Still on hotel Wi-Fi, but now I'm in Copenhagen and it was a LOT better than any of the places in Greece.

A few more vids managed to upload while I was getting my well deserved sleep (review and all that when I get home after work today).

Here are a few more videos from the Fuzz Club-gig:

 

I finally managed to upload ONE of my videos after a whole night and a few hours at the airport.

The rest is coming as soon as I get to a REAL internet connection (freaking hotel Wi-Fi....)

 

Alright, I don't know where to begin....!

First of all, this was my 20th Firewind-show in about one year. Or, maybe not quite true, it was 20th Gus G-gig, a few of them were Ozzy-shows but regardless...! have seen them PLENTY of times - enough to state one thing: They are the real deal, they are total and utter "music-nerds" and I say that as a big compliment. They know their business and I keep coming back to see more - so basically, I've never seen them suck.

And tonight... I'm speechless!! THEY WERE ON FIRE!!! I've never seen such a wild fire in Firewind before, they were all over the place, you looked at their faces, they were enjoying themselves and there was just this enormous energy that they managed to project to the crowd. I'd say it was a modern version of the SKID ROW-energy that was unique. Absolutely amazing.

It was WORTH the trip to Athens, it was worth getting crushed agaist the barricades outside the venue, and it was even worth being CLIMBED ON by a bunch of insane Firewind-digging dudes who would have killed their mother to get in the front row.

It was tough in the front, if I hadn't known better, I would have thought I was attending a freaking METALLICA concert or something...! People were simply CRAZY...!

I remember the Firewind-followers in Thessaloniki being pretty nuts a few months ago too, at the 2310 festival at the stadium, but this crowd beat everything.

Honest to god, I'm sitting here wondering what to say, it was really that fucking good. And, as usual...sitting on a hotel Wi-Fi and after 15 minutes it has only uploaded 2% of a video. :-(
It's gonna take all night - again. But it's on its way! 

Had the best Athens-guide ever - the guy John from the band Need was one of the nicest people I've met in a while, couldn't have asked for better company! More about everything when I get back to Copenhagen tomorrow!

 

 

 

[The first video in BLABBERMOUTH's newsflash is mine. "Like" my page on Facebook to get the updates for the rest of the videos: www.facebook.com/intherearviewmirror  ]

 

 

One of the new songs - finally got it uploaded!

 

 

....and finally: PLAYLIST W THE WHOLE SHOW (PRETTY MUCH) :

http://firewindtour.posterous.com/firewind-playlist-from-fuzz-club-in-athens#

Talk about contrasts. :-) I left the fanciest hotel ever this morning (they even ran to get my coat down in the lobby, so that I wouldn't "have to hold it" when the concierge showed me how to get to the metro and my next hotel!!).

Took the Metro to Larissa station (I didn't even mess up the changeover at that one station that I forgot the name of....). Walked in the rain (started to rain of course....) through a scruffy part of town to my second hotel.

This is a lot more medium standard than the luxury hotel. Cold as hell in here, can't find any aircondition or heat, but what the hell, there's a blanket, I'll survive. :-)

Just went out to find something to eat cause I was starving, and found this little bakery around the corner. Whatever this thing is called, it was fresh out the oven and was filled with white cheese, tasted wonderful!! That, and a Greek yoghurt, very cheap - perfect. I hope they're open tomorrow too. :-)

I'm not overly eager to go sightseeing in this part of town, it's dirty and scruffy, and it's raining.

And there is more... Because it was so hard to find accurate address info to the club online (it was all in Greek and the page was created in Flash, so you couldn't even copy and paste it into Google translator), I ended up at a hotel that was close to the original address I thought would be correct but it turns out, my hotel is nowhere near it. The guy in the reception said it's too far to walk, would take me about an hour. Of course.... :-( 

The guy who's showing me around town, John, will take me TO the club, but then I'll have to figure out how to get back to my hotel on my own because he's going to work (works nights apparently) sooo. This isn't over yet! I'm getting Thessaloniki-vibes all over again!

At least I got my cellphone back to working mode. The damn thing just died on me earlier today - what better time and place than when you're abroad and need to get in touch with someone who's going to help you find your way around town?

What's about Greece that always gets me in trouble?!

Well - the show in a few hours, dying to hear the new songs!!

Just arrived in Athens, Greece. Firewind playing Ioanninia tonight, and here in Athens tomorrow. REALLY looking forward to that! :-) 

Right now, I feel like the Queen of England or something. I'm staying at a luxury hotel, and I hope that the rest of my stay continues as well as it started! :-)

It was incredible to fly into Athens this late at night. When we were still up there in the air, there was a full moon and lots of stars - and it felt like we were so close to it...! Like you could reach out and touch it. You seldom see it from that perspective. Fantastic view over Athens at night, and very mild, spring-like weather when I walked out the airport doors and down to my hotel which is just across the street...!

Really fancy place, incredibly polite and helpful staff...They had even remembered my request to check out at 1 o'clock tomorrow instead of 12 as I arrived so late - free of charge. Many hotels wouldn't have made a note of that, impressive. Then he tells me that he had upgraded me from Premium room to DeLuxe, also free of charge. Not bad at all :-).

When I found my room and walked in I just smiled - I love it! Pardon me for sounding like a hotel-commercial but as of now, there hasn't been a show to write about yet, so you'll have to live with the fact that I'm just happy about my hotel right now! :-))

The BATHROOM! My god  - the shower was so big that it even had a little bench in there! And one of those waterfall-showers! I love those! The shower gel and bodylotion smelled soooo good, and even the TOWELS had a fresh very discreet scent.

