The Tour Blog
The Nasum shop is open!
Posted: November 6, 2012 12:42:43 by Anders Jakobson
The Nasum shop is open again with the leftover merchandise from the tour, and - ta da! - the reissue of the "Grind Finale" 4xLP!
Now about the leftover merchandise: for some designs there are just a few copies left and there aren't much to buy for the smaller dudes… But there are a few t-shirt designs, the zipped hoodie and a baseball hat. Good stuff all over.
The reopened merchandise page has all the information you need. We have cooked up a pretty cool ordering system that makes it really easy for all parts, so check it out.
One note: there is a really cool screen printed poster that isn't in the shop yet. We have to figure out how to ship this in the best way before we add it. There are also some related bands stuff that will be added in time.
And another note: it's possible that we'll make a smaller print run of selected items in all sizes, but at the moment we want to get rid of the leftovers first before deciding on making more or not.
swiss replica watches
replicatime.me
European final tour - Part 5
Posted: October 26, 2012 10:38:50 by Anders Jakobson
October 6 - This is the end
I had expected to wake up in Stockholm, but when I woke up we were parked a few miles from the Swedish capitol. I was up front with Janne, Petri and Urban while the bus drove the last miles to the venue, and was sort of surprised by the weird route our driver Udo chose for the last bit. Debaser Medis is in a part of Stockholm that I have driven to multiple times (the classic venue Kafé 44 is just nearby) so I really didn't know what he was doing. Eventually - after actually driving past the venue - we got there, just to realize that the suggested parking from the promotor was occupied by some cars. These cars drove away after a few minutes and Udo did some extreme parking, displaying the skills that only these veteran nightliner drivers possess. We all stood on the sidewalk and watched him do his magic and obviously saluted him with applauds when he was done.
We were quite early for the load-in so Urban and Jesper went to their homes, Jon was looking for his phone that never was found, Keijo checked in at the hotel to get some sleep and I also went to the hotel and did what would actually be the last interview I did as a touring member of Nasum. (Here's the interview - in Swedish).
We loaded in our gear and Antti and Hannes went to work for the last time. Before the soundcheck the other bands started to show up and my friend Maria came from Örebro with the van I rented from local stonerrock heroes Truckfighters to bring my drums and stuff back home. After the soundcheck it was time for a very particular band meeting. In the summer of 2010, I met with the Stockholm members at an Indian restaurant just a short walk from Debaser Medis. It was at this particular restaurant the idea of the Farewell tour first was discussed and it seemed very fitting to close the circle by going there again for a drink and to decide the final setlist.
The last soundcheck and the last, quite emotionally charged day-sheet.
We were not alone for this meeting, Michael from Siegfried Productions was also with us. Michael is the "leader" of the Danish film crew that shot our show at Roskilde earlier this summer. We got to see the first five minutes or so of the footage prior to the final tour and liked the style and look of it, but wasn't particularly pleased with the show itself. So we had a meeting with Michael during the Copenhagen show (a tale not told in this blog) and invited his team to do the same kind of documentation of the final show and also shoot some documentary stuff during the day as well. So Michael brought Casper and Rasmus (the latter one is responsible for the amazing "Relics" video) with him and tagged along from the Malmö show.
Anyway: we went to the restaurant only to discover that they had gone through some renovations. We were able to (sort of) locate the table we sat at two years earlier, but when we tried to get a table inside just to have a drink and talk they refused to have non-eating guests. What a failure! Instead we headed to another Indian restaurant for the drink and setlist writing… Well, when life gives you lemons - go somewhere else…
It was actually quite nice to sit down and have this final band meeting just the five of us (plus our Danish fly-on-the-wall). We also managed to come up with the last setlist, which included 33 songs…
After the band meeting it was time to head back to Debaser Medis for a meal. While going there we decided to check out the line. There had been a debate in the band about the attendance for this last show. I was a firm believer that the show would be sold out (if a free show actually can "sell out"), while some other members weren't as sure. Well, one hour before the doors opened there was a considerable line that just kept on getting longer and longer. We stood in it for a while just for the fun of it, and the line just kept getting longer and longer… A few hours after the doors all the 850 spots were taken and the line was still amazingly long so we "sold out" for sure.
A panorama shot of the longest line… At least this particular evening!
We had planned something special for this show. We had done the "Mr and Mrs Gasmask" intro for a few shows - the premiere in Örebro, at Maryland Deathfest, Hellfest, Metaltown and Obscene Extreme, and we would definitively do it on the last show. But we wanted to do something more, because this intro isn't really a surprise anymore as it's been on YouTube since May. This was one of many discussions we had prior to the tour, and at some point we thought of recreating the "Inhale/Exhale" cover even more by having some properly dressed "wedding guests" as well. Jesper bought ten gasmasks before the tour and through out it we searched for the right dresses for these ten people and found them - in Stockholm. Ten matching military protection outfits were bought and a few hours before the show we had a "dress rehearsal" with ten people that we managed to engage in this stunt.
Anders posing between Joel and Oskar from Anders's Coldworker, two of the ten people dressing up for the occasion.
