AGAINST ALL ODDS TOUR DIARY MAY 4 - YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! The last stretch of shows has kept us very busy once again. Haven't had a chance to do the updates, so here they come all at once again.... BACK AT THE BALLROOM After a short day of rest we made our way to Hamburg to play another show at the Ballroom. Had a great time just as we did last year. Thanx to the bands and everyone that came to rock out with us. Big thanx to Lenny for helping us with the show. And our compliment to the chef for the great dinner. See you guys next time!! CROSSOVER ROYALE FESTIVAL So all along I was under the impression that this will be an outdoor festival. On the opposite, the festival was inside and we played on probably one of the smallest stages ever. But...this was probably one of the best shows of the tour.ut. The club was abolutely packed with people. From front to back, wall to wall and even people standing in the doorway. Screaming their lungs out after every song. Seemed like we were playing in front of thousands. And seeing the whole place jump for Friday Night was a great feeling. Thank you all for making us feel so welcome. Huge thanx for Hans for the show, the food and endless beer tickets. And I mean endless. Black Halos from Canada closed the festival at around midnight, but the party went on for a long time afterwards with Jizzle and Binski being the last 2 to leave the place. Got a terible hangover next day tho from the Fisherman's Friend shots. TAVERNE DU THEATRE This was probably the most anticipated show of the whole tour. After playing the Power Festival in this town last year, we knew the turnout was gonna be great. And we were not disappointed at all. The place was absolutely rammed. The crowd was great, moshing, screaming and all that good stuff. Thank you all!!! Big thanx to Sandro and Manu for the show, the food and the beer. And big thanx to Jeff for letting us crash at your house! FLASHBACK LIVE Since the show in France fell through, we ended up getting on another gig in Holland for that date. Couldn't let a Friday night go to waste. Good show again. Not too many people, but those that came made us feel great. Thanx for Gerjan from Bajvan for sorting us out this gig last minute. LA GRANDE FINALE Off to Paris for the last and final show. Eric from Bad Reputation got us this show at one of the best venues in Paris. What a way to finish the journey. Big stage, big sound and good bands. Thanx to everyone at the venue for the golden treatment!!! Definitely finished off with a bang!!! And huge thanx to Eric for getting us this amazing gig. THATS ALL FOLKS Stayed busy most of the day today. Had to make the last drive back to Germany to drop off the drums. Gave the bus a good clean. Now all thats left is just drop off the gear, have a few Brinkhoffs at Max's and off to the airport first thing tomorrow. It was yet another amazing tour and we thank everyone that made it great! Once we get home we'll get some pics and videos up from the tour. Better late than never I guess. Stay in touch everyone. We'll see you on the road next time. PEACE APRIL 28 - STILL ALIVE Well, its been a while, I know. We've been very busy this tour. Actually, the busiest we've ever been. Most of our time has been spent on the road or at the venues. Most days going on very little sleep, a bit of food and quite a lot of beer. So let me just fill you in on some of the highlights from the last 2 weeks. ROMANIA Five days in Romania! Good times for the most part. But there is something to be said about Romanian roads. Last year I said that there can not possibly be worse roads than in Poland. Well, I take that back. You probably need to experiance driving there for yourself to understand the situation. On the main roads (I will not dare call the highways) you see everything from bicycles to tractors to horse and buggies (no joke). And the pot holes that are a size of a Smart car make driving quite a challenge. Even in Bucharest, the capital, we saw a few tractors rolling down city streets. Chaos!!! We spent the 5 days touring with Dirty Shirt from Romania and Babylon Pression from France. It was a cool experience for us. Both great bands on and off the stage. Julien from BP had a bit of an injury on stage and has been dubbed Sponge Legs ever since then. But he pulled it through for the rest of the shows. The crowds have been great and we made a lot of new friends and fans in Romania. The weather's been good as well, so no complaints. Finished off with a festival gig in Buzau. Wicked crowd and a great party! After the show we had to do another overnight move to make it in time for our first of the 2 shows in Greece. GREECE Its amazing the places this band has been. Greece always seemed so far and now here we are. Had to cross a few borders, but without any problems. The border guard in Bulgaria was the best tho. This forty something year old man handed us our passports back, did a terrible air guitar and sang "You sexy mother fuckers!!!". True story. We had a good laugh out of that. Still not sure why he did that. I think he might've had a thing for Jizzle. His passport pages were all sticky afterwards. Anyhow... The show in Thessaloniki was great. All the bands we wicked and the crowd gave us some wicked responce. Huge thanx to George from CAIN for the show, a place to sleep and the Spartan steaks after the show! Who knew that red meat soaked in olive oil could taste that good. Doing it up Greek style!!! Finally got some good sleep. For the past week, we've only been sleeping 3-4 hours at best. Headed to Athens next day to play at Underworld. Wicked show!!! Played with a bunch of amazing bands. Huge than to Panos for hooking up the show and for getting us the hotel rooms, they were much needed. The hospitality in Greece has been amazing. I guess thats why the tourists go there. Can't wait to come to Greece again!!! MACEDONIA Headed for another long haul to Macedonia to play on Monday. Even the promoters didn't think we'll make it through that border. But we did, making us the 2nd Canadian band EVER to play in Macedonia!!!! BEAT THAT!!! The border guards tried to jack us for 80 Euros for some declaration papers. But we just played dumb and eventually they let us trough for free. The show was good. Not to many people, but good times