...and so the tour began, with a Hotdog and a Beer, in the Airport. How can you resist an offer like that, 9 in the morning??
Wednesday was spent on traveling 10 hours, in a boring airplane, from Copenhagen to Atlanta.

Once we got our guitars and stuff, we got picked up by an extremely stretched and large Hummer. It was almost ridiculous.
The evening was spend watching Circle II Circle, and meeting old frends.

Thursday was the day, where we opened for Helloween and Gammaray. We had great expectasions, since we all have been fans of both bands, since we started writing music ourselves.

The show was awesome and the audience was fantastic......definitely a night to remember..........we got drunk.

Day off.

Beer, Meat, Hooters, Burgers, Jack Daniels, Gin Tonic, Vodka RedBull + a bunch of cool shows, at ProgPower Atlanta.

After som great days in Atlanta, we had a 10 hours drive towards St. Louis, ahead of us. That was at tough one!!!

At least we got to see the beautyfull landscape. Martin and Kasper went to Wall-Mart, and bought some "old man style" underware.

We woke up early, to get down to the pool and have a great swim…they even had a jacuzzi there, so we enjoyed ourselves very much. Holiday Inn is definitely the best place to stay of the Inns on the tour. After the swim, we went to the venue and it was a great place, where famous bands such as Dream Theater, Megadeth, Marylin Manson and Yngwie Malmsteen had played….Hell, even Bruce Willis had played there, hahaha.

There was room for 2500 people and approximately 100 showed up on this Monday night, so it wasn’t really packed. Anyway, it was a good show and the fans that showed up liked our music – and bought a great deal of merchandise.

The ride from St. Louis to Chicago was pretty long and boring. Cornfields, cornfields and cornfields. You’d think we were in Nebraska. Anyway, Sears tower showed up in the distance and we were excited to get to play in the 3rd largest city of the country. Staying at Red roof inn was not really cool. It is hereby rated as the worst inn of America. No breakfast, no internet….small beds etc.

The venue for the show was a sportsbar with bartenders who had been hired according to their breast size. The stage was really small and our show wasn’t our best performance, but we did all right. Afterwards, we got hammered pretty severely, as the the promoter had provided enough beer….rarely happens, when Manticora plays, hahaha. Luckily, we had an off-day and a short drive to Milfwaukee the day after. We’ll of course be back in Chicago, where the 2 liter bourbon bottles are very cheap, hahaha. “Are Y’all in a Baaaaainnnnnd”?

After a short drive from Chicago, we arrived at the La Quinta inn in Milwaukee. Nice hotel, where we managed to get some laundry done. It was needed, as people’s socks and underwear had exceeded expiring date. We filled the sinks with ice and immediately began cooling the beer. The bottle of bourbon was also opened…after all, it was our off-day. Lars was half-dead, so the rest of the guys went out to eat with our extremely cool driver Radu (also known as Ragout, Racoon, Balloon, Ra-don’t, The General etc.).

The waiter at the restaurant acted very professional and managed to only break the cork of the wine bottle(s) twice. What a dork! Poor guy – he was only 18. Early bed-call (after a drink or 2 at the hotel room).

We went out to buy some drumheads and other miscellaneous stuff during the morning, and Mads  by accident got to buy a set of new thunderleg Madshine precision DW Kick pedals. Afterwards, we left for the venue, which was actually a bowling alley – with the venue as a side dish. The show went fine, even if the audience wasn’t really that big.

Anyway, we did our thing, and went backstage (bigger than the venue) to change and then we went for a good bowling match. Kasper decided to use a size 17 (54) so he looked more than ridiculous…but nevertheless very funny. The draught beer was flowing freeeeeeely from the nice waitress, so we were in heaven. CIIC joined in on the fun, and played even worse than we did…..Mitch is a bitch, hehehehehe. We went to bed shitfaced….again.

“Damnit”, our heads said, while we drove for 8½ hours to Detroit. “Damnit to Hell!!!!”. Even our feet had a hang-over. We were told that we’d be playing in a rough neighbourhood in Detroit, and leaving the venue by one self would mean that we’d get gang-raped or shot…or both. We were adviced not to leave unless we were accompanied by our truckdriver that is carrying a side-arm.

Well, the surroundings might look like shit, but the venue oozed of nostalgia and a lot of hard-rock / metal history. Guitars, picks, pictures, drumheads and old concert tickets etc, was everywhere on the walls. We met our good friends / American brothers from Justdefy – the first band of the night, and there was much rejoice, hahaha. We played one Hell of a show, and the 250 people there, went crazy.