It was quite surreal to see all this people in costume, and it looked really cool. We had three different missions for them, but we only needed all ten of them for the first one. Our plan was to have the wedding couple up front and then let the ten dudes appear after a while to create an effect, but the stage at Debaser Medis made it difficult to complete this idea, but the one we came up with instead worked fine.
We had plenty of time this night, but it was also a night filled with emotions and tension. Keijo was feeling slightly bad and feared for his voice, but got some snake poison medicine (!) from Finland that would make it better. It actually worked. After basically just waiting for the moment to hit the stage the time came to get dressed and get ready. All of a sudden I realized that my playing shirt was at the hotel and got extremely stressed. I more or less ran down the many stairs from the dressing room to the street and over to the hotel, which thankfully just was across the street, and down to the room and found it, quickly dressed and ran back. I don't believe I felt nervous this evening, but if I was, the nervousness disappeared during this stressing situation. Then I strapped on the camera I would have on my chest and ran to the stage to do the last adjustments to the drums. And then it was time for the last show…
The deluxe intro. Photo by Soile Siirtola - ExtreMMetal.se.
We all stood by the stage waiting during the longer version of our intro. We had heard that siren and war noises so many times by now, but this was the last time. I watched our 12 person strong gasmask stunt and it seemed to work. It was something special just as it should be, and ultimately we switched places with our performers just as the speech from "Flesh For Frankenstein" begun, and then we started the last show.
Live shots by Gustaf Sandholm Andersson.
This was a really tough show, and I didn't really get to enjoy it as much as I wanted to. It's a really strange notion when you know that you do something for the last time. You feel tense, because you want everything to be right. There are no room for mistakes… But the mistakes obviously came anyway. I made some fuck up's, Jon broke a string and Jesper lost control of his strap at some point. Shit happens and it was just matter of facing the mistakes and accepting them: The last show of Nasum wasn't better than this.
Live shots by Peter Herneheim - herneheim.se.
Another negative factor during this show was the immense heat! It was insanely hot on the stage, so hot that though I would faint after five minutes. The heat and the tension - well, that made the show really tough to get through. But of course it was a good show. We gave everything that we had - and probably more. The emotions were overflowing and besides shit-to-bits-blasting, there were room for hugs and tears. The last ten minutes of the show Jon played with tears flowing down his cheeks, which continued backstage when the show was over. It was beautiful.
Live shots by Gustaf Sandholm Andersson.
Six of our gasmask dudes returned to the stage during "Inhale/Exhale" which concluded the main set, and just stood there facing the crowd before we returned for the encores after catching a few breaths of cool air.
Photo by Soile Siirtola - ExtreMMetal.se
And then two of them returned for the absolute grind finale. Sometime during the tour I came up with the idea that we should conclude Nasum as a live band with the song "Den svarta fanan". That wasn't a particularly hard decision as many shows ended with the combination of the "Human 2.0" songs "The Idiot Parade" and "Den svarta fanan", but it was actually the last line of lyrics in "Den svarta fanan" that appealed to me. The line in Swedish is "Den svarta fanan vajar högt" which can roughly be translated to "The black banner is waving high", and what I wanted to do is to have someone wave a black Nasum banner on stage to symbolize that Nasum is over, but will forever live on. The problem was that we didn't have a proper Nasum flag for the occasion, but the solution was to use the first Nasum backdrop that was at my home in Örebro and luckily we were able to have it for the show.
The really not that black banner is waving high enough… Photo byPeter Herneheim - herneheim.se.
The end came so fast in some way. I was so focused at getting the last blasts of "Den svarta fanan" so precise and hard as possible that I didn't even notice when the two gasmask dudes came in with the banner, but all of a sudden they were there and did exactly what was planed. It was almost like they just appeared out of thin air. And then it was over.
We said our goodbyes to the audience and rushed of the stage, into the backstage and I kept on going to the stairwell as the air was cool there and just sat down on the floor soaking up the reality that Nasum was over. We had blasted shit to bits. We had done our legacy justice. We had celebrated the life and achievements of our fallen brother who wasn't with us on stage but always was there with us. I shared this moment with Urban who was my closest companion during the entire tour, my roommate at countless hotels and so on. That felt good. Ten meters away Jon was crying loud until he barfed on the floor. Classic. I don't know what Keijo and Jesper did, but apparently they were sitting together somewhere. And when I stood up I accidentally knocked over a huge bin filled with glass bottles, creating massive destruction and a huge racket in the stairwell, which actually broke the tension. Then I saw Keijo coming at me, laughing and saluting me for this rock and roll moment…
Grindcore vs champagne! Photo by Soile Siirtola - ExtreMMetal.se.
The following hours were spent cooling down, getting changed, packing up and celebrating the final show. It was emotional for sure and a whole lot of hugs was shared. It really was the end and we were parting ways. Our agent Silvester, who was one of the ten extra gasmask dudes, had bought us a big bottle of champagne so we could have a last drink together, and then it was time for the final photoshoot before we more or less parted ways. The after party continued in smaller groups as the hour got later and later…
Group shot with Nasum, crew and Black Breath minus Jamie who was somewhere else, but to fill his place Silvester stepped into the shot. Keijo's eyes says it all… Complete MADNESS! Photo by Soile Siirtola - ExtreMMetal.se.
