tony for the initial heads up and thinking of us , horns up to you Brother !!!

So ...........here we go again .

30/10/08-Hamburg-Germany

We were having a few beers with friends at the Headbangers ballroom just prior to boarding the tour bus which is a really cool black double decker, we met our bus driver Bertie who is quite a character with his own special espresso machine in the bus as well as all the things you would expect , a playstation , 3 televisions,stereos and lots more to kill the long hours that lay ahead but no blow up goat for those long lonely nights heh heh . Another thing that was missing ........ no fucken games for the playstation which means this time no golf tournaments when drunk from all free beer heh heh aaaaaaaarrgggggghhhhhhhh christ!!!
So anyways we head off to Sweden , for some of the guys in the band who had not travelled on a tour bus before they seemed a little worse for wear because they couldnt sleep , as for me with a belly full of Hamburg beer I slept rather well thanks to Christine and Sonja from Dockyard 1 for the travellers :)

31/10/08-Huskvarna -Sweden

For most of us the drive to Huskvarna was rather quick , we slept through it , so it was cool to wake up in another country , actually "cool" is maybe not the best word to describe the temperature outside , it was more like freezing in comparison to the temperature we had in Melbourne before flying off to Europe .
The venue was Folketspark which is a really nice venue to play in , we met our Brothers in Sonata Arctica for the first time in 7 years which was awesome , I myself was really happy to catch up with Tony after so long and in a way it felt like it was only yesterday since we shared the same stage together.
Anyways , we met the tour manager Jorg who was kind enough to show us to our room and show us where the food was which was cool , so after some good food was consumed we finally met up with our new mates in Swedish band Skyride who were kind enough to let us use their backline as our backline was to be in Olso the next day .
For anyone who hasn't heard of Skyride , check em out , they are a bunch of young guys who play 80's style hard rock/metal with flair and passion , really good stuff , catchy songs and a bunch of really good guys who taught us some beautiful words in Swedish that would be too crude to post here :)
Next up, we were up and we were not sure how the sound was going to be because we hadn't used the sound guys before , nevertheless the guys were professional and we had a great time playing numerous songs from Embrace The Silence and The Fourth Season also because we had a 45 minute set , we threw in Two Minds One Soul for good measure as well , so it all went really well and we were happy with the first night of the tour in Huskvarna .
It was our first time in 7 years to see Sonata Arctica and we were just blown away from their presence , we remember them as being a very professional band yet they had grown so much as a whole entity now that I am proud to see our brothers playing a wide range from thier back catalog with precision , fuck we were spun out heh heh .
Kindest regards go to the guys in Skyride, the local techs and the local promoter who helped us make it happen for the first show :)

01/11/08-Oslo-Norway

Bloody hell it was cold , we woke up in the morning in our tourbus just outside the Rockefeller venue in Olso which happened to be an awesome venue and also happened to be the place where we met for the first time with our tour buddies in Pagans Mind as well as the crew who will be looking after us , it was a very nice welcome and we all hit it off on a good note from the start , we just knew that along with Sonata Arctica that the rest of the tour was going to be a good one as well as a circus of extreme stupidity and laughs .
Anyone who knows us in VP knows that we like to have a laugh even at our own expense , so it was funny to see that Steinar from Pagans Mind was the first guy to jump on Jake while he was sitting down wearing only a pair of boxer shorts pulled up high so we could see his nuts heh heh , however disgusted anyone could be , we were crying from laughter when Jake actually placed a $5 Euro note in his boxers and Steinar proceeded to dance in a drunk fashion similar to a Bavarian with knickerbockers pulled up high over his arse heh heh , I dont think I have laughed so hard since we drank the plane bar dry on our way to Europe back in 2001. Anyways we opened for the everning and we were blown away from the response , for me it was a little unsettling because we are fans of many bands that come from Norway so we knew that the people we were going to play in front of were people who had seen many awesome bands before us .
Pagans Mind absolutley killed the stage when they came on , we had a chance to see them after we got offstage and they seemed a tad nervous , but this was all because they were filming for a dvd on the evening , what a tight unit they are , mind blowing musicians and great guys as well.
Sonata killed it again as well , no more to be said , they were awesome :)
I got a chance to catch up with one of my best mates Morgan who lives in London who flew all the way to come and say hello and to have some beers , we ended up in some Turkish kebab place which was said to be the cheapest , luckily we didnt get sick and the food was good :) So anyways off onto the bus we go and the beer is flowing freely , bloody hell the guys in Pagans Mind can drink , we had many beers stocked from the previous night , guess what .........it was all gone , the whole lot of it including a full bottle of Finlandia vodka , a bottle of scotch and over a slab and a half of beer , I dont know about you, but if you see what the guys in Pagans Mind look like , they can down a beer and many more with ease heh heh . Anyways with many hung over we arrived in.........

