So it's about time we started our tour diary, 11 days in now so about time! But to be fair I think we needed that time to figure out what's been going on around in order to be able to explain it coherently.

We've finally got bit of time off that isn't spent driving in the van furiously from country to country and being savaged by swiss border patrol. We're in a hotel in bavaria, right next to an awesome castle that I've wanted to see for years cos it looks so fucking rad. Tomorrow it will be done.

Amsterdam
Quite a journey to even make this! Having been literally run out of Calais by screaming racists hitting our van, Amsterdam was a few hours away. And being the fresh faced idiots we are, turning up with a few amps and a pair of pants, what was to follow was a bit of a surprise. The heineken music hall is a 5500 capacity uber-hall, so the usual conversation on arrival of 'where do we load in' was greeted with the entire wall of the venue sliding away and us being told to actually drive into the hall with the van. And getting in, the van seemed like a small toy, dwarved by the stage and truckloads of kit belonging to Dimmu Borgir and Korn. The entire contents of our van spilled out were about the same size as one rolling riser, and the forklift truck being used to get anything up onto the stage was really struggling to find anywhere on our stuff to stick its prongs without it slipping through! I found some shitty wooden pallet to put drums on, much to the amusement of the locals. I thought it would make a pretty wicked drum riser actually. And all this while actual Korn were soundchecking in front of us.
If it wasn't for our soundman and tour manager Ben, we'd be in the total shit, but thanks to him, everything went like absolute clockwork and before we knew what was going on, all the crew knew who we were and were running around for us while we set up on stage and started line checking. With precision timing, at least 3000 kids ran in from all sides and squeezed into the front barrier with eager faces on them. Thank Fuck! They are gonna love what we're about to shit in their faces and smear all over their rosy cheeks…

Zurich
Luckily we had a few days off to get over the whole shock to the system of such a serious production set-up and the fact that we were actually a part of it. And we were getting away with it! But we quickly got around to the swiss gig, in a much more intimate theatre in Zurich. Again, easy entrance, van parking and catering all considered, we were starting to feel more at home with the arrangements. A few technical difficulties with the local crew went flying by and didn't stop our shower of acoustic turd from being slung over a few thousand more unsuspecting metallers. Watched the whole Korn set from the side of the stage this time, just thinking of the day I bought their first album something like 15 years ago. Awesomeness.
By now we've also been getting on so well with the Dimmu Borgir team that they managed to get us on to open at their own headline shows in Milan and Luxembourg! Right, time to get the fuck out of Switzerland to somewhere that has normal sockets to plug things in and takes euros!

Munich
Luckily managed to avoid the whole camping scenario that was booked in and rapidly approaching. Due to Octotberfest, all accommodation was taken, but a few inside leads got us an awesome hotel in the outskirts. With that sorted, time to check the venue out. It's called Zenith Kulturhalle I think, basically a massive converted warehouse done out all industrial and gnarly. Another enormous place like Amsterdam, the network of dressing rooms and offices was almost as impressive.
The shows so far have been pretty easy as far as playing to that many people goes, maybe the past festivals we've played have helped us, or maybe we're just totally awesome dudes.

Vienna
Continuing the theme of awesome industrial venues, this one is a huge brick gas works, 4 massive round towers converted into a city of apartments shops and clubs. Reliably informed by Ben of the phat PA and sub set-up, things look to be very loud tonight, confirmed by the security guards covering their ears and grimacing during sound check.

Milan
Much more scary, this one is a Dimmu Borgir headline show so more black metallers line the streets than the average 2 or 3 in your local high street. Main support was from doom kings Triptykon. It was really nice to see Dimmu's own crowd and they were just as welcoming of us as the Korn crowd, us being the weird non-black wearing rock and rollers that spout shit onto peoples' faces.
Not only facing the joys of satnav not playing in Italy and accidentally finding ourselves in pure ghetto hell by using wrong directions, and then finding our hotel booking had been wiped, we did eventually find ourselves with a bed in a strange James Bond themed hotel. 4 star my arse though.

More to come...