Then it was truly over. Nasum left the building and will never return as a performing band. Thanks for sharing this adventure with us.
This is the end.
Behind the scenes: The band that almost happened
Posted: October 16, 2012 11:40:02 by Anders Jakobson
The first show of the final European tour was scheduled in Helsinki, Finland. We could not bring Black Breath to this show for different reasons (in the end Black Breath went there on their own after our mutual tour had ended), and we had many discussions about the support acts. A number of bands were in discussion and one of them was Keijo's "home band" Rotten Sound. Keijo had expressed a wish to perform with Rotten Sound at the same evening as Nasum, and although we were a bit reluctant at first we thought it was appropriate, especially since a "special show" was in the talks.
At some point during the "four continents" part of the tour, I suggested that Rotten Sound should only play songs recorded by Mieszko as a special show. Keijo liked this idea and talked to his fellow band mates who agreed on the idea. Then for some reason the idea of temporarily changing the name of the band came up, and I suggested Rotten Soundlab, as Soundlab was the name of Mieszko's studio. I was so eager to make this happen that I offered to adjust the Rotten Sound logo to this new name.
I did that at a hotel room somewhere on the other side of the world, and both the name and the logo got thumbs up from the band, but in the end this idea was canned due to different reasons, mostly because of lack of time to rehearse a Soundlab-only set, and Rotten Sound(lab) was left of the bill in Helsinki.
I still think it was a pretty good idea and I really like the logo I came up with, so here it is:
European final tour - Part 4
Posted: October 10, 2012 11:39:55 by Anders Jakobson
October 2 - Blasting Czech to bits
The show at the Czech festival Obscene Extreme in July remains on of the highlights of the entire tour, and the Czech Republic really is a grindcore country for sure. The Barrak venue in Ostrava was unfortunately placed in a really depressive environment and when I woke up in the morning I wasn't entirely sure that we were at the right place. Eventually, a bit later on the day, I walked with a guy just a few streets away and found lots of shops and even a big mall, so a real city was just behind that depressing building.
The inside was better though and we had quite a good evening there. There was a support band added more or less in the last minute called Carnal Diafragma, that played what I would like to call typical Obscene Extreme grindcore which in a way was a good compliment to Black Breath and our styles.
Antti decided to stop any further communication with a nice message to the people, and Hannes was found hiding behind bags of "death" and "murder"…
This was another of those days where nothing really happened until it was time to get up on stage and play some grind in Czech for the very last time. I felt in a particularly grinding mode this day. The blast beats were working really well, so I surprised the other guys by going off our decided setlist and led us into the first three songs of "Shift", which are the most blasting block of songs we have. That was fun. And when we had finished the set I wasn't particularly exhausted. One of those nights that could have been a bit longer.
A collage of photos taken by Milan Jurkas - see more here.
October 3 - Mieszko's old home country
Next up: Poland for the very first, and last time. Our show was in Krakow at the Kwadrat venue, a quite large room that was a nightmare sound wise. I was feeling a bit under the weather for most of the day, and took it easy in our bus watching some stuff on my laptop and drinking lots of fluids, just to hopefully avoid getting worse for the remainder of the tour - which would be a total disaster. There are a few others in the tour party that coughs and feels a little bit sick, and as we are traveling in the same bus it's no surprise that something is spreading. Hopefully it will not be any worse than this.
It felt a bit special to play in Poland. As most of you, if not ALL of you, know Mieszko was originally from Poland and in a way it's quite surprising that we haven't been here before. I really wanted the Polish fans to feel extra happy about Mieszko's heritage so I instructed Keijo to say something from the stage. And so he did and there were some extra cheers which felt good. This evening we were joined by The Dead Goats and Antigama who warmed up the crowd before Black Breath crushed them as usual. I'm so happy that we share this final tour with Black Breath - they surely are one of the greatest bands of today.
During our show I felt that true band chemistry again. The almost 60 shows we've done so far since May has really payed off, and we will quit when we are as good as we can be. So strange to think about that. I know that there's only three shows left, but it's really hard to understand that the end actually is only a few more blasts away… And as usual we did the best we could in Poland, although the sound probably wasn't that good. Our FOH Antti was very disappointed after the show, but he's also his own worst critic, so I would say that the sound probably was good, but not as good as he wants it to be.
A collage of photos taken by Maciej Mutwil - see more here.
October 4 - Goodbye Europe and the world
Back in 1995 the second ever Nasum gig, and the first one outside of Sweden was in Berlin at the Knaack Club, where we returned in 2004. Now, the final non-Swedish show was also in Berlin. Just another detail that is bookending the 20th anniversary. Speaking about Knaack in 2004 - someone actually gave our merch guy Petri a CD of that particular show, that now is in my possession. Quite funny to listen to and compare to the shows we've done on this tour.
