Blog
Home Sofa
Helsinki was so beautiful today. It was sunny and the leaves are brown and yellow and the car display said it was still 16 degrees warm. Not bad for October. You can smell and feel the autumn. And this sofa of mine… There are many nice and comfortable places in this world, but I think nothing could beat this safe quiet place right now. God it feels good to be home. In one piece. I can’t breathe normally after last night and after everything that happened the past few weeks. Feels like I have something stuck in my throat and even though I must be the happiest person alive right now, I could cry ever second minute when I go back to those moments and that amazing storm we created together with you every night. I’m flashed. There’s something so good and beautiful going through my whole body as I’m lying here on my own. This is what love feels like. I don’t need to understand.
Throwback Tuesday October 1st
It’s two days before we take the flight to Luxembourg for the first show. I’m sitting at a hospital in Helsinki with two special doctors and one physiotherapist. They’re looking at the magnet images we just took with this huge machine where they slide me completely in for 30 minutes and they have good news. It’s only a slipped disc on my neck and nothing worse. I’ve been living with tremendous pain for weeks and of course I was also stupid enough to Google my symptoms and what Google said looked pretty bad. I know you should never do that. I think my neck got the bad hit at Brazilian Jiujitsu training weeks ago and that caused all this. I remember the moment but I thought it’s nothing but a bruise.
They say I can do the tour if I can handle the pain. My neck, back and arm hurt like hell and I can’t feel my index finger on my right arm and it doesn’t bend at all. It’s like a carrot looking stupid and feeling horrible. I can’t play guitar normally as I can’t hold the guitar pick. Besides the pain, there are very strange nerve vibrations and other feelings all over me. They say if my whole arm goes all numb, I’ll need to have a fast surgery. They say it’s ok to do that in any of the countries on the tour. The operation will be done through my throat and that sounds pretty bad as well.. Singing in the future after that paints ugly pictures in my mind. They don’t tell me how long the recovery from the possible surgery would be. I don’t Google that. I decide not to think about it.
They say all this should get better day by day but recovery to be fully back takes months. Moving and even sweating on stage is good becaue that's how your body heals. Just be careful. No martial arts until Christmas and I’m not allowed to lift or carry anything heavy. I pack my bags and decide to go on tour. Of course.
This first day of October is also the first day without fever. I’ve been sick for a week and that is not good for sweating on stages soon with my nine operating fingers. I’d really want to post a blog about my album coming out on Friday but as my arm hurts and my index finger is stiff, I can’t write. I also cancelled all interviews and TV visits the past days. Not good for promotion, but I just can’t do it. It sucks. My dream is to have a top 10 album but that doesn’t matter enough now.
Throwback Thursday October 3rd
Drummer Risto has picked me up from my place and he carried my two big bags and my crawling soul too to the airport. Last rehearsals in Luxembourg at Club Den Atelier. The setlist feels amazing and all songs work live so well. The stage looks amazing. I’m scared as hell. What if I screw up somehow and things go bad. What if I damage myself permanently or they have to drag me to a surgery from the venue tonight or tomorrow. Or at the next show in Frankfurt.
As I’m still coughing from being sick, I take five different medicines with this red warning triangle on the box before I go to bed. Some for the flu, some for the neck. With any one of them you’re not allowed to drive. I’m taking five of them. Luckily I have a driver. And I inhale cortisone to make sure the flu doesn’t stay in my throat for too long. I know the tricks on tour, I’m a pro. I do all the physical exercises given me by the hospital’s physio people three times a day. Making my deep neck muscles stronger and giving space for the nerve between my spine and my whole right side of the body. It’s been a few days doing these workouts already and it doesn’t seem to help, but they said it’ll take time. It’s not the optimal tour start feeling but I’m happy I’m not home alone. I did that for a few weeks with these feelings and I literally went mad there alone with all the dark clouds gathering on my sky. Here I have people around me and I have other stuff to think about too. Everybody’s super supportive and they’re all so sweet. Good night. Tour start tomorrow. My chemically boosted dreams have no unicorns or rainbows but doctors sticking big knives into my throat on a club stage in front of people.
Throwback Friday October 4th First show
We go on stage without our instruments just as Guitarist Tomas suggested and the start feels good. Four human beings standing there just as they are. And then the show starts. It’s amazing. Just amazing. I’m still hurting and I can barely feel my arm but adrenaline is a strange hormone. And dopamine too. You all sing so loud and you love so loud too. It heals not only my body but my heart too. I have a new way of holding the guitar pick and it kind of works. Ok I drop maybe a hundred of them, but that’s just plastic with my logo on it. On stage I move different than in normal life and I make some moves that create a strange cold painful rush through my back to my hand. But nothing too bad. I find a way to rest my hand on my guitar during the first show on stage when I’m not playing on the verses. The show is great and everyone on stage and around it are too. We more than survived. It was a fantastic tour start actually. Two days off before the next one and lots of new hope in my heart.
