.: Posted by Kristian Niemann :: August 23, 2000 :.

It can be summed up pretty much in one word: Chicken. (Go to the Flowing Tears Website and check out the tour diary, written by Ben, for a hilarious in-depth explanation on this subject!)

Seriously though, the tour was fantastic! And, like I wrote in the MIP-forum, in large parts thanks to all the cool people that showed up. This was my first major tour and I was really blown away by the reception we got everywhere we went (well, almost everywhere....).

I think everyone that was involved on this tour, (bands, crew etc) would agree that the tour was a major success. In my opinion, everybody seemed to get along great, no egos, no bullshit, just a really cool vibe and an attitude among all three bands that this is all about the MUSIC and giving the fans a kick-ass show! Some nights were better that others, of course (see below), but on the whole, it was just pure FUN!

On tour, a typical day for me would be something along the lines of......

Wake up around noon with a slight hangover from the night before and see the finnish choir members headoff into town to do some sight-seeing and shopping. I´m too tired so I go to bed again. Wake up around 3 pm and go down to the catering. Flowing Tears are already there and I´m always amazed by this, coz I´m sure they party just as much as we do. (We I say "we", I don´t include the finnish members of our entourage: they are on a different level when it comes to drinking....). Anyway, I eat something which is usually bread, cheese, ham, yoghurt and LOTS of coffee.

Then, I grab my trusty Telecaster and try to find a quiet place where I can do a bit of practicing and work on the parts that are giving me a headache in the set, such as the piano/guitar unison line in the end of "Desert of Set". Of course, that doesn´t help......I fuck it up anyway!!!

At 5:30 pm, it´s time for soundcheck and we run through "The Invincible" , "Enter Vril-ya" and 5 seconds of "Riders of Theli". My gear always works PERFECTLY, thanks to our killer tech Kevin, and since Chris and I have our own separate guitar monitors which are run directly from our power amps, we don´t have to waste time trying to get a good monitorsound. It always sounds great! Instead, we can spend more time on the vocalists and their mix. Then Flowing.. gets up onstage to do their soundcheck, while the rest of us is off to dinner.

When Flowing Tears end their set, it´s about a hour before we are on and I start to warm up. It seems that certain players are able to go in cold and just SMOKE without any warm-ups or anything. That makes me jealous and I wish I was like that. I need at least an hour for my hands to feel somewhat OK.

The Voivod set starts with "Mercury" and when I hear Eric go "AAAAAAAHHHHRRRGGGG...........It´s showtime!!", I can really feel my adrenaline rush!

I mean, this guy had his back broken in five places, he was in a coma, nobody thought he was going to survive.....and yet he´s able to DELIVER in a major fuckin´ way night after night.....If that´s not professional, I don´t know what is. R E S P E C T !!!!!!!!!!!

Their set ends and my reaction usually is :

"Oh damn...Voivod just ANNIHILATED the audience, AGAIN!!........we better get our shit together or we´re gonna get killed!!!!"

We play the gig like it´s our last and sometimes it´s good, sometimes it sucks ass.

After our Iron Maiden encore, we cool down for a few minutes, have a beer and then go out and talk to people, sign some stuff, pose for pix etc. I personally love this because not only do I get to feel like a "Real Rockstar" for two seconds ;-) , but I also get to say "Thank you for coming!" to the people (YOU!!!) who dragged themselves out there. If it weren´t for you, there´s no way in hell we could be doing this. So......Thanks!

When our hard-working crew has loaded the nightliner and trailer with our gear (I know, we are REALLY SPOILED!), it´s time to board the bus and start doing some serious drinking, and I´ll probably wake up tomorrow with a slight hangover, just around noon..............

Some brief thoughts (in my own humble opinion..)

Best audience: Krakow. Totally UNBELIEAVABLE!!!

Other great audiences: Prag, Budapest, Vilnius, Tilburg, Bochum, Mexico City.

Weirdest audience: Wels. Very quiet and reserved....maybe they thought we sucked really hard that night!

Best catering: Lille and Strasbourg. Le fucking terriffic!

Worst catering: Milan. The veggie meal: If you cook cucumber and potatoes together for a week, it ain´t gonna be that tasty.....which is probably why they put enough salt on it to sink a battleship.

Best playing by KN: Lille. Must have been the food....

Worst playing by KN: Vienna and Budapest. Must have been...uh...uh.....

Best beer: Tilburg (Heineken!) and all the places where we got Weissbier! I just can´t remember where that was, though......;-)

Coolest moment: Playing "Paranoid" with Voivod in Vosselaar.

Best show: Vilnius.

Well, all that´s left is just a big "ThesePeopleWereThereAndTheyDeserveToBeMentionedToo,Damnit!!!"-list.

Our crew: Richard, Kevin, Gus, Danielle, Chris, Rick, Danny and Volker.
Voivod: Eric, Dennis and Michel.
Flowing Tears: Ben, Stefanie, Mike, Frederic, Manfred and Eric.

.: Posted by Kristian Niemann :: August 23, 2000 :.