Anyway - the day in Berlin was slightly shadowed by some logistical hassle. We had gotten a message from the company that supplied the nightliner that we had to change bus in Berlin due to some booking detail that we never really understood. As the parking situation outside of the venue Magnet is a little bit tricky, we were parked at another location as we arrived a bit earlier. All of a sudden our driver said that the new bus was at the venue so we drove there, only to realize that the bus wasn't there. Our previous bus was now parked in a very bad way, so it left for a few hours without us and the trailer with our gear. Everything was in disarray and about three hours later the new bus arrived - and the old one so we could transfer our bags and stuff. Everything could have been handled way more smoothly, but in the end we got a bus that perhaps is slightly nicer and a new driver called Udo!
Udo in the middle and then the old nightliner to the left and the new one to the right. One each - one for Black Breath and one for Nasum… Well, not really…
During all this we were able to load in, do the soundcheck and check out the town. Janne, Petri and I went to a recordstore while Urban and Jesper went to big tv tower, Fernsehturm. Come showtime it was very evident that the show would be another of those stupid hot ones. Black Breath came off stage gasping for air and recommended a lot of water on stage. Not exactly what you want to hear when you are about to hit the stage. And it sure was hot, at least in the beginning of the show. Then someone got some big fans working so it got less hot. The general feeling was quite intense - the room was packed and the venue was small and it got really intimate.
October 5 - Back in Sweden and at KB again
Eleven years ago, Nasum were on a Scandinavian tour together with The Haunted and Nine. It was the first of the "Close-Up Made Us Do It" tours, that since then have appeared on and off during the years. It was quite a large tour considering it mostly covered Sweden, and got some media attention especially since The Haunted just had won a Swedish Grammy. When the tour hit Malmö and the KB venue, Swedish tv made a half-hour special interviewing all the bands. In other words: KB is another important part of the Nasum history.
It is a killer venue and one of the best on the entire tour. You feel very welcomed at KB. The people who work there are nice and helpful, and you feel appreciated, which makes it much more easy to work. After breakfast and load-in I went to the city to do some chores, most importantly to buy a pair of jeans! I had basically lived in the Black Breath sweatpants for almost two weeks, and although they served me well, I was in desperate need of a pair of proper pants. While at the store trying them on, I got a text message from Janne: "Soundcheck!". I was 15-20 minutes away so I rushed out in the pouring rain, walking fast and running some parts to get to the venue as soon as possible. Completely drenched in rain and sweat I finally reached KB and went on stage to do the usual 2-4 song soundcheck.
This night we yet again had Skitsystem on the bill, but also Pyramido - a Swedish doom band with our friend Ronnie as the vocalist. Ronnie has many ties with Nasum - he was one of the original members of Burst back in the early days, and he has also helped us out as a driver at some occasions, like when we came back from the first US tour back in 1999. I've written it before, and I write it again: this final tour is really tying all the knots together!
During the time prior to the tour our booking agency had sent out updates on pre-sales every week and the number for Malmö had been very poor, but something must have happened during the last days because the number we got now was almost 300 and in the end about 600 people showed up for the show which was great. I had a few old friends in the crowd that I spotted from the stage and had a chance to talk to after the show.
The barricades had an "N" on them, very similar to the Nasum "N"…
I believe all of us got a little bit struck by the notion that the final show was just one day away. I suddenly felt nervous, and that doesn't really happen at all anymore, and while speaking to the others I realized that they also felt a little bit strange. For me, this affected the Malmö show in a slightly negative way. I was very tense and I felt some nasty ache in my upper left arm almost from the start of the show. This was slightly alarming considering the Grind Finale was left, but it was also quite easy to connect the pain with the tension, so I wasn't that worried. Despite the pain, we did a good show although slightly different song wise. Keijo had informed us that his voice wasn't really responding to the high pitched parts so we adjusted the setlist slightly. No major changes but still a few so we could save a little energy for the last show.
European final tour - Part 3
Posted: October 2, 2012 16:44:21 by Anders Jakobson
September 28 - Madness in Munich
On the second show out of three in Germany we went to the Backstage complex in Munich. Apparently we've been here before, during the long tour with Napalm Death back in 2001. I had gotten this place mixed up with the Feierwerk or possibly Hansa 39 which are two previous venues I've been to in Munich. Imagine my surprise when I woke up in what can only be described as an jungle… The entire complex is surrounded by palm trees and other plants and I had no idea where we were.
The complex has a number of halls in different sizes and we played in the "Club" which is one of the smaller ones, if not the smallest one. I believe there were four different things happening at Backstage at the same time so it felt quite weird. Would there be any people coming to our show?
I spent most of the day in pain. My back was aching badly due to unknown reasons. Maybe a combination of a weird sleeping position and a cold that only struck the back. I was feeling it already in Geneva but in Munich it was really bad. Luckily we had a nice backstage area far away from the stage so I could take it easy and take care of some internet business.
We had no extra support band this night, so it was quite an early show. But what a show! The crowd went mental which surprised us a lot. We had expected it to be a slow night, but it was quite the opposite. The small room was filled and we observed people both moshing like maniacs and singing along to the lyrics. Crazy. And when it was time for the encores the general vibe was that we could keep playing forever, so we played seven extra songs which isn't really the amount we usually play. A great night in Munich.