02/11/08-Stockholm-Sweden

Stockholm was cold, not as cold as Olso , but damn the wind blew right through us when we got off the bus , we jumped off the bus looking like a bunch of eskimos heh heh and headed straight for the venue entrance , once inside much coffee was consumed as well as a hearty breakfast .
Today was the first time we got to properly chat and get to know our crew who consist of Michael Spiess who has the most dry sense of humour but fuck he is funny , many quotes from Michael include "Frode, did I tell you that I quit today ? " .......the classic when negotiating a price for the tour "......but Frode you must understand , the price I am giving you is a gift Frode...a gift " and when he is slightly drunk he talks like a mad monk . Frode who is our tour manager for this part of the tour is also the manager for Pagans Mind , so he gets hassled a bit but seems to take it all in his stride , quite a good bloke to talk to who enjoys a laugh and he made us feel wlecome .
Jake and I went to the museum where the Vasa ship is displayed in its entirety , for us seeing a 600 year old ship that was complete with cannons and completely restored after being submerged for so many years on the ocean floor was amazing .
The show was great tonight , Stockholm was great and warm to all of us and we were happy to have made it after 7 years since we had played there with Sonata Arctica and Gamma Ray . Some of us after the show on the bus kicked back and watched some dvd's and some of us were just too tired to even bother to open a beer so we went to bed for the drive to Holland where we were playing in Utrecht at the Tivoli .

03/11/08-Germany-somewhere.... on the side of the road heh heh ........

The bus driver had to stop due to European regulations and we were on the side of the road in Germany approxiamately 2 hours from Hamburg, so we had something to eat at a local service station , talked alot about nothing ,talked alot about family back home, rang our families back home then we kicked back and watched the thick fog come in around 3pm, it was so thick we couldnt even see the bus , so with nothing to do we all just kicked back and watched more dvd's as well and went to sleep.

04/11/08-Utrecht-Holland

We arrived in Holland sometime before 11am and went straight to the venue which was nice , a little small but nice a cosy , it is situated near one of the many canals in Holland and we did a bit of walking during the day , its easy to get bored and lazy during the day before soundcheck so we try to get out as much as possible and see the sites of each place we play at , for us its a little bit of an event as in Melbourne we have many awesome places to see yet when on tour its good to have a walk around , eat some cool food , drink some good beer and of course find a wireless hotspot where we can send some emails to home and see whats happening there.
Once back at the venue we had a brief soundcheck tonight due to time restrictions , and we tried to make the best of the small amount of room we had onstage , our show went well and the crowd seemed to enjoy it considering it was our first time in Holland as a band .
One thing that was a pain in the arse was the walk to the tourbus from the venue after the show because of the narrow roads near the venue , so I suppose we had our days worth of power walking heh heh and we earnt a thirst for some Dutch beer which went down well Pagans Mind, Sonata Arctica and ourselves had a few drinks outside our bus in which we witnessed Steinar from Pagans Mind casually walk around naked and pissed in the cold weather , how much we laughed is totally beyond words , this guy would have made a great comedian if he wasnt a musician , fucken funny as.
So eventually some music was played on the stereo , we drank a bit more beer watching the Dudesons with the guys from Sonata Arctica and crew joining us, and the rest of the journey was a blur , actually most of us dont remember going to bed , but we slept well during the journey to Paris , albeit a little hungover we arrived at.....

05/11/08-Paris-France

Man , what the hell is with the traffic in this place , I coudnt believe it when we were sitting for half a hour in the same position other that having moved ten metres , I mean a snail would have left us for dust , the roads where full of cars and motorbikes and it was just bullshit manic to be honest.
We arrived at the venue where we were playing which is the Elysee Montmarte which is situated not long from the Moulin Rouge , the venue is a very old theater that I had mentioned in the previous tour diary from years ago , the sound was good and we were treated to a good rider plus shock horror a backstage room with a shower and dunny in it, simple things mean alot when on tour sometimes when you just want to kick back and at least have a decent meal or even have some space to yourself instead of listening to soundchecks which are about as fun as putting sharp bamboo under your toenails heh heh , ok they can be boring but they are a necessity .
Tonights crowd was awesome , we felt welcomed to this place which was great to see because we had played here before but after 7 years away sometimes people forget you , so in effect we are the underdogs yet we really dont mind , the tour is going well , all bands are getting along and everything seems to be running like clockwork so who's to complain . Pagans Mind and Sonata Arctica really went down well tonight , the Parisian crowd is very polite and responsive to all bands so it was a great night.

06/11/08-travel day/day off in Toulouse-France

Today we had a lazy day in Toulouse , did nothing apart from kicking back and drinking Bourdeaux red wine as well as eating good food.
Hanneke ( the lighting chick for VP and PM ) , Jake and myself caught a train into the main city of Toulouse and went sightseeing , we went to a 1000 year old church which was awesome , went to a jazz bar and had you guesed it ..........more red wine , went to a restaurant and had some fine food and made our way back to the bus .
When we had arrived at the bus we were suprised to see that nobody was there , they were all inside the venue where the bus was parked for the day which was the Bikini venue , if anyone knows a bit of history about this place will know that the previous venue of the same name and owned by the same family was burnt to the ground when there was a huge chemical explosion many years ago in which 40 people had died as a result , luckily the people who are all of one family restarted again and built a state of the art venue that is not only band friendly in every way , it is technician friendly , roadie friendly and above all else the people in the kitchen where the food is being cooked are fantastic and very happy go lucky with there being no excuse to be sitting in the massive kitchen/canteen area without a glass of wine in hand heh heh .
The hospitality was fantastic , the food was awesome , the wine was good , we left the venue at midnight for our journey to Barcelona a little under the weather , some were quite pissed and some were too tired or both to be up anymore , so while the rest of the bus downstairs partied , the rest of us made way for our bunks , yeah I know what your thinking we sound like a bunch of old bastards dont we heh heh .
Metal horns go up to Michael our drum and general stage ass kicker, Atler our guitar tech and Michael our sound guy for playing soccer outside while drunk and stoned in pitch black conditions and still managing to survive with only a few grazes heh heh .

