Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Picture Update: Summer & Fall 2017


Here are some pics from the Sonata Arctica travels in the Summer & Fall of 2017:



Up in the Puijon Torni in Kuopio, Finland...


...even managed to capture an airplane while up there.


Backstage @ Wacken Open Air, Germany


Our BS door @ Wacken


..the special Wacken edition of Becks.


Hotelroom view in Sweden.


Our dear friend Kristian got these tattoos, cool as hell !!!


The backstage/dinner/breakfast-whathaveyou at the hotel in Iisalmi, Finland.


Random airplanewindowpic #09854399


In the van, somewhere in Europe.


Summerbreeze, Germany.


The smurftrail to get to our rooms in a hotel somewhere.



Backstage in the Czech republic.



Alestorm helped us out by making the setlist for the show ;-) 


Airport shopping in Moscow, Russia.


On the first morning in Tel Aviv, Israel we went for a walk and this dude just
brutally photobombed me...no idea who he is/was...


Tel Aviv random pics...


...with Pasi in it ;-) 


...walking to the beach...


....selfie time, again...


the beer boys ;-) 


This rug really tied my riser together !!


Preparing to rock before a sold out crowd in Tel Aviv, Israel.


Still in Israel, on our way to the tourist-day stuff in Jerusalem.


Jerusalem.


...more of the same.





one of the alleys in the old town, Jerusalem.


I was here as well.


Getting ready to go back to the hotel after swimming in the dead sea.
Fashion statement of September 2017 !


Time for a final swim at the beach in front of the hotel in Tel Aviv, Israel.


That's about it !!!

cheers,
Henkka







SA:On the road: Last trip of 2017: 8-10.11. Turku-Stockholm-Turku Rock the Boat

Our last show this year was yet another cruise, the northern trio of me, Tommy & Tony spent the day traveling to Turku by train, we arrived at night and got some kebab before heading to the hotel and get some sleep. We had to get up really early in the morning and board the ship, however we got to go straight to bed and sleep some more which was nice. On the showday we did some tax free shopping, soundcheck and the usual stuff and around 2300 we hit the stage. This was the last time we played The 9th Hour World Tour set, in January we’ll change it around and add the Caleb-saga to the setlist as well as some other stuff. Anyways, after our show we had a couple but had to end the night quite early since there was an early wake-up call to get off the boat and the next day was spent in the train again. We did however manage to get back home, safe & sound…..no more shows this year ;-(

…and that pretty much wraps up the year 2017 as well as The Ninth Hour World Tour, we did over 130 shows in 13 months in North & South America and Europe. We got to go to Israel and Honduras for the first time ever which was great. As far as touring with Sonata goes: In January we’ll do a special tour in Finland as well as the 70.000 tons of Metal Cruise. The rest of the spring is devoted to new music and we’ll of course play some festivals in the summer and then resume work on the next album in the fall.

Silent Voices will release a live album from the Darkest Night European Tour, check it out here: silentvoices.net

Sv is also preparing material for our 5th studio album. Mental Care Foundation will be back with a 3rd album….and we’re laying down tracks for KS3 which will once again be quite different from the previous one. I think at least some of these records will be out in 2018 but we’ll see how things pan out.

cheers,

Hank

Monday, October 16, 2017

Secret Rule: The third video for the upcoming album


Here's the third and last video we did for the new album,
It's called Imaginary World.

cheers,
Hank


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lanRSCQTfNI



Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Summer Days 2017: September

The last two trips for this year were upon us, the first one comes here:

6.9. Israel & 9.9. Radio Rock Cruise
On Tuesday the 5th we got up really early and flew to Helsinki at 0535, from there we continued to Tel Aviv via Moscow….and that basically took us the whole day. We arrived late in the evening and headed for the hotel to get some sleep. The next day was a showday, the show at the Havanna Club or was it Club Havanna? was sold out…
the day before one of our cases went missing, it was however found in Moscow and we were promised that it would arrive in time for the show….we’ll of course it didn’t (cheers Aeroflot ;-) ) We did however manage to borrow some in-ear monitors and were able to do the show. The next day we were the true tourists and went on a sight-seeing trip to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. Some of the stuff was really boring and some stuff was interesting…the hightlight was however floating in the Dead Sea so that pretty much made the whole day worth it. On Friday we flew to Helsinki, once again via Moscow.