I thought I would have to pay for the internet connection, but not even that. However, it's somewhat slow, as usual. Hotel-connections usually suck. It's very frustrating when you've been to a show and want to upload the videos and then it takes you all night to just get ONE video through.

Well anyhoo.... I just stepped out of the shower, slipped into one of those cozy bathrobes and hit the Queen-size bed that feels like HEAVEN!!

I can get used to this. :-) Sometimes it's worth so much to do something crazy like paying a lot for a luxury hotel, cause it just makes you feel so good to pamper yourself - you keep saving up all the time, you're standing in the grocery store every day deciding what's cheapest so you can save money...It's just worth a lot to step away from that once in a while and just feel like a ROCK STAR!

This "rock star" is getting some sleep. Tomorrow I'm meeting up with this guy John from a band called Need that the "Oliva-family" recommended (thanks Jan and Anett!). He's been out with the band just like me, it wouldn't surprise me if we've met somewhere already....! Here's my "guide" singing with The Mountain King (Jon Oliva's Pain):

 

I love meeting new people, and it just hit me the other day how great it is to travel around the world - I have friends everywhere. The world is just not as big as we think it is. I feel like I belong anywhere I go. :-)

Anyway - stick around for the blog tomorrow - the Greek Virtuosos Firewind playing at FUZZ Club here in Athens - I'm sure I'll be blown away, as always!!

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS PEOPLE! :))

Here's a greeting from the Firewind-blogsite as well. And a special greeting from the boys:

Only three weeks until the gig at Fuzz Club in Athens. Need to get in touch with a guy who's a singer in a band there, who some friends of mine says is the best Athens-guide one can find. :-)
I hope so. :-)

Thessaloniki certainly taught me a lesson. I need to get everything straight because I won't have a lot of time to figure things out once I get there. I'm only there two days for the show, then straight back to Copenhagen Sunday afternoon. 

Will be cool to see a little bit of Athens. Shame it won't be much but hopefully something. :-) Three weeks - time fles!!!

And of course there will be pix and videos - the usual, right here. :)

 

The gig in Atlanta was a tough one for me personally. By then, the jetlag was worse than I thought it would be, and I had very little time to get any sleep at all. But anyway.... The girl at the front desk said that the venue (Masquerade) wasn't far away, it was "just around the corner"....

Turns out it was a little further than that - walked through a residential area, then passed a park, some industrial, grey part of town... And got lost. It was raining and I got all soaked. Walked into a dog-hotel (!) and asked for directions. Finally found the venue - a very cool place actually. :-) The Masquerade looked like an old factory. It was too dark and too rainy to take any pics and unfortunately I can't find any good ones online either. Maybe next time. :)

It was a great venue, I went to the "balcony" on the side of the stage and found a chair - perfect view and nobody pushing and shoving. Couldn't be better. 

Was relaxing up there when somebody poked my shulder and I looked up to find Bob there. 
- Hello! he said and waved with a smile.

That was a nice surprise. Just chatted a little, he asked how my trips were going and had a few ideas and pointers about my videos of the band. I actually think that the videos I did after that turned out better, so it's good with feedback and a different point of view.  

One of the other bands started playing and it was impossible to continue a conversation, so Bob left. 

All those openers got me extremely sleepy - I was tired to begin with, and all those bands that I wasn't there to see, got me even more drowsy. Thank god Firewind entered the stage just as I was about to pass out up there. It gave me the kick I needed to stay awake. It was a great show as always. If you weren't there, experience it here below:

PLAYLIST ATLANTA

 

New York City is one of my favorite cities in the world, so what could be more perfect than seeing the last Firewind show there?
When I went there in the afternoon that day, I found Bob standing outside with a sloppy pizza (as mentioned in the blog from that day) and when I went there later in the evening (after having enjoyed a great Indian dinner with my photographer-friend Beatrice) mr G himself walked out from the venue on his way to somewhere.

I had heard that the New York crowd could be tough - but these people LOVED Firewind!! One guy behind me was so excited that one would have thought he was "doing the nasty" or something... ;P And if you think I'm just exaggerating, take a look at the videos from the show. 

These are are in the right order, so enjoy the show if you couldn't be there. It was one of the best on this tour! The perfect way to end a great concert-tour 2011.

Stuck at Newark. LONG story, but if I haven't mentioned it before, here it comes again: NEVER FLY ICELAND EXPRESS!!! :-( What a piece of crap cheapass airline, jesus christ. If you enjoy a flying piece of junk with nothing to do where everything costs a fortune and they lose your luggage or never take off, then by all means, knock yourself out. I'm flying with a real airline next time I'm going to the States, thank-you-very-much.

But here's ONE video I managed to upload from the Firewind-show at Gramercy Theatre in NYC:

And, the day after - the KING of guitars - Yngwie!

 

 

Finally found a functioning Wi-Fi connection...at Starbucks down the corner. I should have done this the first day, but hey...you live and you learn. :) Firewind-tour is over for me, 14 shows in one year, does that give me an award or something...? ;-P

Yngwie played here last night. I was so excited to see him, haven't seen him live since the early 90's. One thing is for sure - he is STILL the Guitar-god poser that he's always been. Maybe a few pounds more than last time I saw him, but we're all getting older, so I'm not holding it against him.

I can't believe his talent. My god. Two great guitarists two days in a row - first mr FastFingers Gus G, then THE Guitargod of guitargods - the one and only Yngwie. I'm going home happy!

More when I get to Sweden sometime tomorrow. ;)