Read previous parts of the diary here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
Monday 29 March 2010 HU/Budapest
Woke up late as usual. Hungry and hung over. Grabbed my sweaty stage clothes and started the daily search for the backstage entry. Well inside I was extremely welcomed by the in-house catering lady. She forced me to eat some kind of breakfast and like a schoolboy I obeyed. The show was great and the sweet catering girl gave us some Hungarian vodka in the backstage afterwards. Me, Nille and Ronnie [tour manager] wanted to continue the partying, as it was a late bus call, so we decided to find a bar. We got help from a Hungarian fan, don't know her name, but she got us in a taxi and took us to this joint near downtown Budapest. The bar was half filled with local bums so of course we ordered a couple of beers and sat down at a table. One of the guys in there (old stinking alcoholic) knew a few Swedish words and tried have a ´proper´ conversation with me...of course. Took a taxi back to the bus, with a driver who thought he was Ari Vatanen (Finnish rally car champ), and went straight to bed. Note to self: Never tell a Hungarian taxi driver you love fast cars!
Tuesday 30 March 2010 CZ/Prague
Why the hell is it so bloody hot in the bus?! This is the question I ask myself every time I wake up. I should ask our driver Pete but he's always sleeping when I get up in the morning (about 3pm). Oh well! Deep inside the venue I find all the Kats in the backstage area eating and drinking beer or surfing the web so i hang my ever-so-stinking stage clothes on a hanger and move to the stage.
Jimmy and
Soldier [guitar tech] are still doing their job getting the gear up so I leave them to it. I bump in to a laughing
Blakki [Anders, for those that are unfamiliar] and I find out he has been playing around with a bottle of Nutella in
Swallow The Sun's backstage toilette and shower (pic's
here). It's actually funnier than you think. Dinner time and me,
Blakki,
Sodomizer,
Nill and
Ronnie go to an Italian restaurant. I had the best lasagna ever! The show was great, as they have been throughout the tour, and the Czech crowd was better than I remember from our previous visits. After the show I meet
Sabine, most likely our most dedicated fan, and chat with her over a beer before I leave for the bus.
Wednesday 31 March 2010 PL/Krakow
Last time we had a show in this town (at least as I can remember) was in 2003 on the Viva Emptiness tour. That time we played in a more of a TV studio type venue in, front of a small crowd, making a shitty live DVD. Seven years have passed and this time some 800 people bought tickets to see us. Awesome! Pre-show today is mostly about hanging with the guys from Swallow The Sun, doing stupid things and listening to music. The Katatonia show was nothing less than fantastic. The crowd was so loud I could hear them through my headphones, which is remarkable as I'm sitting furthest from everyone in the venue AND have my ears filled with an insanely loud mess of instruments. I can easily say that this was the highlight of shows so far! After the last song of the set list we walk off stage waiting for the crowd to cheer us up on stage again (this is normal rockstar behaviour...no divas here) and I bang my left shoulder on a steel pipe. It hurts like hell. But I’m able to play the encore songs (again, rockstar. A diva would cancel the rest of the tour. There IS a difference). To top up this great evening we have pizza waiting for us backstage. It's all good in Poland!
Thursday 01 April 2010 PL/Warsaw
There is a washing machine at the venue today. To please my fellow band mates I decide to wash my gig clothes as they haven't been clean since Slovenia. Let me tell you all a short story about my gig clothes. The ensemble consists of one pair of black shorts and a random black t-shirt. These items get soaked in body nectar (better known as sweat) every night and with the small amount of time they get to dry in the bus between shows...well they just don't dry at all. So I basically wear them half wet every night, adding more sweat and odor. After a couple of days they smell like vinegar and after another few days they reek of feces and old man´s balls. You´re probably thinking I should shower more often and you're probably right.
Anyway, the venue is huge with a big stage. The drum riser is high and far back on the stage and I don't like that. Yes, it looks cool but it's boring to be so far from the crowd and the band. However, the show is as good as last night. Incredible crowd! Mosh pits and crowd surfing even. Not something you see every day at a Katatonia show. Pizza after show again and my freshly washed stage clothes have a new supply of sweat again. Party in the bus coming up!
Friday 02 April 2010 DE/Berlin
Woke up early today so me and Petri [merch guy] went out for breakfast. The rest of the Finns joined as they were awake (or never went to bed from the night before). We had Döner Kebab and beer...awesome! The backstage is filled with internet hungry "rockers" so I join them by using Skype to talk to my family before sound check. It's Sodo's birthday today so we have some beer and Jäger shots before the show. Someone bought him a cake. Sodo hates cake. Since it is his birthday he agrees to join us to a nearby bar for some drinks and beer after the show. Beer...White Russians...Mojitos...the rest of this night is one big blur but I know we had fun.
Saturday 03 April 2010 DE/Bochum
Blakki: We played here back in 2003, on the Viva Emptiness tour!
Daniel: I don't recognize anything from this venue.
Blakki: Don't you remember we met that girl for the first time at the yard over there?!?
Daniel: Dude, we've never been here before!
Blakki: I remember everything. The venue, the backstage, the catering...
Daniel: Well i don't! Are you sure you haven't got it mixed up?
Blakki: It's ZECHE!! How could you not remember?!?
Daniel: I remember Zeche Carl. This is just Zeche!
Blakki: Stop it! You are so fucking stupid! It's the same! Zeche...Zeche Carl!
Daniel: Whatever man!
Tour Manager joins: That was Zeche Carl in Essen. This is Zeche in Bochum!
Blakki: ......................
Daniel: Who's fucking stupid now?
Sunday 04 April 2010 DE/Leipzig
Last day with Swallow The Sun on the bill. A bit sad. The backstage area is placed in another building next to the venue so we all hang around eating bad catering food and having soft drinks. Me and Ronnie are planning for the "last day on tour show prank" and I've downloaded (from iTunes) "M.A Numminen's Rubberball song" for the purpose to hijack Swallow The Sun's intro while Ronnie tweaks his F.O.H effects to an high pitch voiceover for usage when Mikko talks between songs. Awesome! The prank is a success and we all have a big laugh. In the dressing room, after S.T.S show, Mikko tells me we are digging our own graves and I'm worried and equally excited about their prank. Nothing happens until the very last song, Leaders, when Matti and Juha enter the stage, one wearing a big cardboard box with cut outs for eyes and arms, and one wearing a huge plastic bag only to look like a big penis in a condom. I laughed so hard that one of my earphones dropped out of my ear. Kai joined in the very ending of the set, muting my cymbals with his hands, standing on top of the drum riser. Good times indeed! Tears and beers on the bus to the airport where we dropped off the Finns.
Guess that sums up the week. Vittu mikä pultsarimeininki!!
- Daniel Liljekvist, Katatonia, 2010
