The trip started a day before the first show in Belfast. We were supposed to play London but couldn’t get a show there so we just stayed there for the night and left for Belfast the next day. Dingo, our driver for the dates in England and Scotland took us to the Luton airport for the early afternoon flight to Ireland. It was one of those cheap airlines which meant we couldn’t bring too much luggage and had to be creative to get a maximum amount of merch with us, we spent some time cramming the bags we were going to bring in as hand luggage as full as possible. This caused me some trouble getting through the security check, it’s surprising how much a distortion pedal, a tape player, some tapes, instrument cables and a set of bass strings resemble a bomb in the x-ray machine… Anyway we got through and left for Belfast on time. The flight went pretty easy aside from some drunken morons who we had to sit next to. Some guy who looked a lot like Neil Tennant told us not to judge all Irish people by those guys. Thank you Neil, we didn’t!

On the plane we came up with a dilemma that has to be a first for any touring band in the world: none of us could remember which city the first show was in! It was pretty funny but not really a problem because we still knew where to meet Glyn, the guitarist from the Dagda, the other band we were going to tour Ireland with. The other band was called Easpa Measa, it took us some time to figure out how it’s pronounced… By the way it’s Us-Puhh Mus-Ahh.

The plane landed hitting the ground pretty heavily (the flight attendant actually said "As I’m sure you all noticed, we have landed in Belfast") and we took the bus to central Belfast and met Glyn. We were spared the embarrassment of having to ask where the show was, the first thing Glyn told us was that his house was right next to the club.

After a pretty long walk we got to his place for food and getting to know the Belfast punks.

Before getting to the show we hung out at the house and learned a bit about Northern Ireland and Belfast. I asked about the flags hanging from every lightpole on the streets which I learned marked either catholic, protestant or British neighbourhoods. I was also told that the bridge next to the house was the site of some of the worst riots between catholics and protestants.

We left for the club at sunset, it was a three story building with a pub downstairs, a bigger pub with a stage on the second floor and a disco upstairs. The show was at the pub with the stage. We finally met everyone in the other bands and took time to get familiar with the new equipment, we borrowed the Dagdas stuff for the Irish leg of the tour. The crowd started coming in and the place got pretty crowded eventually, I was pretty surprised that the turnout was so good.

The Dagda played first and they were crushingly tight and heavy. And loud as fuck. But somehow Pentti managed to sleep through their set even though he was lying on a bench right next to the stage! The Dagda didn’t seem very happy with their show that night and it ended up being pretty short, Easpa Measa were next. They were also dark and heavy hardcore but less metal. I thought they were great in Belfast already but the more I saw them as the tour went on the more I grew to like them. And yeah, Pentti managed to sleep through that one as well which to me proves that he has supernatural powers. We played last and it went ok, a pretty good opening for the tour. The crowd didn’t get very wild but seemed to enjoy the set, we had a nice time.

After the set we helped the Dagda guys load their stuff into the van and walked back to the house. Some of us stayed up for a while, I hit the sack as fast as I could.

Day 2: It’s a long way to Tipperary, and a few more miles to Limerick…

The day began listening to records, checking email and stuff, just waiting for the ride to Limerick show up. We were three bands with one van and two smaller cars. Todays ride was going to be the longest in Ireland, Limerick is located exactly on the opposite side of the island, Belfast in the northeast end and Limerick in the southwest. I agreed to get in the van for the day, the bad thing about that was that it didn’t have any windows in the back and it had the entire backline. And a motorcycle we were supposed to drop off somewhere on the way even though I thought it would have been cool if Vellu rode that on to the stage to the tune of "Hell bent for leather"… Well you cant have everything. The ride was pretty sick, imagine sitting in the back of a van for seven hours, not seeing anything that’s going on, just feeling the bumps and turns that you get when racing through the Irish countryside. I’ve heard it’s beautiful too! We joked with the Dagda guys about bands that drive around in virtual hotels on wheels and write songs about their hard life on the road, ha! To top it all off the bass player from the Dagda got motion sickness and puked in the van! So the trip was a bit on the rough side but we got to Limerick eventually.

