Scheisse fressen

Outside the airport in Stuttgart, waiting for the other lods to pick us up

Right... As you've noticed we have had some problems again with the router-stations, it's still not up to the Grave standards as we're used to in good old Sweden!!!

The internet shouldn't be fucking around before the morning-grogg

The tour with Obituary and Pathology has been going for eight days already, but we have only been doing four gigs so far. Tonight will be the fifth gig in Haarlem, Holland. The gigs in Ludwigsburg, Cologne, Munich and Bochum were great with good respons from the crowd. Unfortunately the venue in Paris burned down just a day before we went on tour so that gig had to be cancelled, so we got one extra day off. So what do you do when you have a day off? Recover and take it easy? Nah, you can say that alcohol were a big part of the days off we had so far. We were at a crazy headbanging disco in Ludwigsburg, the kind of things that only can happen in Germany it seems. Hundreds of people going insane to Rammstein and other German friendly music. But it was nice to just hang out there and get to know the guys in Pathology and Obituary better, and they are all great people so we think this will be one hell of a tour!

The legendary Ralph Santolla from Obituary, Deicide, Sebastian Bach, Death, Millenium, Iced Earth, Tardy Brothers, Hollow, Eyewitness and Stare etc...

Tobi and Trevor from Obituary discussing some delicious bbq-recipes

The tour bus we have is very nice with large enough bunks for the tall vikings in Grave and we have nice lounge downstairs with stereo and tv`s, video games, fridge, microwawe etc. Tonight we´re looking forward to rip Haarlem up real bad! We actually are pretty sure that we will rock the socks of the Dutch people tonight.

The lounge in our tourbus

The bus is apparently sponsored by Fonzie and Potsie

It's time to hit the road again, follow the madness here!

Thursday March 24th we kick off the "Metal Chainsaw Massacre" European tour in Ludwigsburg, Germany at Rockfabrik. Stay tuned for updates on what the hell's goin' on.

OBITUARY
GRAVE
PATHOLOGY

Grave goes Mexiko anno 2010

Mexican router station

Oh, where to start. This weekend trip to Mexico has brought us so many stories for the future so it´s enough to write a novel about it... Alright, lets take it from the beginning shall we.
Attempt No.1!
Grave was booked for two shows in Mexico last weekend, on the 3rd of December in Monterrey and on the 4th in Mexico City.
We were booked on a flight together with our fellow Swedes in General Surgery who we were suppose to do these two gigs with.
Our flight was at 6 am on Thursday the 2nd, we all stayed up all night because we had to be at the airport at 4 am.
Just before we left for the airport Ola had got a mail that said that we our booking had been changed and that
we had a flight at 10 am instead, but since we got that information so late we went out to the airport anyway.
The General Surgery guys went as planned with the flight that left at 6 am, so we just hanged out at the only café that were open at that early hour.
When it was time to go and check in we were informed by the staff that our tickets were not payed for. What the hell to do! We asked the staff if they could help us but all they said was that since the tickets were not payed they could not do anything about it. Ola tried to phone up the guys who booked us down in Mexico, it was in the middle of the night there so it took a few phone calls before he answered.
Ola explained the situation for him. After a few phone calls back and forth we understood that something had gone wrong when he was booking our tickets and somehow
the money had not been transfered, so there was nothing we could do.
We saw our flight leave from Arlanda airport and we could do nothing about it. We did not know what the hell to do but we hung around to try to sort it out and book new tickets but there were no more flights that day. After 7 horrible hours at the airport and without any sleep that night you feel kinda mushy in your brain so we decided to just go back home again, the situation was totally surreal.
So we went home again to get some much needed sleep.

Tobias having a really massive breakfast for a TRVE winner at Arlanda

Attempt No.2!
Late Thursday evening Ola got the news that new tickets had been booked for us on Friday morning 6 am, so once again we stayed up all night, took a taxi to the airport at the same hour as the day before, it was just like living the same day for a second time. This time we were lucky and the tickets were payed for. Though this time we would have a very tight schedule to get to the gig in Monterrey gig in time, since we left from Sweden on the same day as the gig were suppose to be.

Get a room!!!