September 29 - Grindcore chemistry in Slovenia
The first of five Eastern dates which in total includes four completely new countries for Nasum started in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The Gala Hala venue is part of bigger complex just like the Backstage Club the day before, but was located in a completely different surrounding, although that Backstage jungle would have been a nice and not at all unexpected addition. There were a lot of different houses connected via a big yard and everything was covered in graffiti and various art pieces mostly made out of recycled objects. Sort of a squat mixed with a crazy playground.
We arrived quite early - or the load in was quite late - so we had a few hours to kill in this environment. I brought out the digital camera and shot some of the stuff I saw there.
In the late afternoon we got access to the venue and could load in and set up our stuff. I was sweating like crazy just by setting up the drums, which was a sort of a premonition that the show would be really hot. After soundcheck and some food I hung out in the bus watching some shit in my laptop and then joined a totally unexpected discussion about drum fill-ins together with Urban and Hannes. That's an alternative way to warm up before a show.
After Hellcrawler, who were the local support, and Black Breath we went up on the quite small stage and played for the first and last time in Slovenia. As expected it was really hot and we were more or less soak after a few songs. The show was another good one and I felt that we had a real connection within the band on stage. Of course we have that every night, but this is one of the first times that I really thought about it. We know our songs in and out and we know every single little detail leading from one song to another. It's grindcore chemistry for sure.
September 30 - Nasum meets Ronald Reagan!
Our tour manager Janne had put together a tour book with all information about support acts, times, dressing rooms, showers and all that type of good things to know when you arrive at a venue. There's also some information about "interesting places near the venue" and on the page for Budapest, Hungary there was a note that the Heroes Square was close. That was definitively something worth seeing so Janne, Petri and I went there crossing a nice park. On the way there we met Ronald Reagan, which was quite surprising.
Further on our way to Heroes Square we found a museum with some nice statues and architecture worth capturing with the digital camera.
And then we eventually reached Heroes Square which was filled with Bolt Throweresque statues and quite impressive over all. We stayed there for a while soaking up the history.
Back at the venue Dürek Kert we had a very nice catering with some really nice people taking care of us through out the night. You couldn't really ask for more. Not that much happened before the show, we more or less just hung out passing the time. Oh yeah, our friend Curby, manager of the Obscene Extreme Fest showed up and will travel with us for a couple of days.
Today's support act was a local crusty band called Freedom Is A Lie and following Black Breath we entered the stage in front of a quite enthusiastic audience. Unfortunately the room was resonating badly so I felt that we were three milliseconds out of sync with each other the entire show. I heard more of the bounce in the far end of the room than from the monitor I had just behind me. Annoying, to say the least. The show went fine considering the conditions but it was quite tough playing the songs without some proper monitors.
October 1 - Onslaught joins the bill!
During the last couple of days we have noticed that the legendary Onslaught is virtually on the same roads in the east as us. We also heard that they had a few shows cancelled and during our stay in Budapest we got a request if their touring package could join us in Bratislava, Slovakia. We agreed to that so all of a sudden the supportless show at Randal got three support acts - Cripper, Izegrim and Onslaught! How weird… Just a couple of days earlier fanboy Urban posed in his Onslaught t-shirt besides our respective posters.
Having five bands on the bill and two complete backlines to cram into a small club was a bit of a hassle though, but we made it work. Fortunately there was another venue above the Randal club where we could hang out in complete silence, so that's where Jesper and I spent most of the night. Our nightliner lacked the proper power support from the venue so it was parked at another street and all the power was gone so there was no point in hanging out there if you wanted some time for yourself.
I think our show went fine, but we suffered from the "stagediver-that-will-not-leave-the-stage" disease. Some dude got on stage for a couple of times but apparently had problems getting down from it. At some point he even bit Keijo's leg, which was way more funny for the rest of us than for our precious singer. And then the dude more or less fell between the stage and the fence in front of it and just kept on laying there. A word of advice to stagedivers: feel free to do your business at a Nasum show but don't stay on the stage!
European final tour - Part 2
Posted: September 28, 2012 15:52:50 by Anders Jakobson
September 24 - Keijo's 50th show!
The only stop in Holland was in Utrecht. It's actually only two countries that get visited more than once on this tour - Germany and Sweden. The venue in Utrecht was called Tivoli de Helling and was a really cool club with a good sized room and a very nice backstage area upstairs where we could hang out and relax. The people working at the club were total pro's and took really good care of us. Everything was pretty much top notch.
Enjoying a nice dinner at Tivoli de Helling.
Due to stormy weather the local support act Oathbreaker got delayed and it was actually not certain that they would show up in time, but they did and could play their stuff in front of a crowd that really wasn't filling up the room or particularly wild and crazy. It was a Monday after all. For me our show felt a bit like a Monday gig, although you hardly know what day of the week it is while you are on tour. Everyday is "Gigday"… I had too many distractions during the show - bad monitor, things not really positioned where I wanted them, loose screws on the cymbal stands and so forth. I wasn't really at my best and had a hard time to get into the flow and just deliver what I am supposed to deliver. Although I shouldn't put any blame on the audience for my mood, it felt quite dead in the room. It was silent between the songs in that particular way that it felt that Keijo - who had his 50th show with Nasum this night - had to drag the response out of the people.
