hi people,
it feels great to sit in front of a computer again (thanks Chris!), and since I've got some time, I'll make some quick comments.
Re: The setlength - from talking with people I understand that not everyone knows that the bands have NO input whatsoever on how long they can play. A five-band tour is a pretty large operation, and in order for everything to work as smoothly as possible, there are time limits to the performances. Every night, we're getting alotted a certain time that we're allowed to be onstage. This can depend on several factors (the time of arriving at the venue, the time the doors open, eventual setup problems, curfew, weekday etc), and MUST be adhered to. Any support band, on any tour, will certainly get a lot of problems if they ignore the regulations and overrun their given time, even for just a minute or two. On this particular tour, we've had everything between 20 and 35 minutes at our disposal, depending on the circumstances mentioned above. I can assure you that it definately feels frustrating to have traveled across the world, being away from family and work for a month, and only get to play for such a short time, but what can we do about it? It's just the way it works, and if we do a good job out of this and future tours, we might build up a strong enough presence to be able to make a headline tour in the states, but there really are no shortcuts to this. I totally understand that people are disappointed with us (or any of the other bands, of course) not playing as long as they would like, especially with the ticket prices being fairly steep, but there isn't anything we can do about it. Sorry if over-explaining everything here, but I just want it to be crystal clear that we don't have any say in how long we play on any given night.
Re: Finland - we love playing there and would jump at the first chance to get over there a.s.a.p., but - again - the bandmembers don't have ANY say in where or when gigs and tours are set up. If we don't get any offers from reputable promotors, we're not able to do a show. Regarding the European tours, there are certain logistical problems with including Finland since you get two inevitable travel days, which means lots of expenses (bus rent, crew wages etc) and no income, and sometimes the booking agencies just won't accept that and chose not to include Finland instead. Us not playing in a certain country doesn't mean that we've got anything against its population.
Re: Our smell - totally agreed. We do reek pretty badly, but this is what happens when you have access to showers every 4-5th day and sweating a lot during the gigs . Touring life is very, very unglamourous, and smelling like fish is one of the smaller problems. We're taking every opportunity we can to freshen up, but if there are no showers available, we can't do much about it. Besides, metal is supposed to be about grease and sweat.
Other than that, it's good to see that most of you are enjoying the shows, and we're certainly satisfied with the results so far
Take care & see you later, ppl!
