European Tour 2007 Report

Hey everybody, just wanted to check in from our current tour of Europe to let you know how things are going. The shows have all been great, with excellent audiences every single night. Today we're in Budapest. Today's venue is a small ship that is docked here in the city, it has been converted into a nightclub. It's a really interesting place to do a show, that's for sure. We always have great shows in Budapest, so we're sure tonight will be no exception.

So far on this tour we've played the following countries: France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia. The shows in Romania and Bulgaria were our first shows ever in those countries, and we were happy to see they have amazing death metal scenes there.

We want to say thanks to all of the great fans who've come to the shows so far, and we want to say a big hello to all of the cool people we've had the chance to hang out with. We still have another 14 shows to play on this tour, so we look forward to seeing the rest of you as the tour continues.

March 9, 2007 | Posted by Alex at 11:40 AM

Alex gives the update on George

Hey everyone, we just wanted to update you guys on the situation with George. He has an inflamed lung that has been making breathing very difficult and painful for him. He had to miss the Pittsburgh show because of this. We want to say thanks to Maurizio from Kataklysm for singing "Stripped, Raped and Strangled" with us, and also say thanks to the Pittsburgh fans who contributed some growling throughout the show. We thought we might have a similar situation at the next show in Philadelphia, but George was able to perform despite his illness. He is still having some breathing difficulty, but he is improving. He also thinks he'll be able to finish the remaining shows without any problems, as the medicine the doctors perscribed for him is reducing the inflammation. Anyway, this is not a permanent problem, just a passing illness. George should be just fine soon. George and the rest of us want to say a big thank you to all of the fans who have expressed concern and support on this matter, it means a lot to us.

November 18, 2004 | Posted by thewendy at 7:57 PM | Comments (11)

News about George

Singer George Fisher has been diagnosed with a viral lung infection and is in a lot of pain. He was forced to cancel last nights show in The World in Pittsburg, where the band performed an instrumental set. However, George will try to finish out the next 7 shows.

Since He cannot be around any smoke, the band kindly request a no smoking courtesy from the fans. There will be daily announcements at the clubs to notify people on George's condition so everynody can decide for themselves whether they want to stay or leave.

November 17, 2004 | Posted by thewendy at 7:56 PM | Comments (1)

European tour wrap up and Belarus/Ukraine explanation

Hey everybody, we're back from the European tour, so I figured it would be a good time to give a report of how things went.

The last time you heard from us, we had just begun the Scandinavian portion of the tour. Everything wound up going very well for us up there, with lots of killer shows. We also got to play with some really cool bands such as Visceral Bleeding, Naglfar and Maple Cross. Many thanks to the bands, fans, and organizers of the shows up there, we had an awesome time.

After leaving Scandinavia, we did a couple of shows in Germany, then we headed on to the Eastern European portion of the tour. We had some great shows in Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. It seemed like everything was going really well, and we were very excited, since advance word said that the next show, which was in Belarus, would be sold out with 1000 people. Advance sales for the Ukraine show were also amazing, with a reported 1200 tickets sold.

Unfortunately, things started to go bad the moment we got to the Belarussian border. We wound up being stuck there for 9 hours, dealing with paperwork for customs. We had been to Belarus for a concert in 1998, and we got the through the border considerably quicker, so we weren't expecting such a delay. When we finally cleared the border, we hurried across the country to Minsk, ready to play the show. When we arrived in Minsk, we had a few more customs concerns to deal with, and while we were taking care of those, we learned that the government had banned us from playing in Belarus. They had gone to the concert venue and shut down the concert 2 hours before we arrived, and sent the fans home. This was horrible for us, knowing that we were there, ready to play, and the fans were there, ready to see us, and the government wouldn't allow it. We were very disappointed, but we still thought we'd be able to play in the Ukraine. We were told that we had to do some more paperwork at the customs office in Minsk, which would re-open the following morning at 7 am. This paperwork was needed for us to leave Belarus. We waited overnight in Minsk, and then the tour manager began working at the Belarus customs office. By 10:30 am, we still had not been given permission to leave Belarus by the customs office. We were told to try to get permission at the Ukrainian/Belarussian border, so we began the long drive to the Ukraine. We arrived at the border at 6pm. the concert was supposed to start in a couple of hours, so time was running out, but we were still hoping for the best. Unfortunately, the Belarus border officials kept us at the border until 1:00 am, which left no hope at all to play the Ukraine show. Two shows cancelled because of government/border problems in Belarus. We were disgusted, and very disappointed. It's a terrible feeling, knowing that you can't play for fans who have been waiting so long to see you.

