Wednesday, July 20, 2011

METALCAMP 2011 - Thursday (Show day) - Friday (The final day)

METALCAMP 2011 - Thursday (Show day)

Hojo hojo, it's Pasi writing. What a great morning to wake up! Had some breakfast at hotel's restaurant and went for a walk to a river nearby. Now we noticed a huge waterfall in the distance falling from the middle of the mountain maybe few kilometres away. Anyway we decided with Lasse that we will deffinitely go to see that waterfall Boka and so we took a hiking path up to the mountain next to our hotel. Walked for maybe 45 mins up the mountain sweaty as hell...at least 3 times almost given up that maybe we just go back to hotel but still continueing to the edge of the mountain as far as you could go ...the actual waterfall was still maybe 300 meters away but now we could see all of the 106 meters long waterfall and it just looked amazing!

 The river nearby our hotel and the waterfall Boka on the background.


Waterfall Boka (106m)



Getting down the waterfall hiking path...


Joonas having cold Lasko by the river.



Well back to hotel and soon we ordered a pick up to the festival.. We arrived to the festival area around 15 o'clock and checked out the mainstage...looks nice! We carried our stuff to the dressing room where we found a fridge full of nice surprises... :D Another nice surprise was when Kai from Wintersun came to say hi to us in our backstage...was so nice seeing him again and later Jari and Teemu also! I think Kai had drink something, hehee :D

Showtime - ready to rumble! Okay the intro is on and we rush on to the stage for the first song Warrior's Heart... öhm Emppu's string got broken from the first note and nope we did not have a spare guitar for that show... Well Emppu manages to change his string pretty quickly but it's already the second song when he comes back! :D What a nice start for a show! Still the weather is so great and it's nice to play for the great audience. Right after Tales of the End we play an old instrumental song  full of arpeggios and solos! :D That was nice!

Soon it gets to the point what we all have been waiting for as Michele speaks we gonna play next our new track Ghost in Me which will be released on the 2nd album! The song starts and the audience seem to mosh with it harder than earlier...looks like it's working and hell yea it's great to play it and everything feels great with that song! Then we play 2 last songs Scion of Stars and Shadows and Rain and we're about to faint from the hot weather but all great...nice show...not the best but good one!


The setlist:

Intro

Warrior's Heart
Upon Haunted Battlefields
Morning Lake
Tales of the End
Instrumental Song
Ghost in Me (New track)
Scion of Stars
Shadows and Rain

Outro


So about fridge full of nice surprises ...it's time to uncork them and have fun with the guys of Wintersun, with Rock the Nation guys and a lot of other people!


Metalcamp 2011 - Friday (The final day)

A nice little hangover I'm telling you...well that happens. Joonas calls me to wake up and join him and Emil to the hotel's terrace so me and Lasse joins them for few Laskos but not really tasting at that moment.. We decide to go swimming in the river that is something like +13 warm water so pretty chilly..but looks so tempting  with the water's turquoise colour and with lots of trouts swimming there...what a paradise! So here we are by the river ready to go there...finally me and Joonas manage to dive there so mission accomplished..see the videos below!

Soca cocktail or something like that from the hotel ....the colour is pretty much like the river. :D




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgeiEp9ikCg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqYMLH9pHYY


Okay time to pack the bags and head back to the festival area from where we will be taken to the airport of Venice at 1.30 at night. First thing we see when we arrive is Chris from Alestorm walking with "stereo beers" in his hands and we rush to say to the guy! Then inside the vip area we find all the other dudes of Malestorm and with their tour manager Stijn and it's great to see him again as well after the tour we did with Sabaton and Alestorm in the previous autumn. Of course Wintersun guys are there as well to get some beer in their bellies...so party on! We see few bands like Blind Guardian and In Extremo that night and also greet to our Power of Metal tour mates from Mercenary who are keeping the metal party going at the main stage after the headliner Blind Guardian have finished. We talk something more with our record label's guys and finally end up to the beach bar with Winterun guys. I think Vili and Lasse went to see for few songs from Alestorm as we others were at the beach. Time ran fast and so it came to say goodbyes again as our festival shuttle was about to take off to the airport.

Let the terrible and long travel back home begin!

