OFFICIAL POWER QUEST TOUR DIARY

[looseunit]

Day 1 - Thursday, 15th Feb 2007

Hi everyone, this is the first entry of the tour. The Italian guys are already on the road driving to Nancy along with bass/guitar roadie Alessandro. The plan is to meet them with the tour bus and trailer tomorrow and go straight to the venue. The UK travel party of 5 consist of Steve & Kiwi Steve, Paul (drum/keyboard tech), Simon (Merch) and Manuela (Tour Manager).
It's a perfect sunny travel day and the nightliner is packed up to the roof with plenty of gear, bags and merchandise. Before we hit the road to Dover, we need to pickup Firewind drums and amps, which were stored in London after their last show. In a couple of hours we will be leaving the island, ready to conquer France (for a start). We are all very enthusiastic and basically can't wait to rock the stage tomorrow night.

Cheers for today - stay tuned for the updates!

PQ

 

[looseunit]

DAY 2 16th FEB nancy France

after a very comfortable ride from London, we all meet up at the venue to load in and set up

the venue was a decent size, had great catering and an awesome cowd showed up in this sleepy town.

we had a great time on stage, its been a year since we last played together and this was our practice night for the tour as well as being the first show in Europe.

Alessio looks very cool with a Flying V draped around his neck, the sound was much heavier last night

next show Strasbourg

 

[looseunit]

day 3

strasbourg

today was all about the shower quest, we had our own backstage area complete with a shower, after all showering, not at the same time .... we loaded into a good size venue, people were queueing early for this one, we all setup had a sound check sat down to a nice feast of pasta and salmon, everything is very healthy here. Alessio and kiwi went for a walk down town, had a look around the city got some batteries for the remotes on the bus for the tv and dvd, we are watching dream theater dvd and kamelot at the moment ..more dvds to come

we played a great show again, no problems, great lights and sound, meeting lots of new fans

it was bobs birthday today and the nice catering ladies made a cake for him, firewind presented the cake to him on stage

Angra sounded fatastic tonight, they are all very nice guys and all the bands are working together fine

on to reims .....

 

[looseunit]

day 4

Reims

we awoke to amazing blue skies about 15 degrees , the venue is 1 year old, purpose built by the local city council, very well set out, load in was a breeze one huge lift took all our and firewinds gear, Bob Gus and Petros are on our party bus and Angra and others have there own big red bus.

we had our own dressing room with lights around the mirrors etc nice showers tooo very happy .....

lots of nice french fans here tonight in the audience, we did a photo shoot and alessio did a tv interview as well.

the stage was massive we rocked if i can say so myself ... sound was perfect the PA was amazing, we had a blast

i have to say tonights catering was like going out to he best french restuarant , we had red wine, french of course and a huge selection of fish meat pasta salads bread and cheese, although this is champayne country which we didnt get ..........but the wine is great, anyway we are treated like kings here

today i fixed rafs from Angras apple laptop to so he is a happy chappy the angra guys are cool

its party mood tonight as we have a day off tomorrow so loads of drinks are being served , i think we will go back to strausburg for the day before we drive over the boarder into switzerland for the z7 gig ...

back to that wine ......

 

[Power_Metal_Dom]

This sounds so so so good dude. Really happy you're living the ultimate rock n roll lifestyle (ooooooooh lightbulbs round my dressing room mirror!) And posh French wine too! Bah, who says you need smack and groupies

 

[dragonwarrior]

Doesn't take much to keep you lot happy does it?

As long as there's a shower!

 

[chazzyf]

Wenever I visit venues abroad I'm amazed how modern and well-fitted out there are compared to equivalent sized venues here.

Glad you guys are being well looked after.

 

[Rory]

Glad to hear it's all going well so far, sounds so cool

 

[TemplarOfSteel]

Sounds like you guys are having a great time. Keep on rocking!

 

[Cronopio]

Sounds like a blast! Hope the rest of the tour goes as smoothly, so you'll be happy when you head into the studio again!

 

[Little Linda (2)]

Aha! The shower quest has begun!

Glad you guys are having such a great time.

LL

 

[HMJ]

Sounds brilliant. Although it does just remind me that I'm not there Keep it rockin'!

 

[ianc]

Hi Steve its Ian! Sounds like all is going well mate! Dont forget to let me know about the Rome gig? See you there! SHOWERQUEST ROCK!!