To my surprise the crowd got very loud and active when we had finished the main set so we went up and played the scheduled extras. The show gradually got better and better and was at it's best when it was basically over. Strange, but that how it is sometimes.
September 25 - The Grindfather guests
To get to London we had to cross the canal via a ferry. I don't like ferries, but fortunately the water was calm enough so you could live through the circa 90 minutes the ferry ride took. A couple of hours later we arrived at Underworld in London and had a little time to do whatever before we had access to the club. I went on a hunt for a new pair of jeans as the only pair I have with me sort of died during the first couple of days. No luck with that, surprisingly, so I have to live with my broken shit for a while more.
While setting up the gear our special guest for the night arrived - Shane Embury. Initially he came just for the show but as he's made a few guest appearances with us in the past, we thought it would be great to graze the only UK date on the entire tour with some Embury madness. So we constructed a completely new setlist for the night as we've more or less played versions of the same set during the first five shows just to get warmed up. We were not the only band that changed their setlist tonight - Black Breath had to do the same thing, but for completely different reasons.
Meeting Shane is always a pleasure, and being on stage with him is an even bigger one!
At some point during the night, Black Breath's drummer Jaime hurt his left foot badly, so bad that he couldn't walk when we were at the ferry. A drummer's nightmare. After their soundcheck it was really obvious that the left foot was unusable and Black Breath had to dig forth all their "non-double bass" songs, which ended up in a really crusty set with mostly songs from their first couple of recordings. They sounded like a completely different band, but still got a great response from the audience.
Some minor distractions from my part led to some sloppy playing during parts of our show. That and the new setlist made the show less smooth than I had expected, but we found our groove at some point and the show got intense, sweaty and a really good one. It's always a pleasure to have Shane on stage, and he blasted out "The Masked Face" while Jesper had to be "only" the back-up singer, which eventually led to a stage dive into the audience. Having Shane on the stage also bookends the 20th anniversary, just like Rickard's guest appearance did back in Gothenburg. Without Shane and Napalm Death there wouldn't have been 20 years of Nasum. That's for sure.
September 26 - Jon's 100th show!
I believe we all slept through the ferry ride back to France and a few hours later we had arrived at Glazart in Paris. A quite good venue with some kind of "beach" appendix that might be very nice during the Summer. We did the usual routine - shuffled down some food and then loaded in all the stuff, and set it up.
After the soundcheck Janne, Urban, Jesper and I went together with Eric and Elijah from Black Breath into town via the subway for half and hour or so to visit the catacombs of Paris. This was very exciting and we were ready for a chilling sight. To our dismay we were too late and the catacombs were closed for the day! No catacombs, just a catastrophe! Instead we hung out at a café in the rain having a cup of coffee just to feel that we were away from the club, backstage room and bus. You need some time away every now and then.
The way to the catacombs. Thumbs down for it being closed, but thumbs up for some coffee!
Back at Glazart Coilguns had already started playing and before Black Breath played Sublime Cadaveric Decomposition kept the room warm. It was a really hot venue and we were virtually sweating our asses of during the show. Jaime had been to a doctor with his injured foot, but they didn't find anything broken or anything like that and he was able to perform as usual, so it was just London that got the crust version of Black Breath.
Our show was the final of the "anniversary shows" - Jon's 100th show with Nasum - and it was hot and crazy. The place was more or less packed, at least it felt so because there wasn't that much air in the room and quite sweaty. All in all a fun night.
September 27 - The wizard of CERN
The following day we were in Switzerland for the last time, yet again at Usine in Geneva. This venue was on the "European Grind Shift Tour" back in 2004, and yet again Mumakil supported us, just like back then. Coilguns was also on the bill, and when they played the venue was frighteningly empty… That changed during the night, thankfully, and in the end the show up was good.
In fear of repeating yesterday's fatal fail with the visit to the catacombs of Paris, Jesper, Urban and Eric went away pretty much directly after the load in to visit CERN - the European Organization for Nuclear Research which is in Geneva. The guys were away for quite some time and returned with a great experience richer, without having the possibility to see the particle accelerators though.
The rest of us basically stayed at the venue using the free internet to get some work done. The last couple of days have been more or less interNOT so it was nice to be able to communicate and work on some stuff.
During the intro for our show, Jesper suddenly said: "Hey, what are we playing tonight?", and we quickly decided on a set we've been playing for most of the final tour so far. It was just so funny to hear that virtually seconds before we entered the stage. Again the show was a good one. I had feared it to be a dull one judging from the poor attendance during the beginning of the night, but it turned out to be quite good and during the extras I surprised the band by starting a completely different song than what they had expected. And I did it by choice and not as a mistake!
Behind the scenes: Making of Suitman
Posted: September 27, 2012 16:34:11 by Anders Jakobson
The other day when I had time to kill I was going through my computer deleting files and such stuff. I found something that I like to share.