Well, we flew to Frankfurt, Germany, stayed there for 5 hours and then took a flight to Mexico City, there we had to transfer and fly to Monterrey. We should be in Monterrey at 10.30 pm and we had no idea about when we were suppose to be on stage that evening. When we got to Mexico City we had to go through the immigration and that took a hell of a long time and the connecting flight was at another terminal. Luckily we had some Mexican metal dudes that came to meet us and they drove us to the other terminal, but we were very, very late, we ran to the check-in desk with our instruments, but we were so late that we could not check in our equipment. So what to do? All we could do was to run to the gate and leave our gear to our Mexican friends, they were working for the festival we should do the day after so they took care of our stuff for us. We ran to the gate and luckily we made it on to the plane. We were the last persons to board it, and we were the only gringos on the whole plane. It was a short flight of 1 and a half hour. Ola and Tobias decided to have a beer and a shot of tequila on the plane. Well, this was not the same small shots we were used to, the steward poured up two big glasses filled with tequila to the max, so after drinking those big glasses they ended up kinda drunk, not really planned but what the hell.

Ola and Tobias ones again partying like hell at Arlanda

Gott D!

Once in Monterrey we were picked up by some guys working at the Ibex Club were we should play, the guys at tons of cassette tapes and Tobias ordered them to put on Judas Priest "Unleashed in the east" very nice album indeed. We went straight to the club and when we got there General Surgery was midway through their set and we were supposed to go on after them. We were so happy that we finally made it after all the shit we had to through to get there. We had a beer and then General Surgery was done with their set so it was just for us to, well not really plug in and play because all was already set up since we had to borrow their equipment. So we just did a qick linecheck and then we started to play. The gig went really good, as usual in Mexico you get a great crazy crowd. After the gig we had an equal great crazy afterparty at the club that ended very late. We went to the hotel and had like 1 hour of sleep before it was time to leave for the airport again.

Ronnie is having a shot of vodka/grape juice

Once again it was something wrong with the booking of the tickets, but luckily this time we got on the planned flight but this time General Surgery had to wait at the airport to take the next flight to Mexico City a few hours after us. Once in Mexico City we went straight to the hotel to get some sleep. We slept until Friday evening and then it was apparently time to go to the festival area with the shuttle bus. This was from what we heard the first outdoor metal festival ever in Mexico City. Also on the bill was Monstrosity, Vader, Evil Dead, Impaled, General Surgery etc. The festival was called Metal In The Forest, and this was completely true. It was located in the middle of nowhere deep in a forest a bit outside of Mexico City, we had to drive in pitch black darkness on small "roads" not build for cars. Then suddenly there was a festival there, it was very weird sight. When we got out of the bus it was freezing cold, we went behind the stage and found Joakim and Adde from G.S sitting there and we asked; where is the backstage? And they said; "it´s here, outdoors." There were no place what so ever for the bands to go and get some heat or even a roof over your head, we just had to stay out in the cold and wait, and wait is just what we did. For hours and hours. The festival was delayed with 3 hours. We found our gear that we had left in Mexico City the day before, they were in the grass behind the stage. We should also mention that there were no security so the crowd could easily walk behind the stage were the bands had their gear and bags. When we got there Monstrosity had just started their set, and after them it was time for General Surgery. We thought that we could go on after GS, but apparently then it was time for some local bands to play. We didn't get any information about a running order for the evening so we did not know when we were supposed to play. Tobias went to the stage manager (a cool guy called Adrian) and asked when we should play, and he said that there was another 4 local bands before Grave. No way!, Tobias replied, we shall go on after this band, end of discussion! We had at that point been waiting out in the cold (circa 2 minus degrees) for over 3 hours, after some talking back and forth they gave in and let us go on. The festival was running so late so we went on stage at 3am, dressed in long sleeve shirts and leather jackets (Ronnie had to wear gloves on his hands the whole gig plus a hoodie during the first 3 songs) to try to stay warm, our finger were numb for the first 3-4 songs. It was easily the coldest gig we have ever done. Much respect to the people in the crowd who stayed there the whole night out in the cold. After we got a bit warm the gig was really fun, the crowd was really great, with lots of crazy Mexicans running up on stage to headbang. It felt great that the actual gig was so good since we had to go through so much to do it. After the gig we stayed around for an hour or so to take photos with fans and write autographs,(while the rest of the local bands started to play) everybody was so happy even though it was freezing cold. Then we took the shuttle bus back into the dark forest to go back to our hotel. We didn´t get any food at the festival so we were really hungry at that time, luckily our favorite restaurant at the corner of the hotel was open, and this was at 5am. So we went there for some well deserved Alambre pollio con queso, the best food ever. At the hotel we crashed into bed. Ronnie slept for 3 hour and Tobias for 4 hours, guess it was the jet lag that made them sleep so short amount of hours.