Hey next weekend it's Tuska festival in Helsinki, Finland ...me, Emil and Joonas should go there to greet the guys from Hell with whom we did the Metalfest tour together with Wintersun...who will be playing at Tuska as well on friday! So if anyone's coming ...come to say hi! Maybe on Saturday should check out Merging Flare at Tuska's after party in Dom. We will see...

Okay take care everyone and more news to follow in the coming days/weeks!

Stay metal |,,/

Pasi / THAUROROD

Monday, July 18, 2011

Wednesday, July 13 (travel day)

Hi folks! It's Vili writing this time, sitting in a shuttle bus with the
rest of the guys (sans Michele, who will be joining us tomorrow) on our way
from Venice, Italy to Tolmin. Still a hundred kilometers or so to go: Emppu's 
playing Angry Birds, Lasse's listening to music and the rest of the guys are
just  enjoying the scenery - beautiful Italian/Slovenian countryside. We took
off from Helsinki, Finland early afternoon and flew to Venice via Munich.
Almost contrary to all the odds and possibilities, our gear (neatly strapped
together with sticky plastic sheets and duct tape - highly NOT recommended...)
got here as well!

Tonight's gonna be an easy one, after signing in the hotel we're probably
gonna check out the festival grounds and watch Wintersun and Mastodon's
gigs. Maybe even little partying involved, since we're on at 6:35 PM tomorrow
evening with a signing session afterwards. And of course there's some tending
to the instruments to do... changing strings, programming the final keyboard
sounds for the new song, etc. Gonna doze off now for an hour or so...
 
------ 
 
Well, we got safely to our hotel (really nice place called Penzion Boka in
Srpenica, near the breathtaking Boka waterfall) later that evening and boy,
were we tired. Would have loved to see Wintersun et al performing, but
simply didn't have the energy (and after all, staying up all night would
certainly have not done any good for the show next day), so we just had
dinner and a few drinks and an evening walk. On top of everything, I noticed
late in the night that I had misplaced my laptop charger while packing my
stuff back home in Finland, so we had no real change of updating this blog
on the road as intended... luckily Michele could lend me his charger the
next day for the show and a little hotel room rehearsal :)

Signing off,
/v 

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

METALCAMP 2011

So it is time for hell over paradise as Metalcamp 2011 have started and THAUROROD plays on Metalcamp's mainstage on Thursday 14th July at 18.35!

It will be a special show us in many ways... first of all it's the last scheduled show before we start heavily working on the 2nd album. Besides that we will play live one brand new song "Ghost in Me" from the upcoming 2nd album in Metalcamp for the first time ever! And of course it's just great to be part of this amazing festival!


Had our last rehearsels before the show today and tomorrow morning we are off to Metalcamp! Stay tuned for this blog for more stuff, pics, etc...

Oh and btw we have our signing session in Metalcamp right after the show at 20.30 - come there to greet the whole band! Would be nice to hear your opinion on the show and especially on the new song!!!

SEE YOU SOON METALHEADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pasi / T-ROD

Sunday, July 3, 2011

NUMMIROCK 2011 Part 2

Hey...what a great mid summer fest it was! Was so great meeting with a lot of friends and have fun...the weather was great on Friday and Saturday except during the time we were soundchecking and and loading out! :D The rain actually stopped while cheerful power metal was on, hehe :D Anyway the show was awesome as was crazy audience of Nummirock as well!

THAUROROD on stage at Nummirock 2011!

 Our Nummirock camp...a nice helmet that is.

...Nummirock camp ...a helmet goes around :D

Actually we drove to Nummirock already on Thursday evening or more like we arrived there on Friday morning at 3.30A.M. or something. We parked the car in the camp with our friends from Hyvinkää and put on an awesome mid-summer camp with beer, grilling, palinka, jallu, mölkky and good old friends! The weekend just went by too fast...well next pitstop: METALCAMP 2011...see you there my friends!!!

Oh and by the way we just might play for the first time ever 1 new track from the upcoming 2nd album on Metalcamp so be prepared!!!



Having few kangaroo beers with a friend of mine at the drinking area of Inferno stage!

 ....and finally I decided to colour my hair with a bit more masculine colour! :D

Pasi / T-ROD