MANZANA: Tour diaries available.

MANZANA has issued the following tourdiaries on their official Myspace page. Below are some excerpts from the diaries:

Tour diary 12. Uster

We slept long, and had breakfast in a fine, strange restaurant. There was a some sort of carnival going on in Zurich, and all the streets were full of drumming and dancing, weirdly dressed people. The part of the city we were in was very nice and it was great walking around in the fresh air. We pack the car and hung around for a couple of more hours, then took off to Uster. It is small place quite near to Zurich. Mountains looked just amazing in the light. We find the Rock City club, but we still have some time to hung around town. Because it's Sunday, nothings open. Finally we get in the club, the owner himself is there, everything's cool. We get food, soundcheck. The monitor sound is propably the best for two weeks, and the place is neat. We only worry that nobody comes, because we just played 20 km away the day before and that now we play without Lovex.

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Tour diary 9. Munich

We have some Game ideas for our homepage.

Game 1. Buy Henkka a beer by clicking his face and watch it grow bigger. When his head doesn´t fit the screen, he´s had enough.

Game 2. Prevent Klasu from smoking and watch the tension grow. Don't try this at home, kids.

Game 3. Be late, ask stoopid questions and wake Meelis up in the nite, and run.

Game 4. I forgot.

Early wake, breakfast, into the car.

Snows in Germany. Looks beautiful. I just don't like the idea of driving with summer wheels on it …Such a Finn I am.

Lovexes car got searched on the road, us not, luckily. We arrive to Metropolis in Munich. Sunrise Avenue is playing in the next building the same nite. Finns around again. In Hamburg there was Sonata Arctica at the same time, In Zurich there will be Apocalyptica.

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Tour day 8. Cologne

Up at 6.30, shower, no breakfast, into van. I trade with Heikki to get the backseat, I sleep two hours more. We eat yesterday's backstage pizza for breakfast (charming), and get some coffee from the gas station.  Klaus is the only one who smokes a lot, and he starts getting pissed because we refuse to have smoking breaks all the time. Some tensions in the air.Cologne is 600 km away, so we keep on going. It's been raining for two days and it still does.  We arrived at Cologne Underground around 3 pm. Lovex fans have crowded the front again. Schedules get slow, soon it's six and nobody's done soundcheck. Little panic. Lovex takes 7 minutes to check and runs to a picture shoot, we do five minute sound check, and all of a sudden  the rush disappeared. Back on time. The local staff is very helpful and friendly and nothing seems to be a problem. The hotel keys are sent to us with a taxi, catering is good. The guy from the Gun records is selling Lovex shirts next to me, when I take out Manzana merchandise. He says he can sell our stuff too. Very kind, thank you!

We go backstage, which is on in the other building, and chill. Henkka hurt his finger while carrying the stuff onstage and he's bleeding. That's gonna be true rock to play with blood dripping from the strings...

20.15 we go to the show-building, and 20.20 on stage. We steal 10 minutes more time by accident, we were supposed to play at 20.30. Oh well... We were too anxious to go already so there we were.

Mac is working great now with the back up interface, nothing like yesterday. I go on, and we open with Pain. I'm wearing my hoodie, as usual, it is less scary because they don´t see mee immediately. I think it's the same thing with half of the Finnish boys with their black hats! The whole place is packed, and it is very hot. The audience seems intense, but not dancing. I'm a bit worried that they won't like us and try not to pump it too much. When the song ends, they scream. Wow. What the hell... I take off my hoodie, and they scream. I say  " We´re Manzana from Tampere Finland"  and they scream. I feel like crying. We're gonna have some fun with these folks.

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Tour diary 7. Berlin

Wake up at 8, breakfast and off we go.Berlin is 300km away. Knaack is the name of the place. We arrive before Lovex, so we go to the Hotel first.  We wanted to go up to the TV Tower to see Berlin from the air, but huger won over. We eat at Burger King, a typical, traditional German Lunch . Next time we have to get some real German food....Mikko and Heikki buy cameras, and I go shop around Alexanderplatz.  At 7 we go to Knaack, and do a quick sound check. 3rd floor Vip lounge is a bit better backstage that I'm used to, but I'm not complaining. Food again, couple of shots and on stage we go. I wait in the hall for the intro to start, the place is totally full, I wait, people wait, but nothing comes out. What the f***? I open my ear monitor and I hear all the finnish curse words and whispering going on on stage. Mac has collapsed. Great.  Klasu is speaking Finnish to the audience, being funny, trying to cover up. I feel happy for not having entered the stage yet. 5 minutes, 10 minutes... "Say the names of the songs very clearly so Mikko can run the backgrounds manually." says Henkka in my ear monitor and off goes the intro. Näillä mennää.

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There are older diaries also avaiable. You can find them at this location.