Ola,, Tobias, Adde and Jocke rippin' it up in the "backstage room"

Adde from General Surgery blasting in the cold

Mexican die hard death metal fans

The day after Tobias and Ronnie went together with the General Surgery guys to downtown Mexico City for some sightseeing, we went to an old church, saw dancing indians on the streets and a belly-dancing girl. The streets were crowded with people selling all kinds of different stuff. After a few hours in town we headed back to the hotel, then we were picked up to go to the airport. It was time to go home to good old Sweden again. Even though our stay in Mexico was short the story became really long, but this was one of the most crazy trips ever in our lives. Well, of course we would love to come back to Mexico to play, 'cause the crowd there is fukken awesome! But next time we would hope for a journey less adventurous, at least not adventurous in the way it was this time. This was all for now! Rip it up Mexican style!

Belly dancing senorita

Tobias getting interviewed like the trve rock star he is... just look at his choice of sun-glasses, Yngwie-style

Dimmu Borgir's organ, or is it another Mexican router station..?

Jocke from General Surgey thinking of getting a new back-pack. Size, X-small

Some of the lod's gathered for the last supper

Coz We're Warriors (warriors) of Ghengis Khan

Massive Swedish router station

Inside the Swedish high tech router station

This is trve band width

Once again we've been cursed by the "False-internet-connection-Gods" in southern and central Europe... so, we'll try and update you about what's been going on the last week of the tour now when we're back in Sweden, which as you can see above, have some really powerful router stations compared to the rest of Europe!


We had an awesome and successful gig in Paris (where we finally met our myspace-site-designer Hicham who had his birthday that day) with almost 11000's of "fläktar" in the audience. After the gig the local sound guy at Glazart came to our backstage room and started to yell at Ola and said that Grave was a very unprofessional band. He complained that we took to long time to do our line-check etc. The show was already delayed with 10 minutes and we took 20 minutes instead of the scheduled 15 minutes to do our changeover and line-check before we started our set and apparently it was our fault that it all took such a long time. After 20 minutes of yelling he finally gave up and went of, what a douchebag. During Arsis set, he sat and read a book instead of doing what he were supposed to do, do a proper sound so who's the unprofessional one!!? During the day he'd also been a real pain in the ass, trying to rush the rigging and sound-check, meaning "it's better for you if you do it quick. Then you'll have more time to smoke and drink..." Oh well... Pro..?

Kuknästornet

London on a Monday, what can you expect? Well, it was fukkin great! Lots of people at Underworld club, which is located in Camden, a very cool part of London town.
After our set, Ronnie threw out some drum-sticks which caused a fist fight between 3 guys and 1 gal. As the true gentleman he is, he of course gave the girl a new stick and let the other 3 soccer hooligans fight for the other one. It all ended with the security guard throwing them out from the venue.
Next up was Dublin, Ireland, a very nice town indeed. Ola and Tobias took a walk around town, went to the Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy) statue, and then went to the pub next to it and had a nice meal with fish and chips and some Guinness beer. After the gig, when we were all about to leave, two random guys tried to sneak into our tour bus, Mark from Misery Index told them to leave but then they dragged him out of the bus and tried to start a fight with him. At that time it was only Mark and Magnus on the bus so Magnus ran out when he saw what was going on. One of the guys started to swing at Mark and when Magnus tried to stop it, the guy tried to hit him instead, but Magnus blocked his punch and then just hit him back, right in this forehead instead -  great success! At that time more people from the tour started to notice what was going on and we all just tried to get the guys to leave, but they just kept on screaming at us. Guess the guys were only looking for someone to pick a fight with. Well, we had a buscall so we had to leave, maybe they found somebody else who were up for a drunken fight with them during the night.