Saturday morning was spent at myrskytattoo in Helsinki and in the afternoon we boarded the boat for the Radio Rock Cruise. Our show was in the evening between Lost Society and Children of Bodom. Had a rather good time and didn’t even get a hangover ;-) …After coming back to Helsinki on Sunday, we flew home in the evening or actually late at night.

One more show this year….and in 2018 we’ll shuffle the setlist around…finally ;-)

cheers,

Hank

Ps.I'll try to gather some pics from the summer as well, as soon as I get the time to do  it ;-)

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Secret Rule: 2nd video released


Here we do, video no. 2 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36u8sgqvpYg&t=1s


cheers,
Hank

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Secret Rule: new video online


Hi there,
the first of the three videos we shot when I was in Rome is here:

https://youtu.be/1aCkK5aX4Sk







The new album "The Key to the World" will be released by Pride & Joy Music on November 10th, 2017. Henrik Klingenberg (Sonata Arctica) and two new guests on this new CD, Henning Basse (Firewind and MaYan) and Ailyn Giménez (ex Sirenia), also appear on this third release. It again was mixed and mastered by Tue Madsen (Antfarm Studio- Denmark); Fabio D'amore (Serenity) handled the pre-production and Simona Speedy Saccoccia took care of the artwork again. In addition, music videos for the tracks "Twin Flames", "The Song Of The Universe" & "Imaginary World" feat. all three guests will be released in advance to the album release. Stay tuned!"


cheers,
Hank





Monday, September 4, 2017

Summer Days 2017:August

Our 2nd month of summer shows was mostly outside of Finland. In September we only have a show in Israel and the Radio Rock Cruise so I’ll let you know about them later when I do my fall update that covers everything…or at least most of a lot of things that’s been going on…we’ll see about that later.Be that as it may:

4.8. & 5.8. Wacken Open Air, Germany & Skogsröjet, Sweden.

We started the month with the biggest and greatest heavy metal festival, Wacken Open
Air.  As usual we flew to Helsinki the night before, this time we had to go to Oulu (around1,5 hours by car) to get a reasonable flight, spent the night at the hotel and got going towards Hamburg in the morning. Nothing new here, and nothing to see either ;-)
Our slot was a nice afternoon thing on one of the main stages, which of course was nice. The time at the festival was quite restricted for us because we had a 0445 lobby call in the morning to fly to Sweden, nevertheless we met a lot of familiar faces, did our show and a signing session and then we were on our way back to the hotel. In the evening we had dinner and tried out the hotel sauna as well.

The next morning was of course horrible, as you can imagine. We did however drag our bones to the flight, and upon arrival in Stockholm it was time for a 2 hour van ride to our hotel. Luckily we had the whole day to rest and in the evening we left for the festival. I was told that the Röjmyre village where the festival is held, only has around 800 people of which half were working as volunteers on the festival….which also was essential for the survival of the village. I guess you learn something every day. Our backstage was in a small school and the whole festival had this homegrown-feel to it. Which was nice and everything worked smoothly so no complaints here. We had a short signing session and a late night slot at 0100, the last band at the festival if I understood everything correctly. The next day it was once again an early start, vanride to the airport, changeover in Helsinki and then in Oulu we jumped in the car and drove home. 

12.8. Runnirock, Finland

Our next stop was a quick deal in Iisalmi, just around 4 hours by train from where we live. In the afternoon Tommy & I got on the train, arrived at around 2100 in the evening, walked to the hotel (which was a really nice one and booked only for the bands & festival staff for that weekend). Had some dinner, went to the festival and did the show, this time it was around 0000, then back to the hotel, evening/night-snack and the hit the bed. At 0900 our train back home left and in the afternoon we were back at home. This was probably the fastest festival for us this summer. BTW, for those of you who haven’t
discovered or been exposed to the wonders of setlist.fm , this summer we’ve been playing pretty much the same songs that we had in our setlist during the spring with the addition of Paid in Full, 8th Commandment and Black Sheep. For all I know that’s pretty much the stuff we’ll be doing for the last few shows this year…and in 2018 when we’re back on the road, we’ll have to renew the set to keep ourselves and you guys happy !!
Any suggestions what you’d like to hear, let me know and I see what I can do.