The show was at a boatclub or something, a decent sized bar with a more than decent sized backstage. Easpa Measa played first and the Dagda were second. I actually missed both bands because I needed the rest after the drive. And Pentti managed to sleep through both bands despite the noise, again! We played last again to a crowd that was considerably smaller than the night before. Nevermind that, we had a really good time playing and it was a good show, I think we did better than in Belfast. After the show some of us started drinking, some of us just hung out. We heard a great story from one of the guys in the Dagda. His other band had played a show in eastern Germany to an audience of a punk, a skinhead and a dog. The only one who was really into them was the skinhead who came up to them after the show and went: "Hey guys I really like your band, where are you from?" and the guy replies in his thick Irish accent "We’re from Ireland." The skinhead gets visibly excited now: "Really? There is such a place as OILAND? I have to get there!" The guys ended up telling him all sorts of stories about this new fictional skinhead paradise until he got very emotional… Eventually we separated to two groups, one going to the party place and one going to the sleeping place. I opted to go to sleep since I was feeling kind of sick and Pentti joined me. Our host Albert took us to his place and it was very nice, he had a big collection of music dvd:s that he and Pentti stayed up watching until very late.

Day 3: "A good un"

We spent the morning walking around Limerick with Pentti. I think we were looking for some cdr-cases or something but mainly we were just killing time. I saw this one guy who was walking on the street enraged about something, drunk and shouting at everyones general direction with a knife in his hand. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. Reminded me of home.

The ride to Galway was supposed to be pretty short but we took our time exploring the irish countryside which had neat stuff like limestones and portal tombs. It was very metal which inspired us to take some band pictures. I rode in a smaller car this time and it had the luxury of a window so I could see for myself that the Irish countryside was indeed very beautiful.

We arrived in Galway in the early evening and loaded our stuff to the pub we were going to play in. The one upstairs. We killed time before the show sitting in the downstairs pub and exploring the town which seemed to have a very active nightlife.

The local band Diatribe played first to a crowd that kept getting bigger and bigger. I noticed a lot of people wore t-shirts of Finnish metal bands and were even chanting "Finland!" between songs. I hope they weren’t disappointed, even though we obviously own HIM and all those guys in the sexiness department we don’t sound much like them…

But I digress. So Easpa Measa played next and the crowd started to warm up, they did very well. The Dagda got on next and the crowd really got into them, it was impossible to see them play from the crowd that at this point was so big that the place was pretty much packed. Lots of different people too, not just punks I noticed. After their very good show I pointed out to their bass player that they were fucking great and he just said in his usual way "Yeah, a good un!"

By the time we got on the crowd was hungry for more action. And drunk, I suppose. The show was pretty much a perfect show, the crowd was crazy and we played floorlevel. I think we got called back a couple of times and ended up playing a pretty long set, for us that is. A good un indeed.

After the show we again hung out at the venue for a while, I had a couple of beers with Jussi and Tiia before heading back to the sleeping place or the party place. I went to the party place at first, lots of people there. But like I said I was a little sick and the beer didn’t exactly help it so I left pretty early. Jussi and Tiia stayed there until morning.

Day 4: Thanks to Asker Masker

We walked back to the club, it was grey and rainy. The show tonight was supposed to be in Dublin but for some reason it had been moved to Kilcoole which is about 20 miles south of Dublin. I rode with Tim from the Dagda this time, he was into war history and that’s what we talked about most of the trip, also irish history and Finland and music and that kind of stuff. The trip was pretty quick and we arrived in Kilcoole in good time. It was a pretty small town right on the coast and the place we played in was some kind of a youth centre, it had a huge gymnasium with a stage and a smaller space upstairs which was where we played. We got really good food at one of the organizers place which was right next to the venue. The show started pretty early, the crowd was really young I noticed. Most people seemed under eighteen, some seemed as young as twelve which was cool. In addition to the 3 bands on tour a local one, Puget Sound played and were very good. It was their first show in a while I understood.

Before our show I walked around a bit more but made sure I caught most of the Dagdas and Easpa Measas sets. During the Dagdas set we also made our setlists downstairs right below from where they played. They were so loud that everything in the room was shaking. Also right next to the kitchen where we were in, in the gym hall some kids played a sport that could only be described as "Anarchy ball". It involved a ball, a bicycle or two and lots of people running around just throwing the ball at each other. Looked pretty crazy.

During the other bands the crowd was pretty big and seemed into it but by the time we played a lot of them had disappeared, mostly because they were pretty young and had to be home early I guess. There were still a good bunch of people there and the show was very fun. At one point Mikko wanted to thank both of the bands we’d been touring with for making the dates in Ireland happen, like I said earlier we found the words "Easpa Measa" a little difficult to pronounce… By the time we stopped playing after a few encores the walls were dripping with sweat!

We drove to Dublin for the night, we stayed at Easpa Measas bass players house. We said goodbye to our friends in the Dagda and the rest of Easpa Measa who we were going to meet again in England. Some crew pictures were taken in the rain before going to shower and sleep.

Day 5: "Gigs. In England we call them gigs."