Awesome name for a burrito. Dublin has good taste

The gig in Plymouth -  UK was nice. It was actually a real brutal show. One guy stage dived through the Misery Index set and fell so bad that he cracked his nose.

Isn't he cute, our sound guy?

Amen to that

Every backstage need to have dicks drawn at the wall

The show in Gent, Belgium was also cool. Although Ola and Ronnie had set a new party-record for the tour and went to bed 1:00 in the afternoon... Ronnie nearly fell of his drum-throne during the Gent show... Very pro indeed...
Tilburg in Holland is a very nice town and the 013 venue is a really good venue, we'd say it's one of the best ones in whole Europe! At that gig we met up with another tour that is going around in Europe at the moment, our good friends in Interment, Diabolical and also the Finnish band Urn plus Black Breath from the US were also playing that same night. It was really nice to meet up with the other Swedish guys, it is always welcomed to see some fresh faces after just seeing the same 23,71 people every day for a month. Johan and Perra from Interment ended the evening in our backstage room, telling one weird story after another, completely loaded with vodka/redbull. It was a great night, but as always we had to leave to soon.

Last gig on the tour - Leipzig, Germany. It always feels kinda strange when it´s time for the last gig, but the feeling today was really good. Over all this had been a very good tour with lots of cool people, not a single asshole in the whole tour package, but as long as you are into metal it is easy to get along, you will always have something in common. The venue tonight was packed, we did a really good gig with a crazy headbanging audience, this ended up being one of the better shows on the tour. It is always nice to end a tour with a great gig. As always on the last gig on tour it was time fore some pranks, halfway through Misery Index set, we went up and decorated their stage with loads of flowerpots that we found backstage, it looked really nice indeed, not very metal though. After the gig we had the usual beers and Jack Daniel´s shots, we hung out with the people, took some fan pics, wrote at least 11000's autographs before it was time to leave to go to Frankfurt airport to head back to good old Sweden. To sum it up, it has been one hell of a tour, great gigs, great people, and many liters of alcohol.

22 guys, 27 days... So much space

Ronnie's 1 room apartment on the tour

Magnus rippin' it up in his bunk

 

We don't have the proper people, we need a proper driver, a proper tour manager, a proper bass player....

A complex of Spanish quality router stations

French router station

 Alright, where to begin... Luynes, France. Our good friend Rose Vignat came by but other than that, this night was NOT a night to remember. As usual, Jason Netherton, bass player in Misery Index, went out for his daily dose of bird-watching with his binoculars. Or as we've suspected for a long time now; He's looking for our dinner.

Next day, Wednesday, the tour ripped up the Mephisto club in Barcelona, Spain. Again there were no less than 11000's of banging metal maniacs in the crowd. Later that night we were led to a back alley street where there was darkness and fog, and a small bar called Valhalla. A cool place with strong and cheap drinks. In fact it was so cool that we almost missed our bus call. Guys in The Last Felony and James in Arsis was having a field-day with a hair trimmer outside the bus when we finally got back. Inverted crosses shaved into facial and body hair. Bass player in The Last Felony, Seb Painchaud, got his eyebrows shaved off, and then remembered 5 minutes later that they were going to have a photo session two days time. So we decided to paint him some new ones. Great success!

Ola and Tobias rippin' it up in the tank

Thursday night in Madrid, Spain was a real blast! There were rumors about a strip show on the stage after the bands had played and everybody was excited about it. And what a show it was! Why don't they have anything like that in Sweden? Two girls and a dildo! After seeing two freshly shaved spanish pussys being spread open and penetrated, we all had a hard time in the bus when we left for Bilbao. Except Magnus, Grave, and Seb from The Last Felony, who were backstage by themselves during the strip show. Baguette fight?