18.8. & 19.8. Summer Breeze, Germany & Rock Heart, Czech Republic

Another run that starts with an overnight stay in Helsinki. We left on Thursday evening and continued on to Germany on Friday morning. At the Summerbreeze festival, I think the festival itself turned 20 years and our label Nuclear Blast had their 30 year anniversary or something so it was basically one giant meet and greet with a lot of familiar faces. The show was kinda ok but somehow I had trouble getting the gist of it , it was probably just in my head but it felt weird. Anyways, we ended the night with some steaks at the hotel and then got ready for an early wake-up call to fly to the Czech republic. We quickly swung by the hotel to drop our stuff and then proceeded to the festival, for a change of pace, the airline managed to lose our guitar and bass cases so that was of course exciting ;-) The did turn up just before the show, so all good in that department, the only problem was that my Vortex-keytar didn’t work, the light went on but nothing happened. As we were running late I decided to say, fuck it and just play the show with my Kronos, which of course worked out well but I was pissed since I couldn’t move around even a little bit. (This of course isn’t the problem with Silent Voices for example since we play small venues and on top of that the material is so complex that I need both of my hands for most of the stuff).

A few days after this incident I did get a pic from my tech, showing that the Vortex was actually broken inside. (the midi wiring had been yanked out of the motherboard).

Our trip back home from Czech republic did however go ok and with that we had some days off to prepare for the last festival this month.

26.8. Czad Festival, Poland
One-offs in Europe are a bit of a shitty deal since we live up north and the connections
really suck. Yeah I know, whiny whiny whiny little bitch. At the moment we’ve been out every weekend for two months so I have the right to complain a bit. Anyways, Friday night and on to Helsinki for the airport hotel, early Saturday we flew to Poland and went to the hotel to drop off our things (10min break) and then to the festival to rock out. A pretty good show it was indeed ;-) afterwards we got back to the hotel for some drinks, the next day we didn’t have to leave until 1600 hours so we spent the day sitting outside in the sun (keep in mind that our weather back home is already getting quite shitty)….in the evening we flew to Helsinki and went straight to bed since we arrived around 0100, the next day we flew home at 1400, talk about shitty connections.

Now we’re getting ready for the last trip of this year (actually the second to last, but the last one isn’t public yet…I think). We’re playing our first show in Israel in a few days and then it’s off to the Radio Rock Cruise with our friends from Stratovarius, Children of Bodom and Lost Society, among others…

cheers,

Hank

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Summer Days 2017: July

Allrighty, since it’s summer everything is a bit chaotic with going to festivals every weekend and what have you in between. I’ll try to scrabble a few lines about what went on in July. Here we go:

1.7. & 2.7.2017 Lankafest & Tuska
We started our festival season at Lankafest, Puolanka on the first of July. Since our tours this spring: The 5 weeks in Latin America and the 7 weeks in Europe + Finland shows…the total was around 70 gigs or something. We decided quite early on that upon returning home from Latin America (June 6th or something) we’ll take the rest of the month of to rest a bit. Of course I went on Holidays with my family so there wasn’t too much off-time…anyways. At Lankafest we played quite late and it felt a bit shaky after a few weeks off. A couple of songs into the set everything started to work somehow and we finished the show with a smile. Afterwards we drove to Helsinki overnight since otherwise we wouldn’t have made it on time for our late afternoon show. 

In Helsinki we had some time to rest at the hotle before heading to the festival. Some interviews, a signing session and a fun show later we found ourselves in a restaurant having a great dinner before it was time to call it a night. The next afternoon some of us checked out the Ville Juurikkala photo exibition before flying home.