After we crossed the Belarus portion of the border, the Ukrainian border was just as difficult, if not more. We waited there from 1:00 am to 5:00 pm the following day. We now were at serious risk of missing yet another show, the Serbain gig on the 14th of October. The drive there would take more than an entire day of driving, non-stop. Add to this the fact that the Ukraine has some of the worst road conditions in Europe, and trip seemed nearly impossible. We were also forced pay a fee to have the police escort us across the Ukraine to the Hungarian border. Despite these obstacles, we were determined not to miss another concert, so our drivers set out and drove in shifts until we finally arrived in Serbia, at 12:30 am on the 15th of October. The fans were still waiting, even though we were late by several hours. We were able to play, although the curfew did not permit time for our tour partners Spawn of Possession to play. The show in Serbia was excellent, and we were able to play there because of the incredible effort put forth by our drivers Steve and Tony, and our crew- Pol, Brian, Stan, John and Robin. We also need to thank Spawn for helping to get the gear in while we hurried to prepare to play, and the promoters from the Ukraine, Katerina and Oleg, for all of their help at the borders.

In all, our experience at the borders of Belarus and Ukraine was a bureaucratic nightmare. We want to say we are sorry to the fans who we were unable to play for in those countries. We did everything we could.

After the Serbian show, things got back to normal, with a couple of great shows in Hungary and Austria. Now we are back home, preparing for our big Fall tour with Napalm Death in the USA.

We want to thank everybody who came to the shows on the European tour, you guys were awesome. See you next time!

Alex

October 20, 2004 | Posted by thewendy at 7:55 PM | Comments (1)

Alex signs in from the road

What's up everybody, Alex here checking in from the road. So far we've worked our way up the East coast, and now we're in Canada. We've had great shows along the way, some in big cities like New York, and others in smaller cities like Manchester. And of course our return to our home town Buffalo was killer as usual, there is still a great scene there. It was also great to see some friends from the old days come out to the show.

Tonight in Ottawa will be our third show in of the Canadian leg of this tour. The first two gigs(Montreal and Toronto) were packed, and the fans were amazing, everybody was going sick. We've had a lot of great shows in those cities, but these may have had the best crowd responses yet. We're really excited to see how the rest of the Canadian shows will be, based on how brutal the first two gigs were.

OK, it'll be time for soundcheck soon, so I'm gonna bail. Massive thanks to all of the fans who've come to the shows so far, you've made this tour killer. We'll see the rest of you soon!

July 11, 2004 | Posted by thewendy at 7:53 PM

South American tour report

We have just returned from an 8 show tour of Central and South America. This was the first time we have had the opportunity to do a real tour of South America, and we were very happy with the great response we received down there.

We had played in Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Santiago on separate occasions before, so we already knew they had great death metal scenes in those cities. The remaining 5 dates were in cities we had never played before, so we were very pleased to see that their death metal fans were just as brutal as the cities we had already been to.

From what we saw on this tour, we'd have to say the scene down there is incredibly strong, with great, brutal fans, and lots of killer bands.

The next time we tour South America, we'd like to arrange a few "off" days, so we have more time to hang out with the fans we meet and see the cities we play in. The schedule for this tour was pretty hectic at times(we had a 12+ hour journey from Sao Luis to Buenos Aires that stopped at a total of 6 airports, for example), but the energy at the shows more than compensated for any lost sleep on the many flights we had.

We also would like to play in some additional countries next time, as we know they must have great scenes as well.

Now we're heading to Europe for the Waldrock Festival, where we'll get to play for thousands of Dutch metalheads, and share the stage with some of Metal's biggest names. After that, we'll be heading north to Canada, so all of the death metal maniacs up there had better be ready!

We want to give many thanks to all at Tumba records for putting on this tour, and all of the local promoters that brought us to their cities. And of course, most importantly, we want to give massive thanks to the awesome, brutal fans in Brazil, Costa Rica, Argentina and Chile for making the tour the great success that it was.

Thank you!

Alex

June 19, 2004 | Posted by thewendy at 7:52 PM

Words on Mexico

We just returned from our tour of Mexico, and we wanted to thank all of the great fans there for making the tour a huge success. We also want to thank the organizers of the tour, and the crew that worked with us throughout the tour.

All of the shows were killer, with the shows in Monterrey and Mexico City being among the best shows we've ever done(the Monterrey show was also one of the hottest!). The whole trip to Mexico was really great.

This was the first time we did more than 2 or 3 shows during one trip to Mexico, and it was really cool to see some different parts of the country, and meet fans from different cities. We were also happy to see lots of old friends in places we have played in the past. We want to send greetings to everybody we met in Puebla, Guadalajara, San Luis Potosi, Mexico City and Monterrey. All of the fans we met were really cool, and they had incredible energy during the concerts. We definitely don't want t o wait five years again for our next trip to Mexico!

Now we will continue on to South and Central America, where we are hoping for a similar killer response. Many thanks again to the brutal Mexican death metal fans, you rule!!!

Alex

June 1, 2004 | Posted by thewendy at 7:51 PM | Comments (1)