07/11/08-Barcelona-Spain

The Razzmataz venue in Spain is a great venue where most touring bands get to play at , tonight we had the pleasure of playing to a packed house once again .
If its any indication on how the metal crowds are in Spain then imagine turning up to the venue in the morning via the tourbus to see over 80 people just waiting for the doors to open that evening so that they can get to the front first , I mean thats just nuts but understandable considering the dedication and love they have for metal music .
To see that Sonata Arctica had grown into such a force and be able to sellout venues like this was awesome to see in the time it has taken them to progress , I'm really happy for those guys and we are happy to be on tour with them for the last leg of the Unia tour.
If you can imagine a soccer crowd in terms of loudness at a metal show then Barcelona is right on the money , the people are singing , waving their hands like mad and just letting loose at the show .
Jake , Christian and Adrian were nervous as hell when we took to the stage , the crowd went ballistic and we just couldnt wipe the smiles off our faces , we felt the same like when we played Wacken many years ago , it was an absolute trip and honour to have played to such a great crowd , it will remain in my mind forever.
The people who came up to us after the show outside where very polite and kind in their approach as well and happy that we had made it to Barcelona , we had a couple of people drive over 300 kilometres to see us which was really nice to see .
Pagans Mind and Sonata Arctica absolutely ripped the place apart live as well , nothing more to say other that BARCELONA is awesome and that we hope to come back soon.

08/11/08-Madrid-Spain

08/11/08-Madrid-Spain We woke up in the morning to find ourselves with the bus stuck in the middle of a roundabout , the trailer had shit itself entirely with a bearing having seized and having smoked up a storm , the whole piece of metal was just a clump of warped/melted steel , so our crew had to offload all our equipment and merch in the middle of the road for the cross loads to begin to at least get the gear to the venue in time.
We sat there for a while kinda dissapointed that it had happened yet happy that when our bus driver Bertie who was rather perplexed let us know that we could continue on to the venue with the trailer having just three wheels attached to it heh heh , it was a sight to be seen like something from a b-grade movie heh heh , so off we went to the venue , we arrived safely and all was well .
We had a good soundcheck today which was normal because we had been having soundchecks for a while now with the guys in Sonata Arctica and crew treating us well. The people of Madrid were awesome just like Barcelona , we all did well that night and the evening was a success, enough said about it , Madrid rocked and it reminded us that it was nice to be back in Spain.

09/11/08-Bilbao-Spain

A quiet sunday morning we arrived complete with our three wheeled tripod trailer safe and sound , thankfully we had our gear put into the semi-trailer for the evening, and it seemed for the trek to Toulouse for the next concert as nothing was open of sunday here where the trailer could be fixed .
We awoke in the morning to the upstairs section of the bus being like a sauna because of the morning sun heating the roof of the bus and when you have 16 people sleeping in bunks upstairs the air can be somewhat crappy and you just want to get out of there heh heh , so we made our way into the venue for some breakfast and checked our gear that all was safe and counted for .
The venue was a high class place that we had not experienced before, we even had waiters near us to serve us some good food , it was a bit of a culture shock I gotta say because whenever we have played a venue in Australia you would consider a good nights hospitality with having gaffa/duct tape stuck to the underside of your shoes and the local promoter politely telling you to get the fuck out after the gig is finished heh heh .
Being a sunday we all felt flat for some reason , maybe it's the late nights like in Madrid that do it , maybe we just weren't used to the sunshine that we had experienced for the last three days in Spain considering that not long before we were in Scandinavia , so maybe we were feeling a bit out of sorts from the weather change as well, nevertheless we had a great night and so did the other bands.
Unfortunately it was the last show in which we had the Spanish promoters on the trek, so we said goodbye and thanked them for their awesome hospitality as well as easy going attitude which made our time in Spain enjoyable, every attention to detail was done and nothing was spared to make all bands and crew welcome .
Bilbao's crowd was a little smaller than the crowds in Madrid and Barcelona yet still very much going nuts considering it was a sunday, which was great to see , hopefully it wont take so long before we come here again .

10/11/08-Toulouse-France

Today we were in the Le Bikini venue once again which was cool considering that we were there just 4 days beforehand , so we were looking forward to playing the show at the new venue .
The acoustics of the place are just astounding and awesome , we hardly had to even turn up our amps onstage which was good for the ears I suppose heh heh , when we did our soundcheck I swear if felt as if we were jamming to the stereo , the sound was as clear as crystal , easily one of the best sounding stages I have played in my life .
The show went awesome for all bands , we got to hang out with some friends as well as have more Bordeaux red wine and just have a good time .
Today shock horror we even had a chance to wash some of our clothes which was a relief as supplies were fading pretty quick , so before the show there was no parting , no jumping into the pool, no sightseeing , just washing clothes heh heh , yeah you thought that everyday was a holiday huh?
Everything that can be said about the venue in Toulouse could be said again , but I won't bore you with it because I cant be bothered repeating myself and the bus ride is getting bumpy as hell.

11/11/08-Marseilles-France....-day off

Spent sleeping in hotel , the place was cheap and the room didnt feel like it was moving so I caught up on sleep.
Nothing more to say.