anyhow. SLOVENIA Been looking forward to these 2 shows for a while. Met Leaf-Fat back in Canada when they came to play the CMW. Great band and great bunch of guys. But first we had to make it into the country. that was an adventure. Last year we had a tough time getting into Serbia, but this time they just waved us through. Slovenian border wasn't so easy. They made us take everything out of the van. Gear, clothes, everything. Got the dog to come and sniff all the bags and the van. Surprized the dog didn't pass out from the smell of our dirty stage clothes. At the end, one of the guards called Yaazer inside. Noone really knows what happened in there. Yaazer said they just checked his pockets. But he did come out of there walking really funny and insisted on standing for the rest of the drive. Both shows went really well. Had a day off in between in Ljubljana as well. First day off in 2 weeks. Spent most of the day hanging out at Leaf-Fat's jam spot. Could not find any internet in the city tho. Thats why never had an update. Definitely had a good stay in Slovenia. So many great people here. Oh, and Slovenia also takes the trophy for the cleanest washrooms in Europe. Even in venues, they were spotless. Not only clean, but had TP, soap and toilet seats!!! This is not something you see every day on tour. Huge thanx to Tesky and all the boys from Leaf-Fat for the great 3 days. Hope we see you boys soon!!! MOVING ON Seems like all this happened so long ago, my head is hurting. The following show in Gyor, Hungary was on a ship. Really cool venue, but really bad smell. Thanx to Gabor and the rest of the boys from Insane for the gig and the food. After the show was yet another overnight mission to Holland. Fifteen hours on the road again. Luckily its the last long drive of the tour. Played the last 2 shows with Babylon Pression. Great times both nights, we'll see you guys next year. Thanx to Pascal for last night's show on Binche. And thanx to Sam and everyone else at PALAIS DE JUSTICE for all the beer, food and a place to sleep. Forst shower in a week!!! Felt great. Spent the day at Max's house again today. Second and last day off of the tour. Time to relax and take it easy before the last stretch of shows. Off to Hamburg tomorrow to play the Ballroom again. Stay in touch everyone. Next update shouldn't take so long.... PEACE APRIL 14- BACK TO CZECH This was a long couple of days. Lots of driving to do. First we headed from Stuttgart to Czech Republic. So grateful to have a nice new bus where we can sleep comfortably on the road, and occupy ouyrself with some movies and the X Box!!! Luxury life now. The show at Velbloud in Czech was amazing yesterday. Saw some people that rememberd us from Rock For People last year. That sure felt great. 'Who Killed Marilyn?' got the crowd warmed up just right. We hit the stage after them and the place went nuts! What a wicked crowd!!! Thanx to all you guys for all the support. Big thanx to Rob for hooking up the show. And thanx for all the food, beer and Czech rum as well. Got a terrible hag over today. ANOTHER SOLDIER MISSION After the show is was go time again. Loaded in our stuff and hit the road around 2am. Its a long way to Romania. Jizzle and I got the first shift and lasted till about 4am. Then Binski and Yaazer took over and got us into Hungary by 8 in the morning. Then we took a short break and got back on the road at around 11. Took a couple wrong turns on the way into Romania. Apparently our map is not 'detailed enough'. I guess thats what you call it when half the towns and most roads aren't listed on the map. But we're in town now. The Romanian assault begins today at "MAISON CULTURELLE ZAMFIRESCU" in Satu Mare. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Oh yeah, pics and videos are coming soon. Tomorrow most likely. The IT department is lacking. PEACE APRIL 12 - BACK ON TRACK Unfortunately the festival that was supposed to happen Saturday got cancelled last minute. Shiity, but that gace us plenty of time to get everything together. Our second bus huffed and puffed all the way to Hannover, where we finally picked up bus number 3. This is the last one. New and reliable, just what we needed. Spent the evening hanging out with Gerjan in Netherlands. Had some great food and some Grolsch and hit the road. STUTTGART First show of the tour!!! Stuttgart here we come. Awesome times! Lots of good food and German beer!!! The show went smooth and the crowd rocked! Thanx to Credic and DOA for sharing the stage with us. And thanx to Robby for hooking us up with the gig and the hotel! We'll see you all next time!!!! PEACE APRIL 10 - AND SO IT BEGINS Once again, Agains All Odds is the perfect name for this tour. We got to Germany without too much hassle. Other than an unscheduled 3 hour stop in Ireland. Gotta love the discount airlines. Got our tour bus, or van, or whatever you call that. Some kind of beast on wheels anyhow. It made it down to Pearl for the drums and it almost made it to Max's house. About 300 meters shy, it died in the middle of the road. So we pushed it off to the side street and waited for our 'new' bus to get delivered from Holland. Finally around 10pm, it arrived. Not much better than the first one. One headlight, no insurance, no front plate...and the list goes on. So off to Stuttgart today for our first show. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! PEACE APRIL 7 - YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! All set and ready to go at last. Because of all the obstacles we had to overcome to make this tour possible we decided to call it the AGAINST ALL ODDS TOUR. The spring attack on Europe begins in just a couple of days! The van's sorted, the gear is waiting and the shows are booked! Just 2 days off in the 25 day blitz of 10 countries. Should be a blast and as always with plenty adventures. First time on the road for Yaazer. See how the rookie holds up. As usual, keep an eye out for updates right here. The video diary will be up on YouTube as well. Those are always good for killing some time and a good laugh. The videos from last year are up at YouTube.com if you wanna get an idea of what you're in for. Next update will be from Germany!!! See you all soon!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!! PEACE

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