OPETH Frontmann Mikael Åkerfeldt berichtet über die letzten Aufrtitte der Tour, vom Dasein als "Stockholm Globetrotters" und gewährt euch damit einige Einblicke.
"Just got back from the latest trip which included Sweden (well, well), Holland, Japan, China and Australia. Phew!
First up, the Swedish gig in Malmö, down South of the country fucking RULED! It was one of my favourite gigs here, we played all right and all but the crowd were just AMAZING! I'll never talk shit about Southern Sweden again (did I ever???)!
Holland was OK, good crowd but I don't know, seemed like a standard gig from our side. We just did it and left and now I've pretty much forgotten about it. Always love playing Holland though. What I remember most was having some childhood friends come over and party with us plus I saw the dude that used to sing with ARTCH there ('Hey Jimmy, glass o' whisky please...'), remember them?
Then we had a bunch of horrible flights going to virtually the other side of the planet. Watched the new Indiana Jones on the flight to Japan (2/5, NOT more!). Japan was nothing short of SPECTACULAR! Awesome! I wanna say thanks to all our peeps over there. Everyone treated us so nice and we literally had a blast! It was our first club tour over there and I can't wait to go back. All the gigs were cool and even the travelling in between (Bullet train) was a cool experience. I even got some time for some record shopping and picked up some nice stuff indeed! We hope we can come back next year...PLEASE! The fans were real nice and respectful. Loud one second, dead silent the next! Got loads of gifts for my daughters too! Thank you all so much! In Tokyo we played 'The Lotus Eater' for the first time ever, and it went OK. I think this song is going to become a highlight of our show with a few more gigs under our collective belt.
On the way to Australia we had a day off in Hong Kong, China! It was a pretty mind boggling experience. I mean, we didn't do much. Mendez and myself went to a German restaurant (!) and had the best sausages I've ever had in my life. But it was just strange there...very strange indeed. I can't say if I enjoyed myself or not to be honest. Have to go back I guess....
OZ! Well, what can I say? Great experience once again! I think we're getting pretty recognized over there now. All the 5 shows got sold out and in Sydney we had over 3,000 people checking us out! We all love it there and I guess we're already talking about coming back next year. In Brisbane the authorities made the show into a 18-plus show even though they'd advertised the gig as a all ages show. It sucked! We had lots of kids coming up to us saying they couldn't get in. I guess it was a massive disappointment to a lot of people, but I swear we'll never play that place again. We'll make it up to you folks....
This event even got covered in the news there...as always when something shitty happens...
The four flights back home were horrible. 26 hours in total maybe? Watched Casino Royale which was a fucking 5/5 for me who's a die hard Bond fan! Can you believe it?
Coming home was fantastic as always. Seeing my kids and wife has me thinking "What the hell am I doing being away from them all the time??". Yet, this is what I do, I love it + I support my family doing it. We're going out again within days so I gotta keep this short...don't want to waste time being away from them as you can imagine. They're sleeping now as I write, but I'll take Melinda to kindergarten tomorrow morning, and quite frankly I can't wait for them to wake up so I can be with them again. Fuck, I'm tearing up now..."