12/11/08-Piacenza-Italy

We arrived at the Fillmore venue after a 7 hour long bus trip to a rainy day in northern Italy , a far cry from the sunny days we had experienced of recent days and definately a downer considering we had to wait for the local crew to pick up our gear from a 5 minute drive in the pouring rain , if only we had rain like this in Melbourne or any place in Australia then we wouldnt have a drought and we wouldnt have to buy those bloody native plants that are drought tolerant that look like overgrown weeds for our gardens heh heh .
Anyways we get into the venue after walking past people waiting in line in the pouring rain who will be attending the gig tonight to find theres a reasonable size stage for us to go apeshit,it was another venue with a stage that slants forward to the crowd heh heh like Huskvarna , I think if I lose balance tonight on stage I will fall arse over into the front barriers heh heh , oh well its all metal innit hah hah .
When we took to the stage it was like Spain all over again , the crowd went crazy and we had a great time , last time we were in Italy I remember the being a mosh to Bring On The Rain which was completely bizarre like playing air guitar at a friends wedding to the waltz or some shit , but this time there was no moshing , just a loud crowd who enjoyed our music , we got em going with the usual metal chants , we headbanged , they headbanged and we were all friends :)
Marco from Sonata Arctica said that Italy was a loud crowd and he was not wrong , tonights gig we enjoyed thoroughly .
gig we enjoyed thoroughly . Risky parts of our set was me standing on the side of the front stage monitor and nearly having a Spinal Tap moment falling into the pit between the stage and the barrier, fuck it was scary as there was an easy 6 foot drop into concrete .
and all was rock n roll ( funny that the local crew where nowhere, the crowd did the job for them) with me having a somewhat embarrased look on my face heh heh , I think of this with a slight shiver because if I had fallen then it would have been over for me due to injury .
Now for the downer of the evening ............dum dum dum dum dah dah ........when Pagans Mind finished their set we had to help load out all our shit , the place backstage is very small and there is no room for storing gear temporarily , so with the situtation as it was we had to load all our shit out in the rain to the trailer which was parked with the bus over 200 metres away .
Where was the local crew to help us , certainly not with us heh heh , it seems they dont like the rain , I dont know , what I do know is that when the time came they became invisible . Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad I suppose, its just one of those things that can happen when you tour , we dont care either way , it gave us a workout and believe you me we burnt off all the pasta we ate at the local restaurant , thats for sure heh heh .
Anyways , all shit aside Pagans Mind kicked major arse tonight , for anyone who hasnt witnessed them live , if they are touring go and see them as they are tight as a fish's arse and play progressive metal with balls as heavy as a horny bull being stuck on a island full of penguins or some shit heh heh .
Sonata Arctica kicked arse as usual , its great to always catch up with Tony as per usual and then watch him tear it up live , btw Elias their new guitarist is amazing , really has his shit together which is great to see.
Nothing more to say other than the night ruled , the rain was a downer , the crowd ruled , the venue toilets were strange , the local crew were ok ( I'm being kind I know ) and we were off to ................

13/11/08-Vienna-Austria

We arrived is Vienna at approximately 2 pm , the place was raining and we saw some daylight before it faded at 4pm or thereabouts , quite depressing and bleak in a way but what can you expect , its close to winter in Europe and these weather conditions are relatively mild in comparison to when the real cold and snow sets in.
The venue was awesome when we walked in , the catering was great and woo hoo we even had our own backstage room with our own shower and dunny heh heh , shit we even had our own couches which was nice :)
We got onstage around 8pm and played our set , the crowd seemed a little quiet at the start and curious as to how we sounded but as the second song finished ( Tyranny of Distance ) we seemed to have made new friends .
Unfortunately for us the place was not really packed out when we took to the stage , but at the same time for the few hundred that were there we got a really good response which was awesome to see.
Pagans Mind played another tight set , Sonata Arctica played another tight set and everyone was happy.
There was an interview to be done that was prearranged by our record label ( thanks Christine) with Siggi from Stormbringer which went well, it was cool to have a chat to him and all up the interview went well , the interview should be up by the time this diary hits the net heh heh , I thought about posting the diary day by day , but sometimes there isnt an internet connection available and I thought it would be a good read for anyone to read it all at once, so in case you are wondering how the wireless network can be in Europe , sometimes it is awesome and sometimes it can be as slow as watching two snails share an intimate moment . So anyways the night went really well , the venue was really nice to play in and after having a chance to kick back and rest due to a headcold we got into the tourbus for our drive to Budapest in Hungary.
Some guys decided to have some beers, some guys had too many beers ( as usual ) , some just kicked back and talked shit , I on the other hand had an early night and caught up on much needed sleep.