The guys from Justdefy made sure that we didn’t have a chance of staying sober (as planned…NOT). Our money obviously didn’t work in Detroit…thanks for the drinks guys!!! No matter the neighbourhood, we WILL be back! Here’s a public excuse to our driver for making sure that he slept in the car in stead of in our room…sorry Balloon……he he.

4 hour drive. Fucking cold. We got into a Days Inn, which is a good and well-equipped hotel. The venue was only 500 meters away, so we could walk down there. The Agora Ballroom is a well-reknowned place, where both Elvis Presfold and The Beatles have been playing when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

We of course played at the small stage. Anyway, there was a great backstage facility, with showers, toilets and cold beer. 350 people showed up and we put on a Hell of a show, causing people to give us the best merchandise sale of the tour so far. Thank you Cleveland. 

We emptied the bourbon bottle, emptied the beers and anything else that was intoxicating, and during the Jon Oliva’s Pain set, Lars and Martin brought 4 glasses of whiskey for Jon Oliva and Chris Kinder. Very funny night. Afterwards, we got back to the hotel and had a redundant goodnight beer or 2. We actually can’t remember how many beer that was. Oh – Lars fell in front of the elevator to the big amusement of the 15 musicians/crew standing there. What a stunt! What a night!

Pretty goddamn hungover (again) we drove towards Pittsburgh. Luckily for us it was a short drive.

WOW….what a beautiful city….definitely the coolest city we’ve been to on this tour! Didn’t do much that day/night other than eat and relax – and doing a signing session in the gigantic LOCAL Guitar Center….only Lars went for a run at the hotel fitness later on J

Oh – we met Mr. Sullivan – a cross-dresser that frequently stays at the hotel. VERY funny to see a man in women’s clothing….

We woke up to meet Radu’s local friend Rachel, who acted as a guide this day for us. We went to the mall (except for Martin, who chose to follow the old D:A:D mantra of Sleeping the day away). We had 1½ hours of shopping until we had to be back for the load-in at Hard Rock café. Lars did some extra shopping and we went for a beer, until we found out that we actually had 3 hours to spare.

We drove back to the hotel and got into the pool. Great fun with Racoon. At the venue, we secured a backstage area and got ready for the show. We played very well (as usual, hahaha), Only Mads fucked things up….the show was streamed live on the internet, which was a first time for us. Funny and strange show…Martin did a posing solo on the side of the stage, where a waiter went by, with an ice cream dessert – really surrealistic experience. After getting hammered again, we went out to get some pizza at 2 in the morning.

Returning to the venue, Lars managed to twist off Mitch’s nipple-piercing. It went to the floor, where Mads (the falcon eye – or the flying eal / Buttercock) found it. Unfortunately, Mitch decided to drop it again…..Pull yourself together Mitch….(sorry…Lars). We got home at 3.00 in the morning……tired as fuck.

We left the picturesque Pittsburgh to the tune of “Fucking An Animal” with GWAR (our new tour song), and headed towards Allentown. 6 hours drive in the beautiful Pennsylvania landscape. We ate a dinner at the local Italian restaurant, and Martin and Mads ordered pizza’s, the size of Mads’ floor toms…this was simply outrageous. Food for 89804280 days.

Woke up early at the Red Roof crap hotel and had a lobby-call at 13.00. We drove to the venue, only to find out that no one was there!! So after a few calls from Chris (Jon Oliva’s Pain), we realised that no one would be at the venue until 4.00 p.m. This didn’t really make sense, since there’d be 4 warm-up bands on this day!!! Well – back to the hotel to eat some of Mads and Martins gigantic pizza’s from the night before – and a little nap, hehe. Return to the venue at 4 o clock, and begin the load-in. It was actually a god venue to play in, even if there were stairs leading up to the stage from the audience (very peculiar). There were 2 stags, so 3 of the warm-up bands performed at the small stage, with us on the large stage. All in all, the show went fine and we managed to get a bit drunk afterwards, in spite of our promises to ourselves that it wouldn’t happen.
 
