No sleep 'til bedtime

We made it back alive! Who would've thought... The last gig of the tour in Lubeck was a blast. Everyone was smiling the whole day, as we all knew that there'd be last-gig pranks all over the place during all three sets. Drone had been playing a bit of Eye of the Tiger before the last song of the set for the whole tour, so we decided they need a boxing match onstage to go with the tune. Gagball was the sexy lady with the "round 1" sign, Silver was the referee and me and Niko were the fighters. Besides that, Norther's sound engineer messed with Drone's intro, which made sure the guys knew the name of the game from the very beginning of their set. They also got their share of "cymbal stealing" and other must-have's...

We got the messiest stuff of the three bands: Juffi and the drumset were covered in nuts, chips and just about everything else during one song, oranges and apples were rolling to the stage during another... during Showdown I got hit in the face by a wet softball, which the Norhter guys were throwing onstage for a while. Niko couldn't sing half of the song, he was laughing so hard. Pete from Norther tried to mess around with my effect pedals, but got frustrated when he realized I didn't really give a damn. During Snake Skin Saddle Mutz from Drone joined us onstage once again, and decided it would be a good idea to lift me on his shoulders during the solo. Must've looked funny, even tho the lead sounded like shit. But even with all this extra nonsense, we thing it was one of our best shows ever!

And then the headliner... From the very beginning of Norther's set their stage water was replaced with vodka, so the guys were pretty much drunk for the whole show. Silver decorated Kride's mic with Gagball's used sock, which almost made Kride throw up as he was trying to sing his part. All of us six-stringers ran onstage with our guitars during C.U.S. for some guitar aid. And then there's Frozen Angel, which Norther smartly left for last: Amoral and Drone had bought two pairs of angel wings, princess skirts, small fireworks etc the previous day, to transform Niko and Gagball into two beautiful, hairy frozen angels. Shaving foam is perfect as fake frost, btw. The show ended with all three bands onstage singing Michael Jackson's Heal the World. It was breathtaking, to say the least.

And there it was, the last gig of 20. It was all emotional backstage, everyone was happy yet sad it was over so soon. We said bye to a couple of guys who'd be leaving straigth from the venue, the rest of us would take the bus to the airport.

One more afterparty on the bus, guys getting all misty-eyed to Bon Jovi's Always and Mötley's Home Sweet Home... We didn't sleep for that many hours before it was 11am and time for us to get the hell out of the bus, which by then was parked in front of our hotel in Hamburg (we would fly back to Finland on sunday the 4th). Last goodbyes with the Drone guys and back to sleep. Later that night some of us went out to party for the last time in Reeperbahn, while other's hanged around the hotel. We flew back the next day, and besides us having to pay 200 euros for overweight it was just another hung-over flight.

The tour was so much fun it's ridiculous. Thanks to the killer crew and our fellow bands for being such great and fun company. We miss you already! And thanks to all of you who came to see us and showed your support, we appreaciate it. Hope to see you on tour again soon... -Ben

Amoral setlist (all gigs except Salzburg, where we had to leave Decrowning out):

1.Leave Your Dead Behind
2.Decrowning
3.Nervasion
4.Mute
5.Denial 101
6.Showdown
7.Snake Skin Saddle
8.Distract
9.Bleeder

Mama I'm Coming Home...

Here we are, at the backstage in Lubeck, the very last gig on this tour. Jukkis (AKA Cousin It from the Addams Family) from Norther is bothering me, and I have to figure out something smart to tell all y'all from the last few days. Luckily the other Amo-Apes promised to help me out...

After Wien we played at Frydek Mistek, in the basement of an elementary school. It was funny to load in the stuff while kids ran around wondering how come their yard is full of tired-looking rockers. The gig was fun, small crowd but they seemed to like the set. We got challenged to a football game by a couple of locals, needless to say we got our asses kicked severely. We stayed at the venue partying with some good people until it was time to get on the bus and head back to Germania. -Ben


After the load in me and Silver walked around and checked out the hoods of Munich for nearly 2 hours... We weren't in downtown so it took us a while to find anything interesting and another while to get back to the venue. The show wasn't as good as the most of this tour, but I think (hope) it went down pretty well to some people... If I remember right, this was the night we watched two different Bad Boys movies, the action comedy and the other one with Sean Penn in it. Back to Czech Republik. -Niko

Prague was a city many waited for on this tour. After the load in 4/5 of amoral and 2/4 of drone headed to see the sights. We walked around for 2 hours straight. Beatiful city it was. Bridges n' rivers n' stuff. Nice! Dinner was a in a very nice restaurant and we had civilized business conversations with the norttiboys. The gig was fun. Audience was truly wild! All the bands were obviously very happy with the evening. Afterparty was held at the nearby park by our main dudes Drone and their friends that had travelled to Prague. Night consisted mostly of a drinking game called Flankyball (too complicated to explain, but it was funny!) and observing some hilariously drunken locals falling around the park. The tour manager decided it would be a good idea to leave 20 minutes earlier, when the cops showed up... -Silver

Back in Germany again, this time Berlin. I had catched the cold some days earlier, so not much partying from my part recently. I didn't even have the interest to go around for a walk in the center like the other guys, just hanging around in the backstage/bus. The gig went horribly from my part... I didn't have a place to warm up with my pedals, so all the faster double bass parts went "floating". If you know what I'm talking about, good. If not, all the better :D Actually I've done numerous shows without warming up at all, and all the double bass parts locked in. But now, my legs seem to be over stressed or something. The other guys were complaining as well, that the gig wasn't really our best. Anyways, I got some compiments from the audience, and Heikki from Norther told me that I played better than never before. WTF?!? After the show some of the guys went to a disco, while the nerds, including myself, decided to stay in the bus. The wireless internet connection of the venue was working there. Oh, there was a great kebab place right next to the venue. Total Döner!!!!!!!!!!! -Juhana