14/11/08-Budapest-Hungary

Budapest , Hungary !!!!
We were treated to some of the finest cooking we had experienced on the tour and the catering was excellent , just like food at home which actually in situations like this means alot to us being so many thousands of kilometres from home.
We had a really cool soundcheck and I gotta tell you every day that we have been having a soundcheck on the tour which is a rarity , some people just dont seem to want to understand that when a support band supports a headliner and people say " they played well , but their sound was shit " it is not the fault of the support band or the sound engineer , it is more of a situation of there being no time for a soundcheck or cough cough the headliner taking their time and overplaying their soundcheck
Thankfully this is one of the few tours where we have been lucky to have soundchecks every day and we sincerely thank Sonata Arctica for that as they have been absolute gentlemen and an absolute pleasure to tour with , its truly amazing that they have retained their down to earth approach to the way that they operate and perhaps that is testament to their success. So , tonight we played at 8pm to a near capacity crowd and a very vocal audience who really got into our music , it felt like Barcelona all over again , yet this time we were in eastern Europe which for me was pretty close to my parents heritage .
Words cannot describe the kindness and warmth of the people we played to this evening and it was an absolute pleasure experienced once again.
We watched Pagans Mind absolutely tear the roof off the venue this evening , damn they play with finesse and precision in which the audience was left speechless , I have to give special mention to Jorn Viggo who has been sick the last few days with a chest infection from hell who just tears it up as a guitarist , why this guy is not more recognised in guitar circles to me is criminal , he just tears it up night after night and I am in awe at his dexterity and precision. For us guys in VP it is a pleasure to share the bus with these guys night after night , they are some of the funniest guys I have ever met , when they speak in their native tongue I dont know what the hell they are saying , they could be saying " damn these Australian guys are smelly bastards and they are now hiding the beers" , but they have a great sense of humour which is always cool to have with a bunch of silly idiots like us .
Another special mention goes to Michal ( Michael ) who is a Polish guy from Gdynia who would have to be one of the hardest working guys I have ever met on the road and one of the most attentive to everyones concerns and is truly a bloke who I would recomend to ANY band who wants a team player and someone who doesnt fuck around and gets the job done.
Of course for me its great to talk to Michal as well because we can curse every bastard in Polish and nobody understands us heh heh .
True respect goes to him for going to the centre of Budapest and not knowing entirely where he was and finding a music shop just to get bulk drumsticks because Christian was running out of sticks quick.
Another special mention goes out to our tour buddy and guitar tech Atler , man this guy knows how to set up a rig and pull it down in no time which is great to see because this is his first tour ever and seeing how attentive he is and how he pays attention to detail is as if he has toured for years and he is only 19 years of age.
Often we have been listening to some cool music on the bus , a cd that has been recieving consistant spins on the cd player has been Atlers band "Illusion" which is a killer new progressive band from Norway much in the same vein of Pagans Mind with Atler being the lead vocalist.
they tear it up and they play progressive metal with flair , when they get their album out there in the future I highly recomend them based on the demo album I have heard.
So anyways I am not going to talk anymore about Budapest because it was awesome and it was great to see Sonata Arctica tear it up for another night .
Special mention goes to the people from the show who were standing outside the venue in the freezing cold conditions long after the gig had finished, thankyou for your warm words, you guys are damn tough to stand outside in the cold and wait for all of us to come and have a chat.
To the Norwegian girl who was pissed and couldnt stop letting everyone know of her love of Boy George and Culture Club who slapped me when I didnt share the same opinion , build a bridge and walk over it , just because you look attractive to everyone doesnt mean you dont look like a dickhead ok , next time I'll dig out my Wham vinyl just for you and play it on 45rpm so that at least it sounds like the Chipmunks on helium.
Budapest is now done , next we go to Slovenia ............but not without having Abba cranked up on full blast on the tourbus stereo with everybody acting like a bunch of prancy fairies singing to "Dancing Queen" , oh fuck did I just admit that ...........oh shit , now we have "Knowing Me, Knowing You" cranked .......its gonna be a long night ........oh Christ !!!!

Before we got close to Slovenia we were pulled over at the border by the local Police/customs for an xray of the bus so we all had to get out of bed and stand on the side of the road like a bunch of tools and watch the bus go through a massive x-ray machine , we passed as there were no drugs on board , no explosives, no guns, no fireworks ( damn I wish we had some) ,no goats with pentagrams , no pirated Disney dvd's , no contraband etc etc etc, so without delay we thanked them for pulling us over and boarded our bus, thanks for the everlasting memories huh.
Heads up goes to Jake , when we were all standing outside freezing our arses off he was the last guy to walk outside with only a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt heh heh , actually maybe thats why the police let us go because the ice was broken from them pissing themselves laughing.

15/11/08-Maribor-Slovenia

After what seemed like driving on a cobble stone road for the entire trip from Budapest and having a driver who just as aggressively brakes like he accelerates, we arrived in Maribor , Slovenia .
I couldnt sleep much the previous night so I woke up feeling like absolute shit and was sitting on the bus in a stupor when the sun started to break through the clouds , so I decided to go for a short walk with Frode who is Pagans Mind's manager , we intended to go for a short walk but it turned out to be a 15klm walk around the small city of Maribor.The saturday morning was fresh with a mild breeze as we walked around like bums from another planet with people looking at us like we had broken out of jail , neverthless we bought cheap cigarettes , cheap yet good quality vodka as a gift for Michal and boring stuff like socks etc.
When we arrived back at the venue which is called Stuk , we had some good food and had a chance to soundcheck as usual as well as kick back and send emails to family back home which is always great because so far for me personally Saturdays are a treat to receive photos from my wife as to how my kids are , so Saturdays are always a day when I'm smiling no matter how tired and crap I feel, yeah yeah I know what your thinking enough of the mushy stuff right, I'm a proud Father , my Daughter and Son rule and my Wife rules as well. We got onstage at 8pm sharp to a near capacity venue with many people still coming in, strangely enough the stage was so small and we had stuff all space to move that we felt like a headbanging version of The Beatles doing a song like "she loves you , yeah yeah yeah " n shit but the crowd seemed to go off regardless which was awesome.
Playing in a former eastern European country is a great experience and while the stages may be small and the PA gear rather limited , it doesnt dampen te evening one iota, in fact the people just like to let go which is great and they feed us energy that we glady give back in return. Once again I thought I was going to fall into the pit again and I couldnt stop bumping into Jakes keyboard , but hey thats playing live , regardless of how many bum notes you do , the people enjoy the songs and the energy. Once we had finished we all went and showered to get rid of the sweat , with all of us are standing there like bums having a shower, in walks Jake standing under the shower with a can of beer saying " good show tonight fellas heh heh , we couldnt stop laughing, we felt like we had just played a footy match. Anyways by the time Pagans Mind finished their set we all vacated our dressing room which was in a gymnasium and helped the guys offload their gear into our trailer just before Sonata Arctica took to the stage . All was done in 15minutes , thats what we call teamwork and then everyone has time to enjoy the beers that we get night after night. Full points goes out to the crew and promoter who organised the gig as well as the catering , the 4 slabs of beer we received was very gladly accepted and it looked like the guys in Pagans Mind had won a million dollars heh heh , probably because of the high price of alcohol in Norway me thinks . A special heads up goes to the 800 strong crowd in the venue who made us feel welcome even when the place looked like it could only realistically hold 500 people maximum heh heh , how you guys do it and still have energy I dont know , cheers to you all and thankyou for making us feel welcome for our first time in Slovenia.

