Just keep it real ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0&mode=related&search=

"...in cursive"

To whom it may concern

Just woke up here in Lancaster... Last night went pretty good, was nice to play with day for airstrikes again. The preston show before that was also pretty awesome, especially because of the amazing homecooked meals we got before and after the show. So once again, thanks alot to Kieran and his family.
Now we are about to head off across the country, to Hull. Always nice to play at the Ringside. Looking forward to meeting our friends there, and ofcourse our small room in the attic...

/skoud

Day off...

Stuart made us an english breakfast, and after that we headed back to the venue to get our gear. After getting our stuff loaded in the van, Sharon (the co-promoter) proposed a sightseeing trip to a castle outside of Aberdeen. So we went to a small village called Stonehaven, and checked out this massive castle out by the sea.
We had a great time just walkin around and checking out the scenery, and after dropping of Sharon, we went back on the road, to get to our next destination, Carlisle. On our way there, we couldn't help but stopping in the middle of the road to get some pictures, because the surroundings along the way were just incredible.

After the photoshoot, we finally got to Mark's place... A couple of crisp bags later, we decided that a good night's sleep is just what we needed...

(Magnus wearing Crag's Mask)

So apart from my laptop not functioning properly, the glasgow show went pretty well, always nice to come back to the bloc. Nice venue and awesome people. The morning after, Crag (the promoter) woke us up wearing a mask and tried to teach us some spanish. Next up was a weightlifting competion, where i placed 2nd with 18 reps, and Crag placed 1st with 31. Ill beat him next time though...

Anyways, aberdeen was amazing. The Tunnels was a really nice place to play in, the promoters were excellent, and the crowd seemed to like our stuff. Once again we had the priveledge of sharing the stage with the amazing Avast! and we cant wait to play with them again in Leeds. After the gig we went back to Stuart's (the promoters) place, and had a game of ProEvo4. I lost. Feel pretty bad about it, but i reckon we are comin back to Aberdeen again soon for a rematch and hopefully another gig.

Right, gotta get back to the venue to get our stuff, and after that we're goin sightseeing somewhere in the cold scottish mountains.

/Shrek

Alrite, we are now in Glasgow. Journey so far has been good, everything from being entertained on the ferry by a bunch of system of a down lookalikes playing "brown eyed girl", to listening to the Ashlee Simpson album on the way to Glasgow. We've just had lunch, and are now wondering round Glasgow. The load-in is not until half past seven, so we decided to kill some time at the nearest internet-cafe..

/stay tuned

-Simon

...

right, so we're leaving for tour in 6 hours... i wont go to bed tonight. awesomeness.

-carl

News from the past...

Right, we're heading off to the UK in 7 days. So meanwhile we thought we'd post our tour diary from our last UK tour, which took place in September ´05...

Molia Falls – Tour diary , september 2005

We started off taking the ferry from Gothenburg to Newcastle. It was a 24hour trip with a lot of literally speaking ups and downs. We had the luck of getting in the middle of a storm so it was a relief for us when we finally reached solid ground.

Our first gig was in the small city by the sea, called Margate. We arrived bout 3 hours late due to traffic jams and various toilet breaks. Once we reached the city, we went directly to the club and caught up with Mark (the promoter) and his girlfriend Rowan. Everything went pretty smooth. Black static transmission opened up for us, then we did our set and everyone seemed to like it. We sold a couple of cd’s and t-shirts and then headed off to Penny’s place, where we got some very delicious home cooked pasta and drinks and later spent the night. The next morning we woke up, got some breakfast and drove to Birmingham where we would spend 3 nights in a Formule 1 hotel.

Here’s the thing about days-off. 1 day is fine. 2 days is almost too much. 3 days off is shit. We basically ended up watching a lot of films and eating a lot of junk food. And on the 3rd day we couldn’t wait to get out of there. Our next gig was in Grimsby.

We arrived at 5 p.m as it said in the agreement. But the promoter didn’t show up until 7 p.m. After we unloaded our gear, we went out for dinner and thenwent back to the club and watched the opening acts. Our gig went pretty well and everyone who was there bought our cd’s and other merch. Overall it was a decent night. Afterwards we packed all our stuff and went to Luke’s and Lauren’s place were we once again got home cooked food and drinks and even a match of Donkey konga. We stayed up late and talked bout random bands, Luke’s record label and his record shop, which we got to see the next morning. After a good night’s sleep, Luke and Lauren made us a full English breakfast and after checking out Luke’s shop, we went on the road again, to our third gig, in Saxmundham. Since everything turned out pretty well in grimsby, we all felt pretty good about the Saxmundham gig, but that was soon about to change.

Our first impression of the town was that it was that it was like a huge center for care of the elderly. We rarely saw anyone aged under 50. The venue we would play at was just a random pub and when we got there no one seemed to know anything. We got some heavily deep fried fish sticks and chips. Then we were shown to a room on the top floor, where we could leave all of our stuff. After that we did a soundcheck and went back to our room. Everything seemed so quiet there. Too quiet. When we went back down to the stage area, the opening act had started playing. The audience consisted of 5 people. The bartender and us. When they finished, we went up and played our set in front of them, and the bartender. This was our 3rd UK tour and we played in front of 6 people. It was the weirdest thing ever. Whoever booked us in there did a pretty bad job promoting the actual gig. And like that wasn’t enough, we didn’t get any money for the gig. Not even gas money. So for all of you out there. If u ever plan on playing at the White Hart in Saxmundham. Don’t.

