Day Off In Dusseldorf ~ Notk

Day Off In Dusseldorf

(To get the best out of this blog, listen to My First Band’s – Salvation. It’s my favorite song from them and it just keeps playing in my head again and again. Mostly because of Heikki’s horny synth arrangement in the verses)
I am not allowed to speak today. Annoying. I am not too good at staying silent and actually now that the “doctor’s orders” have forced me to keep my mouth shut, I have realized how much I usually speak Poor band guys & Crew.
As I wrote in the previous blogs, I was a bit ill before the tour and as we started jumping on the stage almost every night, my throat didn’t like it too much. It’s very good that we had a day off today. I’ve been silent. What the f**ck…?
After the hyper night in Hamburg we didn’t want to expect too much from Utrecht Holland. Sometimes it can kind of let you down if you have a great night first and then you have an average “good show.” It doesn’t feel that great after a super treat, but yesterday was still a blast. Maybe because the club In Utrecht was so small and cool and it reminded us of the early days (I guess it was max 400 people, quite full). We were told to play only 60 minutes, but we accidentally slipped performing almost 90 minutes. Was super fun. I hope we can get back to the land of tulips soon! Special thanx to the lovely staff helping us out with laundry and stuff
Usually we do sports together with the crew on the off days like today. Since the whole band hasn’t totally recovered from the flu, we decided last night to have a traditional “music jury competition” (The legendary Finnish Levyraati) instead of sports. The game is quite fun. You can have as many players/judges as you want, minimum three, and each judge plays a song for the others and the others give 0-10 points. You don’t give points to your own song. And you also have to explain your points, what was good and what was bad.
The jury was Heikki (Key Boards, My First Band), Osmo, Sami and myself. We agreed that we would play as much new stuff to everyone as possible and here are the top three was:
Damien Rice – Amie (30 Points)
Amos Lee – Sympathize (29)
Keane – She Has No Time (28)
The other songs were: Galia Arad – Ooh la la, Sting – Why Should I Cry For You, Levi Stephens – I Love You, Mr Fancy Love Feat. Boy Delay – It’s Time To Celebrate, Salem Al Fakir – It’s True, Amie Winehouse – Love is a losing hand, Clark Kent – We Will Expire, Sara Bareilles – Between The Lines, Biffy Clyro – God & Satan.
All songs were super great. Every one of them got more than 20 points, even Heikki’s “Mr Fancy Love feat. Boy Delay….” Jesus. Heikki is traveling with us all the way until Brussels, where he shall take over Osmos kingdom for one magic night. It’s like he’s been in the band forever. Scary
Tomorrow is THE day. I have waited for the show in Dusseldorf ever since I heard it was booked. First I thought the capacity (Max 7500 viewers) is a bit too much for Sunrise Avenue, but our tour agent was right. It’s almost sold out already now. Of course it will just be another show on the tour too and we don’t want to raise high expectations, especially so soon after the great experience Hamburg, but just the fact that so many people will come tomorrow to the Mitsubishi Electric Arena in the evening to see our show is amazing. We will just have fun
A lot of friends from Finland are coming over tomorrow too, like my mom and our “new producer Jukka” who produced Hollywood Hills & half of the new album. I can’t wait to play the song for him in front of all the people. You know these people work long long days in the studio and they don’t get to feel the live music feeling to often like we do. I’m gonna make sure there’s some cold German beer for him.
See you tomorrow at the biggest Sunrise Avenue club / arena show ever. It’s just amazing….
Love,
Samu
PS: If Riku’s tour TV’s new episodes aren’t online soon, I will take legal, physical, psychological and telepathic actions. There’s nothing like a dry joke from Riku’s mouth. I MISS THEM!!!!!!!