16/11/08-Munich-Germany

We arrived into another cold and dreary day in Munich for the show at the Backstage venue , which is located near what looks like a scrap/construction yard of sorts to find the venue very band friendly and with staff willing to help in every way with loading and helping us to our rooms.
The stage was a little small but 3 times the size of the stage in Maribor which was good , not that we have the whole stage night after night anyways , but it was quite roomy for us to play on which is a good thing.
Anyways we took to the stage at 8pm for another half an hour set which went well , probably not as crazy as Maribor but definately well received, its kinda strange to play to a crowd who watch your every move and seem like they dont like the band or the music , but after every song we were applauded which is a good thing I suppose, we got offstage and thought that the gig was slightly dissapointing as we couldnt hear anything onstage nor could we even hear all the multi-layered keyboard samples we have on the Mac computer that Christian controls. Nevertheless we were suprised when we had many people come up to us and say that they enjoyed the gig , we even met two guys who drove from Prague to see us play , cheers to Pawel and Vladimir for turning up to see us and also cheers for the girl from Melbourne who was there to support a band from Melbourne , it was truly nice to hear that some people make extra effort to come and see us , I suppose when you are far away from home and you have fellow Australians in the crowd it gives you a bit of a boost and reminds you that home is never too far away.
that were sold , it was the most cd's sold of the album at any venue that we had played thus far which was cool to hear. Pagans Mind absolutely kicked arse tonight and so did Sonata Arctica. Warm regards go out to Marion who came to the show on short notice to come and see us , Marion used to work for us many years ago and she has always been part of the VP family so it was great to see her after many years.

17/11/08-DAY OFF-Pratteln-Switzerland

Did nothing except wash our clothes which were in a hellish state , thanks to the staff at Z7 who let us use the facilities while we had a day off. We walked over 7kilometres to a restaurant because we went the wrong way , after that some of us slept on the bus , I stayed in a hotel and tried to sleep but the bed didnt move as if I was on the bus , so I slept like hell.

18/11/08-Pratteln-Switzerl....and

I was woken up by the cleaning lady even though there was a do not disturb panel on the door, not happy , could not go back to sleep....aaaaaaaarrrrggggg....gghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Walked to the venue in the freezing cold and had something to eat for the start of the day, bummed around and was generally bored outta my mind , on days like this I wish I had a little soundcard for the laptop so that I could at least record some new ideas that are plaguing my mind, when we get home and have a short break it will be back to writing, so I wish I had a headstart in times like this.
Anyways tonight we had a rushed soundcheck and it could not have come at a worse time , everything seemed "just ok" during the soundcheck but something just didnt feel right , so we had no choice but to stop the soundcheck when our 15minutes were up. So....................we get onstage at 8pm for our usual half hour performance and as soon as we launched into Embodiment the sound on the stage was crackling and popping like a pop corn machine , the drum kick pedals/triggers are coming in and out , the bass sound in cancelling itself and I'm within close range of the side fill monitor which is making sounds like " fuck you , I own you " throughout the whole set , it was absolute bedlam and it was a nightmare to play in front of 1500 people in this situation.
With us having a half hour set , it doesnt give Silvio a chance to say much apart from when the song is starting due to time restrictions , so in effect he didnt even have time to even apologize to the crowd for the technical problems that were going on behind the scenes, it was like armageddon was coming to life onstage and the rest of the set was plagued by tehnical problems that to mention the problems in detail would be like experiencing the situation all over again which I refuse to do.
Nevertheless after our set was finished we walked offstage dissapointed that we could not do anything about the situation, as we know that of course we are a support band , but to travel so far and have something like this happen is just the worst scenario anyone could face bar having bottles thrown at them. Of course the crowd was polite and still cheered us , how many actually did this because they enjoyed the set , enjoyed seeing us or had sympathy for us we will never know , perhaps we probably wouldnt want to know to be honest. It's hard at times like this when you go up and give it your best shot and you do everything in your power to be the best that you can be , not being competitive with anyone but yourself and you feel that you have let the people who had come to see you and the people who hadn't heard your music down.
heard your music down. So in effect Pratteln was a complete technical nightmare for us and its just one of those nights that sometimes happens in a bands career, this is the second time ever we have had a situation like this , the last time we had something happen like this we never worked with the soundguy again. Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad and we have so far had a good run and sometimes these unforseen problems occur which can really burn a hole in your spirit as a musician. Enough said, someone will give me an explanation in detail over this , and I will wait. To the people who came to see us and to the people who were supportive on this night ,we sincerely thankyou.

