Sunday, May 21, 2017

SA:On the Road: The 9th Hour World Tour: Latin-America 2017 part one:

Here we go again:

2.5.-7.5.
We left home on the 2nd of May, flew to Buenos Aires via Helsinki and London. As usual the long flights were just spent watching movies and trying to sleep. Our first two shows on this tour were in Argentina, and both were sold out so it was a really nice start to the tour. Even though I do remember how entousiastic our audiences are down here, it still amazes me every time. From Argentina we went to Chile for a one off-in Santiago, this one was also packed with about 2000 screaming fans welcoming us back, we filmed the show, let’s see what will come out of it once we get the material and we can figure out what to do with it. It will however not be a full DVD show from that concert. We’ve also been recording our shows in Europe and Finland and have a bunch of other live material collected as well but we’ll see how these things progress….at the moment we don’t have a definite plan for the next live-cd or DVD.

8.5.-11.5.
Anyways, from Chile it was off to our 2 weeks in Brazil. We’re doing 10 shows and a lot of them are done in the way that we fly in the morning and play in the evening, which of course is quite exhausting, especially when you have several shows in a row. It’s a lot harder than touring with a bus, when you just go to sleep and wake up in the next place. Even a short 1 hour flight takes us up to 6 hours, with all the gear and the driving from hotels to airports etc. Be that as it may, we signed up for this and it’s not our first time doing hectic tours. At the moment we’ve done Porto Alegre and Curitiba with a 17 hour travel day before that ;-) Today we’re flying to Recife via Sao Paulo and that will basically take this whole day for us. Next up is Recife, Fortaleza and Belem, with the latter two having morning flights on the showdays. So far the weather here in Brazil has been a bit on the colder side but tonight when we get to Recife it should be warm enough. Yesterday here in Curitiba there were some problems with the PA breaking down but in the end we managed to finish the show.

12.5.-16.5.
Well, Recife, Fortaleza and Belem where hot as hell and really humid as well. Nevertheless it was some great shows and in Belem I think we’re one of the first if not only European Metal band who has played here, correct me if I’m wrong. From Belem we flew to Belo Horizonte to start our next stretch of 4 shows in a row. For this part we have a couple of busrides so instead of flying in the morning we just drive. Even though we have to get up really early it’s still a lot easier this way ;-). 

In case you wondering why I’m bitchin about this travel + show thing just as an example: 
When the show starts in the evening around 2200 that means it’ll be ready by midnight
at around 0100 we might be back at the hotel, if we’re lucky. Then you try to get to sleep which will happen around 2 or 3 in the morning since you’re still worked up after the show. The alarm will ring about 3 hours later and it’s time to get up and get going…and of course the next evening you have a show as well ;-) …just in case you wonder why grown up men try to take afternoon naps, here’s the reason…
At the moment I just finished watching Canada beat Finland in hockey and I’m waiting to get the call to get downstairs and go for soundcheck here in Belo Horizonte. There have been some tech problems, that’s why we’re still at the hotel even tough it’s around 1800 in the evening. Usually we do the soundchecks in the afternoon. Luckily we have an excellent crew and I think they’ll sort this out, whatever it is. I’m trying to think about stuff that has happened on this tour but it’s all a blur of shows, airports, vans hotels and dinners. I did manage to go out for some runs and did some swimming as well. Finally I got the word, have to be downstairs in 20mins. Later.

17.5.-20.5.
After Belo Horizonte we drove to Juiz de Fora, another new place for us. It was an interesting show and the venue was quite good actually…from there we continued by bus to Rio de Janeiro where of course we’ve been many times before. The place we played at was partially outdoors and we had to postpone the beginning of the show since the was a protest of some kind and the police shot some teargas-stuff or something so we couldn’t go outside for awhile. Well, we did hear some loud bangs from crowd-control grenades but that was about it from our part. The next morning we flew to Sao Paulo. Because of the horrible traffic jams we missed our soundcheck, the drive that was supposed to take around 60min took about 2,5 hours. Be that as it may the show was good and it was really nice to end the 4 shows streak with a great crowd.
In the morning we drove to Limeira, watched Finland lose against the Swedes in hockey and then went for the nearby mall to get some food. Tomorrow is the last show of the Brazilian part of this tour and then we’re off to Peru, Colombia, Honduras and Mexico before heading home.

cheers,

Hank

The shows played so far:
4.5. Teatro Vorterix, Rosario, Argentina SOLD OUT
5.5. Teatro Vorterix, Buenos Aires, Argentina SOLD OUT
7.5. Teatro Cariola, Santiago, Chile SOLD OUT
9.5. Teatro Amrigs, Porto Alegre, Brazil
10.5. Music Hall, Curitiba, Brazil
12.5. Clube international du Recife, Recife, Brazil
13.5. DS Club, Fortaleza, Brazil
14.5. Botequim, Belem, Brazil
16.5. Gran Finos, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
17.5. Cultural Bar, Juiz de Fora, Brazil
18.5. Circo Voador, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
19.5. Aquarius Rock Bar, Sao Paulo, Brazil