7.7.2017 Kalajoki
This was an interesting club show in the middle of the summer, nevertheless…I drove down with my gf for the evening and back the next day. One weird thing was that when we started the venue seemed half empty…apparently we started too early or something since the place was quite full when the show ended…and people chanting for more for several minutes after we’d done the vodka thing and all…that’s quite unusual in Finland. Thanks a lot !!

14.7.-30.7.2017 Karjurock, Pioneerirock, Ilosaarirock, Rome & John Smith Festival

The next trip was a rather long one. It started with Karjurock somewhere in the woods near Uusikaupunki,  on Friday the 14.7. from there we went to Turku for a few hours of sleep and then it was time to drive to Kouvola for Pioneerirock on Saturday. On this night we got to sleep a bit again before an early start towards Joensuu on Sunday. All the shows went on with nothing major happening and after the Joensuu show, I stayed behind with my gf to hang out and then have some rest before next weeks travel. 

On Monday we drove to Helsinki and flew to Rome to shoot 3 music videos with Secret Rule…who has another album coming out in November. I did the keyboards last spring when I wasn’t on tour. As far as the videos go, I’d rather not give anything away but I think they’ll turn out really great, we had some really cool locations and a lot of funny moments….and luckily there was some time to do some tourist stuff as well. Nevertheless after spending the week in Rome we flew back to Helsinki on Friday from where we went to Elias house to hang out and spend the night.

On Saturday the 22.7. we went to the John Smith festival and played a late night set after Children of Bodom. Nice festival and nice location…the next day was spent driving all the way home up north. What a week ;-)

29.7.2017 RockCock, Kuopio

The last festival this month was in our FOH guys hometown of Kuopio. I did make it a family trip, we drove down to my friends mansion the night before and then enjoyed the festival together. This was a rather quick, in and out - type of affair as most festivals seems to be these days. When we started the show our power was cut about halfway though our first song….which was something new, that hasn’t really happend in ages. Somehow we managed to get our shit together and back on track but for a while things were quite confusing.

As you can see apart from the week of making music videos in Rome we only played in Finland this month. In August we only have one more show in Finland and the rest are scattered around Europe. More about that later….

..and btw my solo album is out if you missed it:

Klingenberg Syndrome: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

https://www.hellpatrolrecords.com/

cheers,

Hank

Thursday, July 6, 2017

SA: Pictures from Latin America 2017

Hola,
finally had the time to update these...or actually I didn't  really but I uploaded these anyway ;-)


Leaving from Helsinki...


For the first time ever in the history of SA we did a trip with a nightliner in Latin America !!



Mornin run in Buenos Aires, Argentina...


...still running....



Hotel room view in Recife,Brazil ....


....and Fortaleza...


...where we played on the beach !!


More of the same, this time in Belem, Brazil.


Walking around Belem with Pasi...


....more walking...


...and then running, still in Belem, Brazil...


...and still...
 

...and more...



...and then I headed back to the hotel.



Somewhere..in a hotel.


Driving in Brazil..


...more of the same....


...and then we arrived in Juiz de Fora, Brazil.


Some more driving....


...and a bit more...


....and...


..the last one before we arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.


This just looked good to me.


Breakfast in Limeira, Brazil.


Running in Lima, Peru....



...I went all the way down to the beach.


The pool in the hotel in Lima, Peru. Been here before
many times ;-) 


Went shopping to the Indian Market (again) with Tommy.


..and then we got some cake !!


Went for a run in Bogota, Colombia, it was actually quite hard.


Then I completed the who wants to be a millionaire for the 2nd or 3rd
time on this tour ;-)


Hotelroomview from Honduras...


...and a pic from the empty airport in the morning, this was really
spooky.





Walking in Obregon, Mexico.


..and checking out the stage.


We got some shirts as well, here's Tony posing with his shirt !


Then we went for a drive and of course nobody ever understands that
when we say we had a lot of stuff with us, we mean it.


Aiport selfie @Hermosillo airport, Mexico


It's always nice when you can drive into the venue, this was
in Chihuahua, Mexico.


Goodbye, Mexico, goodbye Latin America, hope to see you all
very soon again !!

cheers,
Henkka