It was finally time for Manticora to go on EU tour again. The Mountain King had been kind enough to let us in on the tour and we began the tour on our home turf The Rock, Copenhagen.
We played a very good show and the crowd was pretty enthusiastic. The first gig of a tour is always a bit difficult, but despite all the chaos and confusion, everything went pretty well if you ask us. Copenhagen “You never sounded louder” \,,/
We left Copenhagen at three o’ clock in the morning headed for Germany.
Sunday was off day and after fourteen hours of travelling we finally got to our destination…a hotel in the idyllic surroundings in the hills of Aschaffenburg.
At the hotel there was a wellness area and we bombed the water away together with the Fins. After a great shower we went to the restaurant and got piss-drunk ( as usual )…thiz iz the lazt one…

After a good nights sleep we went out for a walk in the nice landscape and experienced the beauty of southern Germany, whereafter we repacked our bus totally and headed for the venue.
Once in the venue, we did all the usual stuff – load in, soundcheck etc etc, and went out to grab a beer. The show in Aschaffenburg didn’t go that well.
The rental drum kit wasn’t in the best shape. Suddenly Mads found himself with the kickdrum club in his hand…twice! After the show we went to the bus and got wasted in whisky, gin, beer and champagne.

The day started with the bus driver giving us a nice guided tour through the forests and hills of Vienna because of a wrong postal code in the GPS system. We started the day looking for a local bar. We found a nice a place and ordered the Manticora trade beer: Weisbeer. Then suddenly a stranger bought us a round of beer. What a noble man...may he rest in peace, whenever that time comes.
The catering at Planet Music in Vienna was pretty fucking good so we were ready for the show with well-fed stomachs. There was only two hundred people but two hundred great people giving us an awesome night with great response. We felt that we gave a very good performance.

Sitting at parking lot in the sun drinking weissbeer and writing this tour blog he he.....

We spend the whole day traveling from Vienna to Z7, Pratteln. We had a four our rest at a highway parkinglot and got a little drunk…again!!

Z7, Prattlen…what a great venue! The catering was great, wireless internet, washer and dryer for our clothes, nice toilets and bathroom. This time there were twice as many people as the last time Manticora played Z7 and the crowd seemed to like our show.

Straight after the Z7 show, we travelled overnight and arrived in Piacenza the following morning.

Not the greatest stage and there were only about 350 people in the crowd but a funny place we had a great day. After the show we had to drive 10 km to a hotel, where we could all have a shower.

We travelled overnight again and arrived at the Viper venue in Florence the following morning.

A pretty cool and different venue. We played a great show and Jon Oliva gave the crowd an amazing show. Greetings to the very lovely and beautiful bartenders at the Viper…thanks for the Gin and Toniq…some of us got pretty wasted he he!!

There we were…in the bus…travelling overnight…again and arrived at the Marmaja club somewhere around noon. Jon Oliva's Pain had the day off and our management had booked a headliner show for us at the Marmaja.

The local promoter had worked his ass off for the promotion of the show…he had flyers printed and also special t-shirts for this show only.
Unfortunatly the venue was located 30 kilometers outside of Milan, it was a Sunday night and the local derby between the city's biggest soccerteams was on this day.
This means that all odds were agains us and only 17 people showed up. Cool as we are they got exactly the same show as we would have given a 100.000 people stadium.

We travelled all day…had some good red wine in France, drank some gin and went pretty wasted to bed.

We started the day relaxing at nice little café in Vitoria and had some fantastic white wine. The show was fantastic. We played awesome and we really felt like the audience was with us.

An asshole promoter took us off the Scorpions show at La Cubierta 5 hours before the show. At this point we have nothing else to say…as you can imagine, we are unbelievably disappointed and shocked and we're not really shure how to react right now.

Today we played at Salamandra in Barcelona. We really liked the venue. Good backstage locations. Not the biggest crowd on the tour but hey, it's just a normal school day right…

On this day, we woke up at the entrance of "Secret Place – Tout á Fond". In was in the middle of an industrial neighbourhood and it really didn't look very promising from the outside. But we were soon about to find out, that our first impression of this place was unjustified. As the guys and galls from the secret place opened the gates to the secret place we first stepped in to an awesome backyard. The inside of the secret place, although not very big, was very cool. Awesome decorations, the owner had made by himself. Pinball in the corner, very very satisfying backstage area, fantastic catering. Probably the best on this whole tour.

Now about the show, we were a little worried if anybody would show up. To our knowledge, the secret place is quite a distance from everything he he…also, may 10th was a holyday, thus we didn't expect to fill up the place. Don't know exactly how many people there was at the secret place that night, but it doesn't really matter if we play in front of 30 or 3000 people…we always put on the same show for those who show up. On this night we played for the most fantastic audience. The place was rocking…what an awesome show…thank you all!

Thanks to the Secret Place for a great evening, catering and awesome catering.

A very very special thanks to Maud, Mirette and Severine for everything.

On this day we arrived at Paris, France. Tonights gig was at the Espace B café. As we had our first look at the stage we had our doubts if we could fit in on the stage. But somehow we managed to fit in anyways! Once again, the Manticora codex was as always: "It doesn't matter if how many or how few people that shows up, we will deliver you the same show". On this night Mads turned 47 or something like that and we all celebrated. Thank you guys so very very much for the fantastic birthday cake and the giant bear you gave Mads.

Essen, Germany. What a fantastic city. Cool stores, great restaurants, nice bars and unbelievably beautiful girls everywhere! On this night we played at Turock. Very good backstage facilities, nice catering and the stage was also good. One thing to be said about the Turock is, that we had quite a hard time unloading our stuff after our show, as the hall behind the stage is very narrow. That said, we played a quite a good show.

This is it…the 013 venue in Tilburg, Netherlands has got to be one of the best venues in the entire EU. This place was build 10 years ago especially for concerts. Pretty obvious. The inload/unload dock was huge, which made it very easy to manage the loading of all the gear. The place had 6 dressingrooms. Finally each band could have a room of their own. Fantastic catering. A cool chill out area with computer, television and a table soccer game, which was abused by Manticora.

The stage was enormous and the pa systems sounded amazing. Lighting "stuff" was also very cool. Was there enough toys for you to play with Hannake (Jon Oliva's light tech)???

We played a great show and felt that this was the perfect show to end the tour.

As Manticora is also support band to Jon Oliva's Pain on the US tour, all there is to say right now is….to be continued…