Bilbao on a Friday night seems to be a cool thing. Lots of fläktar (fans) showing up. Some with wooden teeth and some with glasses and many of them with mullets! Ola was taken by the moment and got an autograph written on his bare chest by a pretty fläkt (fan). After the show we had to tear down the backline real fast because they were starting up a disco at the venue. 11000's of disco-craving spaniards pouring in to the compound. We had to evacuate the bus from the parking lot or else we would have been stuck in it for the night.

Saturday, Really cool venue, Le Ferrailleur, by the sea in Nantes, France. Small intimate place with a good atmosphere and feeling to it. We got a home cooked meal by the in-house chef, who also doubled as a photographer, that was really good and much needed. The crowd was absolutely crazy. We lost track of the number of stagedives and crowdsurfs going on that night. The French fans (fläktar) showed their absolutely best side. Thank you so much! Not much else was going on though. Maybe we are too old for this shit?!

2 extremely old geezers at work

Burning looting, raping shooting!

Italian router station

Italian router station employees

 Italy = No coffee, no pizza, no wine, no cigarettes, 1 dedicated fan (a dog) called Pluto and really, really, REALLY bad pasta! Luckily 2 female friends came by in Vicenza with a nice bottle of local wine... and pepper-spray.
They decided to try out the spray inside our bus, so we had to evacuate it for an hour or so.. Great success!

Fine red wine from our female friends

The audience were very lame and that unfortunately goes for whole Italy this time, only Rome was ok but that show collided with Cathedral and Steve Vai so there were less than eleven thousands fläktar (fans) when Grave pummeled on. We also did some sightseeing in Rome, went to Colosseum among other places. James, the singer in Arsis decided to take a little trip of his own though. He needed to take a shit at a local pizzeria and the pizza-man demanded that he had to order a pizza in order to use their toilet. There was no sign from him in several hours and the rest of the guys in Arsis were a bit worried. Eventually he found his way back to the venue in time to do the show.

Our sound guy Peter's breakfast in Vicenza

*No comment*

Roman warrior, threatening Peter outside the Italian router station

Today we are in Luzern, Switzerland and finally got some decent food on our plates. On our way to the venue our buss got hit by truck on the highway and we lost our left rear view mirror. Close Call.

Tomorrow we will rip it up frog-eater style in Luynes, France.


RIP IT UP!

Who's that playing bass?

Slovenian routing station

As you've probably noticed, the internet STILL isn't up to Grave standards but here we go again on our own. Going down the only road we've ever known. Like drifters we're born to walk alone. So we made up our mind, we ain't wasting no more time. Now it's time for grogg!

The last couple of shows has been really good for all the bands. Especially last night at the Gala Hala in Ljubljana, that show killed! Robert Kovacic, good friend of Magnus and session-drummer for Belphegor and many others, was a welcome guest. The shows in Bratislava and Vienna were also nights to remember. Especially in Vienna when we had time to dance like motherfuckers at some shit hole bar, all thanks to a late bus-call. We invented the 'Pure Holocaust'-grogg (drink); Jim Beam and your favorite energy drink. It really does the trick. There were also, as usual, hooters in our faces all night long.

The brave heroes in The Rotted rescued Peter's jacket from the Gala Hala for us! They informed us that there was 100% no money in it when they found it and not to ask them about how they got their van resprayed this morning, its just pure coincedence!!




One of many shitty setlists so far, more to come!

 Tobias left his gig-panties in Ostrava, Czech Republic so he went out on a shopping spree in Vienna to get some new unisex pants. He's looking so smoking hot these days! He's also forgot his expensive earplugs somewhere.

Over the last years Tobias has also lost:

4 T-shirts
1 Cellphone
2 Pair of earplugs
3 Digital cameras
1 Wireless system
1 Video camera
1 Leather jacket
1 DVD movie
4 Instrument cables
1 Passport

Tonight Grave has emerged in Bruneck/Bolzana in the northern parts of Italy. Nice surroundings with the Alps so close you can touch them. Good catering and very, very good grogg. Tonights performance will include 'For Your God' in the setlist and the guys have been setting up some sick harmonizers to some of the vocal parts.

RIP IT UP!

p.s. tomorrow we'll be ripping it up Vicenza-style d.s




Beer of the day... somewhere...