19/1108-Saarbrucken-German....y

We arrived in Saarbrucken not knowing if it was part of Germany of France because on the way in the bus many of the road signs were in French and we initially thought the bus driver was lost and didnt know where he was , but it all made sense when we pulled into this small town which on the outskirts looked like a village with every house looking the same and the winter weather finally kicking in it looked like a place that was just short of expecting snowfall. Anyways the venue in Saarbrucken was awesome and this time woo hoo we had our very own dressing room with even a nice leather couch that we could have a sleep on which I took advantage of because the previous night I wasa starting to feel like I was coming down with something and this morning I had the dreaded flu from hell.
Its just one of those things that can happen when on tour , even when you look after yourself , dont drink every night and get adequate sleep you can still get sick as some of the guys have been partying quite alot and then when they fall sick it is pretty much expected for everyone to get sick. Reason being ........when you are in a bus and share it with 16 people and there is nothing but recirculated air floating through the cabin then you are bound to be stung by some bug floating around, so I was quite pissed off because up until now I have been feeling on top of my game,
Anyways we had quite an extensive soundcheck to make sure that the same shit was not going to happen as it did the previous night when we had technical demons bite us on the arse, so with that we went through every lead and cable imaginable for our set and all looked well , chances are that someone had accidentally stepped or "unplugged" a cable the previous night , so tonight everything was checked thoroughly. We played our set when we got onstage and although we didnt have much room I think we did a solid set and the people in Saarbrucken seemed to have enjoyed the gig which was a relief because this time we didnt feel like we were playing with no clothes on in comparison to the previous evening heh heh.
Silvio found that another way to sing was by standing on the huge bass monitors at the front of the stage which actually could have been a little bit of a extension of it , so we did the same and luckily we didnt have any Spinal Tap moments , but sometimes we came close heh heh because the fall from the stage is around 8 feet into solid concrete heh heh . When we played we were happy to see some of our friends in the crowd namely Alex and Tommy who are like family to me , so it was great to see them and catch up with them. Pagans Mind played a great set as usual and Sonata slayed as usual.
Heads up go to Frank and Rudinger from Hughes and Kettner amplification who came to the show to say hello , it was great meeting the guys who were responsible for loaning amps for the tour as I have an endorsement for my amp which is the Switchblade series, we truly are grateful for their help and assistance in making this tour in many ways happen.

20/11/08-Antwerp-Belgium

It had been years since we played in Belgium and for us it was cool to finally get to Antwerp to play a gig at the Hof ter Lo venue which has a great stage and is a relatively big place. The weather outside was nothing short of depressing with dark clouds sitting above us for most of the day , some of us including myself opted to stay at the venue to kick back , I was hoping to give the flu/cold that I had a good kick in the arse but it was no use because the backstage rooms were a little on the dirty side , we had our own room ( again !!! woo hoo) which was good , but when you looked at the lower part of the walls you could see how much mould there actually was and how the place had been rejuvinated with some paint ( to cover the mould perhaps?) , anyways I found myself more sick than I had been and headed for the shower when our gig was finished.
Our show went well , some people really got into our set , some looked like they needed a cattle prod shoved up their backsides , but the majority of the people went off which was good and we felt welcome in Belgium. As I mentioned , after the show I had a shower right ........there was water all over the floor which was over 4 inches deep ,it was as if the drainage was blocked and that was all even before I stepped into the bloody thing, oh Christ this is what I really need when I have the flu, fuck !!!
Pagans Mind hit the stage and I had a chance to see some of their songs before heading for the bus , I was too under to even contemplate talking to people as whenever I started to speak I would break into a coughing fit. The rest of the evening I spent on the bus ( typing this section actually ) and felt pissed off with myself that I could not go and at least have a beer with some people and say hello to people who had come to see us play. Not much to say other than the gig went well , I hope I shake this bloody cough from hell and feel a little better for the last two dates of the tour .

21/11/08-Rijssen-Holland

Back to Holland we go , back to Holland for some more good beer , back to Holland to play to more people :) Tonights show was awesome to say the least , we ignored the fact that we had not much room onstage and still gave the best we could to a more than receptive audience that just let loose and got into our music which was nice because we thought with the absolute freezing weather outside that perhaps the majority of the people would have stayed home until it was close to Sonata Arctica taking to the stage , but thankfully we were mistaken and we were treated to a packed house full of people.
To say that we had fun onstage would be an understatement as the reception we received was beyond our expectations and we felt welcome in Rijssen . There was only one fuck up that soured a taste in my mouth and that was when a string on my guitar broke , but that was just one of those things that happens and I am lucky that at least for this whole tour I have only broken one string , cheers to Dean Markley for making decent strings heh heh funnily enough I still havent changed my strings because I am lazy and dont have money to have hundreds of packets of spare strings for a tour, full points go to Tommy for winning the competition on doing the tour on the same set of strings which left Michael Spiess in disbelief and Jorn from PM laughing that we were doing such a thing . Pagans Mind took to the stage shortly after us and they were treated once again to a great crowd and they slayed tonight .
It was the first time that Steinar from Pagans Mind played his new bass guitar from Ibanez which is a beautiful work of art , to say that he felt like it was an early Christmas present would'nt be far off the mark as he deserves the recognition to be endorsed , I seriously rate this guy as one of the most amazing bass players I have ever witnessed live , this guy is the real deal , plays a six string bass , rocks out and is a true gentleman with a heart of gold and he is one of the funniest bastards I have ever met heh heh . Sonata Arctica did a great set as usual , what else can be said , they are professionals and a great band live .
After the show was finished we hung around the merchandise stand as we normally do and it was nice to meet all the people and just kick back , have a beer of two( many drank many more drinks and some shit got outta hand due to perhaps we could say slight misunderstandings heh heh ) and talk shit which was cool but when we walked outside it was snowing like something from a fairy tale , for some of us this was cool , for some of us it was too cold , for many of the others there was more beer to be drunk on the bus, for me it was time to call it a night and get more sleep for the last show of the tour as I still felt like death.

