Week one of the US/Canadian tour

Going tour does not leave much room for a tour blog. The days are long with many hours in the van, then there's load-in, soundcheck, dinner, waiting, playing, load-out and often an hour drive or so to the hotel, a couple of hours of sleep and then repeat... Today, how ever, we have the rare pleasure of a couple of free hours at a hotel with WiFi and thus the possibility to write something in this blog.

We are currently at a hotel outside of Philadelphia heading towards the New York show in a few hours, which will mark the half-time point of the tour, then it's MDF followed by the west coast and the US finale in Texas.

So far this tour has been great. Great reception and none of the hassle at the borders that we were afraid of. Although the shows already start to blend together they have been memorable in their own ways. The club sizes have varied but it's all good. We'll have our share of really big shows during this Farewell tour, probably already on Friday when we headline MDF.

We've also had our first couple of guests on some of the shows. In Providence, Jacob Bannon from Converge joined us and gave the Bannon touch to "Time to act", and yesterday here in Philly, Jason Netherton from Misery Index did no less than four songs with us. The Philly show was by far the most "friend-filled" show on the tour so far. Lot's of faces from the past (most of them Relapse related) were present and it was very nice meeting all of these people again or for the first time.

Actually, the day in Philadelphia was one of the best so far, in the meaning that we really got to see something more than the roads, the gas stations and the venues. Jamie, who does our merch for the first half of the tour, showed us around in the city introducing locations from the first "Rocky" movie and so forth. The Swedes in the band also went to a tattoo parlour and inked a little Nasum memory in our skins.

We've been playing with Brutal Truth as our direct support band the whole tour, which feels very weird. I mean - Brutal Truth was a source of inspiration in the early years, and it kind of feels as weird as if Napalm Death would open for us. They are super cool though, and Danny Lilker is quite the entertainer.


A presidential handshake between Kevin Sharp and Jon with Keijo as an added bonus in the background.

Dropdead, who had to drop out (no pun intended) from the first four shows due to work issues, joined us in Providence and they kick ass on stage. It sound exactly as intense and aggressive as on the records and they definitively add a punk edge to the package. They have also been a source of inspiration during the years, which should be clear as we've covered their "Bullshit Tradition" on the bonus 7" with covers for the "Inhale/Exhale" LP and also have a very Dropdeadish song on "Helvete" simply called "Drop dead"...

It will be sad to have the last show with these guys today, but there are new friends waiting on the west coast.

This is it for this time. After the tour we'll collect interesting photos from all our cameras and phones and make a more visual posting. Stay tuned.