Back to the sofa
I’m lying here staring at the roof at home with wet eyes. I’ll need time to digest what happened this beautiful month. I haven’t taken a pain killer for over two weeks. My finger works again and I can write a blog too. Thank you physiotherapists. It’s amazing how much you can appreciate an operational index finger and the fact that it’s not really hurting anywhere. It could have been something much worse.
I know this blog started with a dark tone. And I know after reading the lines above, the following might sound strange. And it might also sound strange as you know what I’ve experienced on stages before with Sunrise Avenue and also in Finland the last years. But I have to be honest and say, for me, these past weeks have been the absolute best experience on the road ever. It somehow makes no sense at all and it might even be wrong to say this after all the glory and amazingness in the past, but this was the best tour I’ve ever had. I’m somehow crushed in the most beautiful way and what just happened with all of you is something I will never understand or forget. It can be the long break I had from the live shows and also being relieved that everything actually worked out like it did. But it’s not just that. The way you were with us every single second of the way is just unbelievable. How you listened quietly when the songs were small and quiet and how you blew off the roof when it was time for Hometown Gang or The Elephant song. I felt a connection to you like I have never felt before. That all really really hit me deep. Thank you.
This was the first tour in my life when we didn’t change the setlist even once on the whole tour. Some tiny changes inside the songs, but the set stayed the same. Before I always wanted to change some tiny bits at some point so also the people who come to more than one show would have some surprises too. This time the set and show just felt perfect from Luxembourg to Zurich. And it was.
A few years ago before I started my tour with my Finnish album, I had already asked Risto to be my drummer and I was very happy he said yes. And as I was busy then with Sunrise Avenue and also producing the Finnish album, I asked Risto to gather a band for me as he knows all the players and also because I trust him. Actually it’s quite a responsibility. Then one day we went to a sauna (where else;) as he said he had a plan. For bass he suggested this Janne who played in many different bands but I had never heard of him. Sounds good. For guitar he suggested Tomas. Him I knew from the music scene and I was a bit surprised if Tomas would want to join us. Risto promised to ask both. Then keyboards? “Samu I think you should play your own pianos” he said. I wasn’t excited right away as I wasn’t sure if I’d learn to play well enough on stage in the given time. But Risto kept his head and said it’ll work out for sure. I promised to try.
Janne, Tomas and Risto. You are just amazing human beings. They way you play, of course, but especially for who you are without your strings and drum sticks. Being on tour is the hardest test you take finding out if you get along or not. I didn’t know such feeling of friendship, trust and respect can grow in such a short time. I know this all has been amazing for you too, but I also know there must have been thoughts about how the people would take you and accept you on these stages as the new guys with me. I also thought about it on my evening walks this year many times. You saw and heard how they welcomed you. It was unbelievable and so well deserved. And I’m so proud of you all three and so thankful for having you. Every night we said to each other after the show, Ok this was the best there can ever be. There can’t be anything better than this. After the next show we said the same words again. After the last one in Zurich yesterday nobody said a word after the show. There were too many tears and only four guys staring at the wall in silence and hugging everyone for seventeen times. The Folkshaus backstage is a beautiful place. Then I sat alone for some time in my own room with a half empty beer bottle and whatever came out of me then was so beautiful and important. I’m still swimming in the remains of that something here on this sofa. I’ll tell you when my eyes are dry again.
Thank you dear crew and everyone making this trip happen. You start your day with a load in at 1100 as I’m still asleep. You push through the day building things and carrying heavy stuff around so the people can enjoy their time with us in the evening. When the show is over, you put the gear back to the trucks and your day is over when I’m already in my bus shower fresh and the clock says something like midnight. You’re all such professionals and such loving and funny guys and we’re so blessed having you on the road with us.
And you people. I’m a 48 year old guy from Finland and I’ve already been the luckiest adventurer on this planet for so many years. I really don’t know what I’ve done right to have you and to feel this way right here right now. But these nights with you have been something I will never forget. Thank you. You are just amazing, all of you. Thank you for being there.
I’m going offline now and I’m gonna sleep for the rest of the week. Good night all of you where ever you are and see you somewhere soon. Where ever that is, we promise we bring our big guitars.
Love,
Samu