The "Suitman" is one of the few new t-shirt designs I did for the tour. It has unfortunately not been a huge seller, which is slightly disappointing as I like the design. Perhaps the combination of skulls and suits are a bit too overused but I still think it is a striking image.
Anyway, what I found was the three source images I used to make the design - an animal skull, a wedding suit model and some random splatter. So here it is, in graphic form - the making of the "Suitman" design:
European final tour - Part 1
Posted: September 24, 2012 14:47:23 by Anders Jakobson
September 20 - Back at Nosturi
The final tour started - not particularly unexpected - with another early morning wake up call, as I had to transport myself from Örebro to Arlanda Airport. The last time at Arlanda as a member of Nasum... Since I've seen too much of Arlanda this summer, that notion brought no nostalgic feelings what so ever!
Three and a half hours after my alarm clock rang I met up with the Stockholm guys and we did the last check in, the last security check and the last boarding. An hour in the air later, in which we actually travelled back in time… (as Finland is another timezone), we landed in Helsinki and were met at the airport by tour manager Janne and Niko from Fullsteam who eventually brought us into town and to the hotel close to the venue. The venue in question was Nosturi, a nice place by the harbor, that has a special place in the Nasum history. It was at this venue we had our very first Finnish show back in 2003. The show was the first of a four day tour with Rotten Sound, and it was also the last tour as a three piece. Urban had more or less joined the band, but didn't feel confident enough to perform on stage yet, so he actually sold merch on that particular tour.
At the venue we met Petri, our 9th addition to the tour party, who would join us to take care of the merch table during the final tour. Petri is a really good guy that I became friends with a couple of years ago when Coldworker toured with Misery Index and he took care of their merch. I love Petri and I love having him in our little gang. Apart from being our merch guy he actually also went up on stage as he sings in Famine Year who were our support act together with Hero Dishonest.
After soundcheck and food and waiting and support acts we started this tour with a really good show. The room was packed and we got a really nice vibe from the room. Jon, who loves Finland even made a little speech to the crowd at some point of the night. The overall feeling was good, but I felt really rusty as I hadn't played a single stroke since the Japanese shows. It was quite a tough task to perform as my muscles got numb pretty much after the first few songs. I had to cheat a little bit to be able to play all the blast parts, and it worked fine but I was quite exhausted after the show.
Cool photo stolen from Marco Manzi - see more at http://marcomanzi.kuvat.fi
September 21 - The 200th show!
Although Helsinki definitively was part of the final tour, it felt like it really started in Gothenburg as it was there we were joined by Black Breath and moved into our mobile home so to speak. But obviously we had to fly again to get there, and not only once but twice. We had a short layover in Copenhagen and it felt so nice to realize that that actually were the last flights ever (as Nasum, that is). Might be a strange thing to complain about because usually airports and flights have some sort of exciting charge to them, but considering the sick amounts of airports we've visited and flights we've done were quite happy to say goodbye to them.
Unfortunately we were forced to stay at the Landvetter airport outside of Gothenburg for quite a while as the nightliner driver had gotten to another airport in the vicinity. But we found Black Breath who were more or less sleeping on their luggage. After almost two hours we could get on board our home for the coming weeks, a massive nightliner. Although it's quite big, you still have walk slightly bent inside the buss, but at least the bunks are large enough to sleep in so you don't feel like you've been buried alive.
The outside and inside of the nightliner.
One crooked bus ride later we got to Truckstop Alaska, a cool semi-secret club in Gothenburg. We had a few venues to choose from but chose Truckstop Alaska because it's the best. Jon, Urban and the Black Breath guys had previously visited the club, but the rest of us were virgins. But it sure was a cool place. Martin from At The Gates/Skitsystem was the promoter and he took good care of us.
This was the first show where we had our own equipment since the tour premiere in Örebro in May. After months of rented back line, mostly of high quality, it felt really great to set up my own drums again. In the break between the tours I had bought a new drum mat and put up all my drums and cymbal stands and marked them with tape, so it's pretty easy for Hannes and I to set it all up every night. As we were late and the sound check took quite some time things got a little bit stressed, but everything felt good for the show.
This was the 200th show of Nasum since the first one back in 1995. As a little celebration we invited original singer/drummer Rickard Alriksson to join us on the only "Rickard song" in the set - "Löpandebandsprincipen". Rickard lives in Gothenburg now so it was quite easy to arrange this. I got a crazy kick out of sharing the stage with Rickard again during the minute it took to introduce the song and play it. It was the third time Rickard did a guest appearence with us - the first one being the "Helvete" release party and the second time being at the Hultsfredsfestivalen, which pro shot footage most of you probably have seen. Any way, it was great and it really bookended the 20th anniversary.
The first and last Nasum singers performing together.
Truckstop Alaska was filled to the brink. Actually a few hundred people were left outside unable to come in. I believe that might a first for Nasum. I feel a little bad for this situation, but it was pretty clear from the start that you really had to be in time to get in as there were no pre-sales. Skitsystem opened the show, as they will in Malmö and Stockholm as well, and obviously they also have a special place in the Nasum history as we've shared both stages and a 7" EP with them in the past, not to forget that Mieszko recorded their "Enkelresa till rännstenen" album.
