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