Lars and Mads did an interview outside in the van for an American radio station. At some point, the concert was visited by some of the most cool guys in the whole business. As it is, Testament was playing on the same night in Allentown – less than 1 mile from where we did our show. Unfair competition, yes – but these guys stopped by at our show, after having performed themselves to pay their respect to the Mountain King. Chuck Billy and the guys actually stayed at the venue until the bitter end, which just show the magnitude of their kindness and respect for Jon Oliva. Yes, we shook their hands, and yes – our hands will never be washed again, hahaha. Testament fucking rules!

…and so came the day of the Big Apple….what a disappointment! We had hoped that we’d be able to just get 1 or 2 hours on Manhattan – to take some band photos on Times Square etc. We’d have loved to get some pictures like that to the funding organisations back in Denmark who have helped us out economically on this tour (Thanks MXD/ROSA/KODA..:-). Well, unfortunately, we had to go directly to the venue after leaving our stuff at the hotel, and begin the load-in. And afterwards, there was a lot of time to kill, but not enough for us to drive the ½ hour into Manhattan and the ½ hour back.
 
Lars had forgotten to bring his stage clothes from the hotel (jerk), so he had Radu drive him back….or…around New Jersey etc. Lars and Radu got lost, and without a GPS, New Jersey is the fucking road-maze of this earth. 1 hour was spent, driving around, trying to catch up on a road that would lead to the hotel….crossing George Washington Bridge twice (there goes 16 dollars Goddamnit), and finally arriving back at the venue 45 minutes before showtime. Very bad preparation for a show.
 
The venue was an old Mafia-joint, so our cell-phones didn’t work inside, due to all of the lead and other metal that was inlaid in the walls to keep FBI’s scanners out, hahaha. Great story! The show went fine and we had a great time afterwards, with some fans buying booze for us. Some got more drunk than others, but all had fun..:-)

NEVER change a winning team, someone once said! Well, we began our drive towards Springfield at 10 a.m., but for some strange reason, we didn’t listen to “Fucking An Animal”, and what happens? We had a flat tyre on the highway half an hour into the drive!!!! This almost made us superstitious. Well, we spent an hour, getting the doughnut on instead of the tyre and immediately headed for a place where they could fix new tyres. That took 2 hours (and we got to visit Burger King in the meantime…..YES!), and then we were on the road again. A 7 hour drive meant that we didn’t arrive at the venue untill 8 p.m. – again some horrible conditions, if you want to perform to perfection.

Well, that actually happened anyway. We played one of the best shows of the tour and the crowd responded very positively. We had no backstage area, but that didn’t destroy our mood, so we went to the bar and once again a fan poured booze own our throats. Where do those Americans get all that money from? We thought they had a recession??? Anyway, it was a great night and we loaded the truck at 3.30 in the morning, getting ready for bed.

Last show on the tour.and with the hospitality of our manager (Claus) and his new family, we couldn't have a better way to end this amazing tour Thank you!

After arriving to the venue and doing the load in we went to have dinner with the whole Bishop/Jensen Family.thanks Fran ;) We got back to the venue, prepared for the show changing clothes..drinking some beers and then gave the great audience one HELL of a show (we were told, hehe) as was it the last Manticora show on Earth! When the night was over it was time for the big. I hate goodbye scenes. But with a bottle of whisky going from person to person it all went pretty smooth. We drove back to our hotel at Claus place and had some more alchohol before we all collapsed of exhaustion!

Once again we felt the kindness of the Bishop/Jensen Family as we were ALL invited for brunch at Claus’ Mom and Dad in laws’ house. Good way to start the day when we were all pretty hungover. We went to Raleigh Airport to pick up 2 rental cars which would take us to Atlanta with our gear. A 7 hours drive....hmmm, not much to write about that…We though reached our destination, hehe. Arrived late….got some food…and some drinks at the hotel room of course, and went to bed…a looong day!

Woke up pretty early. Kasper and Lars went to the pool at the hotel to exercise a bit before they had to spend 10 hours in an aeroplane. The gear we had rented was delivered and we went to the airport to check in. Well, it seemed they NEVER had seen a guitar before at the Delta check in and after 30 minutes of waiting they came to the conclusion of charging 450 $ for oversized items. Sorry for my language. ASSHOLES!!!!!

Nothing to do about it. We went to our terminal, got some food, and the mood was good again we are pretty easy to satisfy, hehe. The flight was great, saw about 4 movies each before landing in Paris the next morning.

Back in Europe = short distances 1½ hours flight to Copenhagen and we were home! Family and friends were there to greet us after 3 weeks at the other side of the World.

Once again thanks to everybody involved in this tour….it has simply been amazing!!!

Manticora