22/11/08-Oberhausen-German....y

We arrived at the Turbinenhalle venue around 3pm as we had to make a detour with the tour bus as it had a failed park brake ( something new for a change !!) and many of us were getting quite anxious as we were to meet family and have stuff set up for the last show , so to say that things were running smoothly for us today would be silly as we had much to do for the last show of the tour.
The Turbinenhalle venue in Oberhausen has a capacity of 2500 which is awesome and the stage is one of the biggest stages since we played in Spain so we were happy that tonight we were going to have room to jump around like monkeys onstage and not bump into each other or each others equipment. I had a chance to meet up with some family earlier on which was nice so I went to the local Christmas market and bought some gifts for my kids.
Once back at the venue it was cool to see that everything had been set up promptly and that we were not far from soundcheck and everything was running actually extremely smooth , reason being why we were a little anxious was because it is tradition on most tours for there to be some kind of pranks pulled on each band for the last date of the tour and we were wondering what the Finnish guys were going to pull on us , amazingly there was nothing of the kind prepared and we found that we werent going to have to prepare ourselves or come up with any outlandish ideas of extreme immaturity ( which we are pretty good at and known for ) , so everything went well .
There were some technical glitches at soundcheck like the monitor sends being repatched or left in a mess , but with some quick thinking from Michal and Michael our sound guy the issues were fixed.....but not before we had a chance to finish our brief soundcheck , but with all being said it was going to be cool as we were going to have a good friend of ours join the stage to do a song with us for the last song.
Anyways , we took to the stage at 8pm as usual and played to a very receptive and loud audience which was awesome for us as it was the last show for the tour and to end it off with a good audience is always a blessing. The songs we were playing pretty much were the same as the other shows but tonight we didnt have Season Of Sundays included in the set list because we were going to end off the set with Two Minds One Soul with a good friend of ours none other than Tony Kakko from Sonata Arctica .
When Tony came up onstage it was awesome to say the least , if the crowd were going nuts beforehand when we were playing then now they went over the top, it was nice to finally have a good and close friend of ours join us onstage for the song , to say that it was a nice ending for our tour supporting Sonata Arctica would be an understatement because Tony and the guys in Sonata Arctica have done so much for Vanishing Point in the last few years namely covering Two Minds One Soul which was on the Dont Say A Word single as a bonus track and they personally invited us on this tour , so we are eternally grateful for such opportunities as well as thankful that we were not forgotten by our mates from Finland. The mixture of emotions as we hit our last note was hard to put to words as it was the final note for 2008 for us , originally we had planned to have 2008 as a quiet year and we were preparing to write our next album , but as fate has it , it was the busiest year we have had so far in our career as a band .
From the opening night of the Iron Maiden support in Perth back in Febuary 2008 to the closing night supporting Sonata Arctica in Germany November 2008 we had covered alot of ground in terms of miles,played to thousands of people,it took alot of time to arrange having these things happen as we are without management ( still looking as well) yet it was time for us to go home and travel many miles back to Australia. When we will be back in Europe , we honestly dont know , we hope that we will get there sooner than later , we sincerely hope that it will not take another seven years before we touch European soil again, time will tell , but one thing I do know is that we will write another album and another few more , we still feel within ourselves that we have much to offer and I guess we owe it to ourselves and the people who believe in us to keep doing what we are doing.

Heads up and thanks go out to the following people ,

Heads up and thanks go out to the following people , Tony Kakko and all the team at Sonata Arctica ( thankyou so much once again , when you come to Australia the Jagers are on us ), the Sonata Arctica crew who looked after us , Christine , Sonja and Dirk from Dockyard 1 for making sure that everything is in order and especially Christine for arranging all the freight and hiring for us , Continental Touring ( heads up to Carlos and Volkmar ) , Pagans Mind ( we miss you guys and hope to see you guys soon,thanks for the awesome gear ) , Frode ( for all the arranging with the bus company etc as well as keeping me up to date in terms of the tour way before it started),Jorg Michael ( good luck with the new Stratovarius),Frank and Rudinger at Hughes and Kettner ( thanks so much for looking after us endorsees, it was great meeting you both) , Michal for being one of the best crew guys a band could wish for ( wsystkego dobrego kurwa,do zobaczenia!! ) , Atler ( awesome , awesome....... all the best with your band ) , Michael Spiess ( whazzafuck Fode!!!, Frode...do somesink!!) you are one of the best sound guys we have worked with ever, thanks for caring and doing awesome mixes at every show,Hanneke our lighting girl for most of the tour( pull my finger ehh hah hah ), Joerg at Dragon Productions ( thanks for the guitar ) , Mick from Ibanez Europe ( thanks for the interest and keep in touch ) and last but not least to all the people who came to see us as and drove many miles and from other countries , we thank you , hopefully fingers crossed we will not be waiting too long before we meet again .