Our show felt good with a great response from the crowd. My muscles were working better but still not to 100%, but it was a good step in the right direction.
September 22 - Urban's 100th show!
The next morning we woke up in Copenhagen. The beauty of riding in a night liner is obviously that you travel while you sleep, unless you are in party mode and stay up all of the night. We were parked outside of Pumpehuset, pretty much in the center of the Danish capitol. A nice venue that I have visited before, but not with Nasum. After taking a short walk in the city in hunt for some breakfast it was time to load in the gear. I felt already that we've gotten a better routine for the load in part so it went quite quick. We had a lot of time for the soundcheck so Hannes and Antti took their job seriously to get the exact set up and sound they want for Black Breath and us.
On this particular show we were joined by some friends from the US tour - Canadian crust grinders Mass Grave, who are on a quite long European tour at the moment. It's always nice to see some familiar faces again.
Not that much happened during this day, just a lot of dead time to kill in the backstage room or in the bus, which is pretty much how the remaining days will be unless there's something nice to go and look at in the city. I guess most of us will have to come up with their own routines to handle the touring life. Jon has brought his own bowling balls and plans to visit a bowling alley in every city, if possible. That's one way to handle it.
Nasum, for the last time in Copenhagen.
The show, which was Urban's 100th with Nasum - the second of a few anniversaries coming up during the first week of the final tour - was again a good one. In the ongoing tale about my muscles they are pretty much in grind mode now, so from now on I can relax and just play (and ultimately stop reporting about them). We played in the smaller room of the Pumpehuset venue and the attendance was good, but not as crazy as in Helsinki and Gothenburg. But it was yet again good, and also the final time Nasum played in Denmark.
September 23 - Jesper's 150th show!
Four days into the tour, we left Scandinavia and got to mainland Europe, and to be specific Hamburg, Germany. The venue was Logo, a quite small place but it felt like a cool place when we got access to it. We all pretty much dived into the catering and stuffed our faces with whatever food that was there. Our FOH Antti needed to shave his head and Petri helped him, but for some reason they only shaved half of the head so now Antti looks like a really old version of himself. It so funny, because facing him you don't see the haircut but then you do and it's a funny surprise every time.
A "local" support band was added in the last minute, Cancer Clan with members of Cyness, who warmed up the audience before Black Breath crushed it as usual. Man, this band sounds great, especially now when Antti does their sound as well.
Petri setting up the merch in Hamburg.
Again, not much happened during this day, apart from a special visit from out Swedish booking agent Silvester who happened to be in Hamburg due to some work related issues. Silvester has been really good to us and we have a mutual appreciation for each others work during this crazy year.
We totally forgot to announce from stage that the show was Jesper's 150th with Nasum… Bummer, but never mind. Yet again this was a good show in which Keijo got into a beef with a pole on the stage… Not a singer's best friend. During the end of the show we had some amp trouble which temporarily got us out of the flow, but we were able to wrap it up nicely and even play some extra songs. The Hamburg crowd were good to us!
Behind the scenes: More tattoos!
Posted: September 13, 2012 15:15:20 by Anders Jakobson
A couple of months ago we posted a few Nasum tattoos we've gotten during the tour and requested more. We got some and here they are.
A fist the with Japanese symbols for "grind", a massive "Grind Finale" arm and leg claimed by Nasum.
Our Canadian friend Jordan's "Inhale/Exhale" tattoos and his mixed "Shift" design, and a bitching necktattoo with the "Grind your mind" phrase.
Of course we want to see more, so if you have a Nasum tattoo send some images to us at nasum@nasum.com.
A few words about the Gothenburg and Stockholm shows
Posted: September 12, 2012 18:19:51 by Anders Jakobson
There seems to be some confusion regarding the Gothenburg and Stockholm shows regarding tickets, presales and access, and since we've noticed that it seems like a lot of people actually will travel to Sweden and come to the shows, we feel it's necessary to share the info that we do know.
Gothenburg: There are no presales for this show and the tickets will be 150 SEK at the door. However - to be able to get in you apparently need to be a member of the Truckstop Alaska "community". This is a free service, and for all you non-Swedish speaking people, here's a quick tutorial:
1. Go to: http://www.truckstopalaska.com/
2. Click on "MEDLEM" to the left.
3. Write a) First name, b) Family name, c) Birthdate in the format YYMMDD - i.e. 770119 for January 19 1977 - and just write "0000" in the second box, d) Email address.
4. Send the form and pray to the Gods of Grind that it works.
Stockholm: Yes, it IS a free show, at least until 21.00 (9 PM) when they will start charging at the door. HOWEVER: as it is a free show it might be "sold out" before 21.00, so obviously we can't guarantee access to the show if you show up after 21.00 or perhaps even before that. And there is no presales either so in other words: be there in time, and why shouldn't you - the support acts rock!
All right, that is what we know at this point. Hope this helps some of you.
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