In hope of better things, we woke up and drove to Sheffield. Once again we got caught up in traffic jams and almost missed our soundcheck. But once we unloaded our gear, everything went pretty smooth. The sound guy was very professional so it only took us about 10 minutes to do the sound. Shortly after the soundcheck, Haydn (the promoter) brought us food, fruit and drinks and after that we set up our merchandise and watched the other bands play. We were on second to last. The gig went well and thanks to the promoter’s good work, the night turned out pretty awesome. The soundcheck went smooth, we got food in time, we did a good gig, sold a couple of cd’s, but the best thing about the whole day was that later that night, Haydn took us to a hotel where he used to work, and got us 2 rooms. A good nights sleep and a shower was just what we needed. The next morning we went out for a refreshing walk in Chetsworth Park (one of Englands biggest parks). After that we drove to Leeds.

After a short and smooth trip, we arrived at the Pack Horse Pub (opposite leeds university), where we would do our best gig yet. Rob (the promoter) helped us out with unloading the gear and afterwards we had ourselves a couple of pizzaslices. Itch, the headlining band pulled out at the last moment, so we were playing last. The place got pretty crowded really fast and after the opening acts we all felt really excited and did our best show yet. And that was mostly because of the crowd, the place was packed and everyone really seemed to enjoy it. It’s just as simple as that, the more the crowd likes it, the better we play. The Leeds gig, was also one of the hottest gigs we’ve ever done. No air condition whatsoever provided a rather interesting environment to play in. We also sold quite a lot of merchandise there, probably the most of all the places that we played. After the gig, we crashed at Rob’s place. And then we headed of to Norwich.

In our thoughts, this would be the biggest gig we’d do in the UK yet. But that was not the case. The headlining band was Karl Larsson, the solo project from the singer of Last Days of April, and that’s why we were all so excited about it. The fact that LDOA sold about 40 000 records surely stands for some kind of acknowledgment amongst the “emo” scene. So we thought that a lot of people would show up and we would do another “Leeds” kind of show. But unfortunately that was not the case. During the opening act, there were about 20 people there. When we got on, there were about 10 (counting Karl Larsson). And when Karl and his sidekicks started to play, we and 3 more people were the only ones left. Never the less, both our and Karl Larsson’s show went very well. So the people that didn’t bother to show up, really missed out on something. Afterwards we had a really god laugh, swapping cd’s and t-shirts and drinking various alcoholic beverages. We spent the night at the venue, sleeping in the pool room and waking up to a “Fuckin Hell” from the cleaner who got there at 7 a.m in the morning.

Carlisle was our next destination, and it was a pretty boring drive. Hoping that someone would actually turn up for the show, we almost forgot about all the other things that could go wrong when we do a gig. Things like; there are too many bands on, they all play completely different genre of music, the promoter doesn’t show up, and when he does he doesn’t bring you food or even says hi, the sound guy is completely stressed out, and the soundcheck is almost non-existent. Well, all of those things happened, so the only thing good about the Carlisle gig was that there were about 5 people that actually cared about us, and they had all been involved in our previous Carlisle gigs. So thanks to Mark, Ben, Greg, Laura and Lee we had a nice time. And staying over at Ben’s was as pleasant as always. Glasgow was next.

For some reason, Glasgow always turns out to be one of the highlights of our tour. The first gig we ever did in the UK was at the Barfly in Glasgow, and the second time we toured the UK we played at the Bar Bloc, together with the amazing Avast! And The Mocha Nights. We don’t know if it’s the people or just the general atmosphere of the city (maybe it’s both) but whenever we come to Glasgow, we almost feel like we’re home. Bar Bloc is always a nice place to come to, because of Crag (the promoter), we never have to worry about food or anything basic. The soundcheck went smooth aswell, so our gig went really good, but to be honest we were all more excited to see Avast!, then to actually play ourselves. Last time we played Glasgow, we got a 4 track CD-R with their stuff and we all fell in love with it. So getting to see them all again and having a nice talk was as much fun as doing the actual gig. After the show, we spent the night at Crag’s place, and after that we headed of to Manchester, to our second to last gig.

When we got there, we saw a giant Corona Extra bottle, wandering the streets. Poor guy wearing the suit had to be led by his mates because it seemed like he didn’t have anything too see through. A bit later, Daniel (the promoter) pulled up in front of us and we unloaded our stuff and did a quick soundcheck. The actual gig went pretty well, but it was probably the gig that we all gonna remember as “the gig inbetween”. By that I mean a gig where nothing out of the ordinary happened. And sometimes that can be a good thing, but sometimes it can also be boring. But we’re all gonna remember Daniels stories about Japan, because Japan is the coolest place on earth. The next day, we had a day off and went on our regular shopping spree and the traditional lunch/dinner/supper at the “Simple” Bar. What was meant to be as a real “guys night out” later that night, resulted in a pure failure, so we went back to our hotel and got ourselves a good night’s sleep before heading off to our last gig, in Hull.

We always try too keep count of how many police/ambulance sirens we can hear during our stay in Hull. This time it was only 3 of them. So maybe things are getting better around there. Dom put up the show, which was also going to be his last one, so he didn’t hesitate to book as many bands as he could. The vegan food he got us was really good and eventhough 4 other bands played before we got on stage, time went by pretty quickly. The show went really well and although the stories we got to hear at the afterparty were pretty grim, we all enjoyed being in Hull, in our small room in the attic. This was our last gig in the UK and one of the better ones, because we also had almost some kind of a following there, (thanks to, rob, nina, gareth, ali).

When we woke up, it didn’t feel like we we’re going home. But as we packed our bags and loaded them into our van, we slowly started to realise that this was all coming to an end. When we got to Newcastle, and drove onto the ferry, we all had mixed up feelings about the tour. Some enjoyed it, some couldn’t wait to get home, some were so confused that they started to express themselves trough violent acts. When we got to our cabin, we sat down and talked about what we've been trhough, and started to make plans for the next tour...

/Simon