 

[corrupted old gnom]

well then, i finally had the opportunity to see you guys live
even though it might not have appeared that obvious, there were a couple of guys there that came especially for you
the sound at the z7 usually is perfect - as almost everything else, too - put you seemed to have bad luck...the sound didn't live up to the standard quality level
those in the front rows didn't really care, though...we had quite some fun!
and btw: i wasn't the only one who would have loved to hear a song from your debut album
thx for the short - yet nice - chat during firewind

from what i heard of the track "magic never dies" (on myspace), i didn't expect it to be the perfect live song...and it turned out to be the least thrilling for me
i'm curious if i'll change my oppinion now that i finally got my hands on the album

btw: the austrian girl at the merch was fantastic

 

[Manuela PQ]

Hi, this is Manuela (tour manager)writing. Sorry for the delay!

Day 5 - 19th Feb 2007

We were back in Strasbourg having the first well earned day off. The guys slept as long as possible and got up around noon. Everyone took it really easy today and I am glad we are all still in high spirits. 12 different personalities living together on a tour bus can be pretty tough, apart from the usual little things, such as no power supply or no water…”che cazzo” – what the Italians would say.

Although this tour is great fun and very much enjoyable, it is really hard work! So today relaxing is the key word. We set off to the city centre around noon and indulged in shopping & sightseeing. In the late afternoon all got back to the bus, which luckily could park outside the venue we played 2 days ago.
Checking emails and eating real Japanese noodle pots (thanks to our caterer Chizzy) was next on the agenda. And whilst only a few went off to explore the Strasbourg night life, most of us spent the evening on the bus, trying to catch up on downloading pics from the gigs, writing tour diaries , checking emails (thank god for Wireless) or chilling out with DVDs and drinks…. Now that totally sounds like the ultimate glamorous Rock’n Roll Life style… hmmm does it?

Day 6 - 20th February
We arrived in Pratteln, Switzerland, in the early hours and woke up to a chilly, but very sunny day. The legendary Z7 has hosted many famous bands and now its time for Power Quest to play there. We had a great welcome from the local crew, our caterer Babs took very well care of the hungry bunch with plenty of home made food for load in and for dinner.

With a capacity of 1500 this is one of the biggest venues so far and thanks to the professional set up and the local crew we finished a proper sound check way before stage time.
Stage time 20.00 - the crowd was already into the sound from the very first song. And it was fantastic to realise some PQ fans being amongst them. The boys went out for signing and chatting, whilst I was taking care of the Merch and being mistaken for an Austrian girl


And here’s some inside scoops from previous days:

In Reims, whilst the rest was at the Merch stand, Andrea locked himself out of the dressing room and was caught in his undies…..

In Strasbourg, before Kiwi Steve was flicking one of his brand-new signature guitar picks (call him if you want one) which he does not even use (fingers only!) straight into the eye of a guy in the first row…he for sure will remember Power Quest from now on

Steve W took his black duck on tour, which overlooks the crowd from the key board and was recently being caught for smoking on stage….

That’s pretty much for today, next stop is Lyon!


Cheers from the road

Manuela

 

[corrupted old gnom]

[...]and being mistaken for an Austrian girl

:mrgreen:

bavarian?

 

[looseunit]

Lyon

i think its thursday today, we are parked outside the venue angra are in a hotel, the crew are unloading gear and sound check will be starting shortly

I was in the hotel with Angra and the fire alarm went off, we all had to rush outside, smoke was coming out of one of the windows of the hotel.

we waited outside for a while, then the manager said only a test ... they use smoke bombs for a fire drill how cool is that ehhehe

got to go and sound check ....

 

[Power_Metal_Dom]

Haha

Sounds like the lyrics from Smoke on the Water

Sounds like the tour is continuing to be bloody epic, though now I can't get the thought of Andrea in his undies out my head :S

 

[Jasonic]

Setlists????????

 

[Rory]

I arrived back in Dublin last night (heading back to Cork in a few hours) and I just want to thank the PQ guys for making my trip to Paris rule so much!

They were by far the best band of the night, and it was'nt just me who thinks that, I'm talking to a girl on msn that I met at the gig, and she loved them, and claims that Alessio is beautiful

It has to be said that PQ are touring with two of the best and nicest bands around, all three bands were outside the front of the venue for the majority of the day chatting with us, Bob from Firewind brought out a coffee for me, and Mark the Drummer was in a band with a guy I know in Cork

Great gig though guys, cheers