31334,

Monday the 25th of April At the gates reunited for 3 days of rehearsals in Dark Tranquillity's room in Gothenburg. We had not played together since the last gig of our 2008 reunion in Athens Greece.
It was a lot of fun playing through the songs again, trying to remember the tunes and trying to get the muscle memory to kick back in. Our first gig of this year would be Neurotic Deathfest in Tilburg Holland on Friday the 29th of April.
It was set to be a hectic week already with me being booked in to play Vina Rock in Spain with Brujeria on the Sunday. Originally it was planned for me to do a gig with Paradise Lost on the Saturday as well, but the time slots for the gigs got moved so it wasn't possible.
On top of this Nemhain confirmed that we would take part in the 'Fuck the royal wedding' gig at the Intrepid fox in London on Thursday 26th.
So after 3 days of intense rehearsals with At the gates i traveled back to the UK on a early flight to play the Nemhain show the same evening. We shared the stage with Generation Graveyard and Mercy House who also provided the backline. The drumkit consisted of a 4 piece Pearl Export kit, in reasonable shape.

We played a few new songs we are working on for our second album which went down really well.
Playing new unrecorded songs gives a whole new perspective on the arrangements, you can really see if the song works in a live environment and judging by the reaction they all work.
The setlist was

Natural Born Sinners (New)
ANA
Clear My Eyes
Die
Second Skin
Jane Doe #1
Seriously ill (New)
From The Ashes
Love for death (New)
Speed Queen

After the gig i had 4 hours until i had to leave for the airport to fly to Eindhoven, Holland for the At the gates show. Not really enough to grab any sleep as me and Amber had to arrange and prepare our photo studio Murder Mile Studios for a shoot the next day.


I can cope with one day of no sleep no problem, but when you have a gig the following day its not good, luckily i was able to catch some 1hr sleep at the hotel by the 013 venue in Tilburg.
Meeting up with everyone at the hotel and wandering over to the venue had almost a magical feeling and my drumtech Anders Löwgren set my gear up in the most precise manner so all was ready.
Pearl had supplied me with a Reference series kit which was in really good condition.
The sizes were 22/18 bassdrums, 12, 14 rack toms, 16 and 18 floor toms, with a brass 14/6.5 reference snare. Very different standard from some of the other kits i have to play at gigs when a kit share is happening.
Check these pictures out.
Me, Anders Löwgren and the kit at Neurotic Deathfest 2011.

The kit front view.

Live shot taken my friend Falk Hagen Bernshausen

Go over to  At the gates webpage to see more of the live shots.

Considering we had not played live for about 3 years we pulled of a pretty good first show, of course with some hickups and 'oh no the wheels are coming off!!!' moments.
The songs we played were
BLINDED BY FEAR
COLD
THE SWARM
TERMINAL
SUICIDE NATION
RAPED BY THE LIGHT
UNDER A SERPENT SUN
WINDOWS
WORLD OF LIES
THE BURNING DARKNESS
NAUSEA
NEED>outro> till oväsen
___
SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL
KINGDOM GONE

A few beers after helped ease the battle wounds before going to bed for 2hrs and another early start for the Brujeria rehearsals tomorrow in Madrid.

I had to take the train to Amsterdam with a few different stops along the way and since it was the dutch queen's birthday all seats was taken on the train.... Which meant having the 20kg cymbal bag on my back for the duration of my travels..
Brujeria, has had a few different members through it's years of existence but this time for Vina Rock it was going to be the first time ever we had 2 guitarists live that's why we decided to book a rehearsal.
Normally we just meet and play the gigs with no rehearsals at all.
Once i flew straight after a Nemhain gig at Hardrockhell in the UK to Colombia Bogota, got to the venue 20 minutes before stage time only just enough time to put the cymbals and pedals on and a quick clothes change before we hit the stage in front of 60 000 people at Rock al Parque in Bogota.... That time we hadn't played together for over 6 months.
So given the circumstances i felt very fortunate to play the songs through a few times in a pre arranged rehearsal room with very well used loaner gear.
Check the pictures

In the rehearsal room.

Brujeria roadstop food, the gourmet Ham flavoured crisps!!!

 A common but nice view of Spain. :)

After rehearsals i finally got a full nights sleep after 3 nights, 2 gigs and a lot of travelling and rehearsing.
The next day we got driven to Valencia to play the Vina rock festival.
We have played this festival a couple times before and the reception is always great.
As always another kit this time a Yamaha double bass kit...
Check the pictures.

The gig went really well and after i was totally relieved that my weekend of 31334 had come to an end. 3 gigs and  1 rehearsal, with 3 different bands in 3 different countries in 4 days.

The hard part about this weekend was handing my seat in Paradise Lost over to their old drummer Jeff Singer. Most bands are like families and when you can't be there for them it's really frustrating. But after speaking to the guys in the band and Jeff agreeing to do the gigs it felt a bit easier.

From a drumming point of view i prefer to get more sleep, otherwise i don't mind the traveling, the different kits and the 52 songs i had to memorise for the weekend.

I love pushing the limits to what is possible and this weekend was certainly a test of endurance and will power.

Until next time.

A

Blog start, a reminder for the future perhaps?

260411
Welcome to my blog.
When i first started touring and playing gigs with my band At the gates back in 1991,  i never used to take down any notes or take any pictures. As the years went by i started to realize that the gigs, venues, cities and experiences were just blending in to one big blur. So in late 1995 i started taking notes about where i had been, what i had seen and experienced, what songs we played, what the gig was like etc.
I found these notes when me and my wife Amber recently moved and i thought that i should start doing it again. Mostly for myself and my own memory but also for anyone that wants to read and share some of the experiences that i have as a ´traveling drummer´.  And since At the gates has yet again reformed what better time to start writing and documenting right?

At the gates played together yesterday 250411, for the first time since our last Sept 2008 gig in Athens Greece, the end of our summer reunion in 2008. It was a instrumental rehearsal as our singer had to entertain his kids over the easter holidays.
We had arranged to borrow Dark Tranquility´s room and i got to play on Anders Jivarp´s Drumcraft kit.
(pics to follow in the next blog entry).
I had in the past week been preparing to play the songs again at home on my Vdrum kit, in between long hours of D.I.Y setting up mine and Amber´s new Murdermile photography studio in London.
But playing this stuff on a live kit is a whole different ball game, it´s actually easier.
This really surprised me as i had been prepared to stop out of exhaustion in most songs.
Having some tap water  really helped me through it.
Over the past week´s i had been freaking out at home wondering how i was going to find the time to fit practice in with the heavy move and the endless hours of painting.
I am a "half empty cup" kind of drummer, one that never takes anything for granted, even the simplest parts and when preparing for most projects or gigs i generally feel that i am underachieving and haven't practiced anywhere near enough, which can be a very frustrating situation.
However, i realized yesterday as i walked back from rehearsals to my hotel that it is this feeling of underachievement that keeps me on my toes, that keeps me putting the practice room hours in.
Nothing good comes from being too confident about your parts and thinking that you don't need to practice and i have always had the most humble approach to my playing. But perhaps i should start seeing it more as a self preservation as a drummer and player as opposed to a thinking that i am under achieving which comes with self doubt and hesitation which leads to feeling "the fear" which is bad.

Playing drum parts that i wrote 20 years ago, parts that were written at the absolute peak of what i could do at the time technically and physically is really interesting and fun and i am enjoying every moment of it. There is still one old song that i won't name now that we are practicing today so i better come of and go through the parts again as i really don't think i can remember it :)