We are proud to announce that Marcel Jacob will give us a daily updated news about the Talisman Farewell Tour.

The last night at Alex and Evey’s place was spent watching the Borat Movie –High 5!! I loved it, it’s shocking an funny as hell. Wednesday was travel day, and I knew beforehand it was going to be sucky…and it was. Going to the airport in Antwerpen was nice, Evey drove me and Brian (Jeff took the train to Amsterdam going from there on his own route to Greece), all the while telling me the most touching story of one of their dogs, how she came to them. Taking a fragile broken animal and helping it move towards a true realization of it’s possibilities…it’s still in my mind.

So, we were at the Antwerpen airport, and the passport control ruined my passport, the ID page is now off the actual book, which causes me some anxiety. I still have to go to Japan with LAD soon, and have no way of going home to get it fixed. The flight to the UK was fine, it was a bit of a struggle to get our tickets from London city airport to Victoria, but alles ok. Then when we got to the subway stop of Victoria station we were told that no one were allowed to get off! Given the history of fires or worse in the London subway I told Brian to stay on the train. We got off the next stop instead, and it took an hour from there to get back to Victoria. Once there we got tickets to the train to Gatwick, that was delayed, we put our stuff by the door and took seats but because it was delayed it got packed and we were suddenly not that close to our stuff any more. On the train we were old that there had been a fire on the London Bridge, stopping all trains and traffic using that route, causing overcrowding in the Victoria area. Phew. Still it took us 4 hours to go from airport to airport.

Once at Gatwick we of course had some trouble, of the usual kind, to get our tickets. It got sorted, and we found Magnus Ulfstedt who’s filling in for Jamie a couple of gigs (Jamie needed to go do something) without too much trouble. We found a restaurant that looked nice, the food was terrible, they doused my insalata caprese with pesto sauce, I had to scrape it off to eat it.Yucch. And of course I didn’t think about the time difference until the food was already ordered…

Why is this important ? Champions league! I’ve been looking forward to the final since Milan (a team I really like) gave Man U a lesson in the semis, which they probably did because Liverpool had passed the previous evening, and they wanted the chance of getting revenge.

The game was a little lame, two good teams who pretty much canceled each other out. But I love to watch Gattuso play – somebody who’s more knowledgeable could probably tell you what Gattuso is really doing out there, but to me I just love to see the passion, he’s all about showing everybody that he absolutely wants to win this sucker, and I love it. And Inzaghi, a rattlesnake, give him half a chance and he scores, I knew when I saw the pass coming he’d score the second goal…oh sweet joy :-).

So the day was not a total loss. But the check in, for fuck sake, they’re supposed to work for MY safety traveling, and they treat me with arrogance and suspicion invading my privacy emptying my hand luggage, making me take off my shoes, belt…

Of course our flight was delayed an hour…we got in at our hotel in Thessaloniki at 4 in the morning, dead tired, and the first thing was that my room smelled badly of tobacco smoke…back down to the lobby, asking the guy for another room. His face said it all, no nonsmokingrooms at this hotel :-)! Well, the second room was better. But then the bed proved to be so hard as to be equal to sleeping on the floor…oh, well; I love to travel………………………………NOT!

So, Thursday waking up in Thessaloniki, meeting a Juliette Lewis lookalike (Panayiota) in the lobby (nice girl, didn’t really get a grip on her name), going to lunch with the promotor. Evita, a supercool girl, nothing that happened during the day fazed her, she dealt, whether mixedup keyboard specs or whatever. The lunch took place next to the club where the gig was, we had a bunch of different dishes; it was very good, everyone loved it except for JSS ;-) – no surprise. After JSS and I did a whacky local TV-interview: HIGH 5!

Eventually we got hooked up, did soundcheck, got back to the hotel, chilled.
Then we went back to the gig, and found out our dressing room was a small wooden shed next to the entrance to the club :-). We already knew that going before the show we had to do some stuff ourselves on our gear to set up after the opening act, so we didn’t have any pretenses of being/acting like rockstars;-)…

We did the show, the audience loved it, we fucked up a few times, but what the hell…Magnus did good for his first Talisman show…Jeff had some issues with himself, his feet, and his keyboard during his pianobar thing, but it added to the charm…afterwards we were hanging out with everybody that wanted, signing everything, taking pics…a really good time. And I got the finest comment I’ve probably heard from one of the people working in the bar at the club; he said that him and the others working didn’t know where the time had gone, they were just smiling from the good vibe they got from us and the gig, they were supposed to have gone home a long time ago but didn`t feel like going home just yet…and they had no idea who we were :-)!

Back to the hotel at 4 in the morning, just because we were asked to go to a club by “Juliette Lewis” since it was her birthday…but walking in seeing all the Hellraiser chains from the ceiling and hearing Anthrax too loud, I knew it was a mistake…

Friday morning getup early to travel to Athens. Flight no problem. Meeting Alex our promotor at the airport, a mountain of man, the match of Evita when it comes to dealing. We were on the bus into Athens in no time. On the way in the driver tells us Alex called saying we had 10 min at the hotel to get set up before driving over to soundcheck totally contradicting the timetable we just ggot hande to us… just enough time to check in and drop our bags…fuck taking a shit and brushing my teeth! Oh well…so I get down to the lobby in time to leave, only to find a rep for Alex company asking me to sign and take pics with some winners from some radio show…naturally I did it, but first I told the guy how crappy it was to rush us like this and then spring shit like that on us. He looked confused, and even more so when Jeff one minute later arrived in the lobby repeating the routine :-).

Of course when we got to the gig nothing was ready for us, we were all starving, and when JSS talked to Alex who was busy at the airport collecting the opening act Pretty Maids, he almost blew a fuse. The driver of our bus had acted on his own agenda and lied to us, not knowing the consequences…the nerve! Stressing me had caused me to forget my pedalboard in the hotel, so I had to go back to get it…and the traffic of Athens is a nightmare, it took more than an hour…fuck.

Anyway, when I got back to Gagarin the club we were doing last night (Friday), I managed to scrounge down a pizza just before soundcheck, which was done very quickly…only to find out we had to wait for Alex who was in the bus still with PM, stuck in traffic…JSS,BY, and Magnus proceeded to fuck around with a bunch of songs they didn’t really know, and I got called out on the street because I had friends out there. They proved to be my dear Stefania and her friends - I only knew about the friends, Stefy was a pleasant surprise.

Eventually I got back to the hotel for a shower and relaxation time. JSS and Magnus went to Gagarin sooner, they wanted to check out Pretty Maids, Brian and I went in later, just in time to do the gig. It was great to meet the Athen audience, they seemed to like the show just as much as the people the night before. We played better I think, and we spiced it up with some jamming on (Iron) Maiden and (Black) Sabbath tunes. They wanted more encores than we knew; we had to give them something, so we pulled a rabbit out of our hats.

After the show there was a meet & greet planned at a club (meet-a-greek?).I didn’t feel like doing it, strange considering it was the same thing I did the previous night, but the difference being I did in Thessaloniki because I wanted to, in Athens it was planned for me…

But it turned out to be ok, I had a good time…especially talking to the guy who was flabbergasted to learn we had no idea what we are doing and that we are pretty much jamming our way through much of the set. 5 in the morning I got back to the hotel…
Today, Saturday, travel day…loving it. We were picked up at the airport in Amsterdam by our Frank ™ , and now we are back with Alex and Evey for the night. Love them. Tomorrow is another day, it`s Elitloppet, I have a feeling Red Chili Pirat will be a nasty surprise to many – not me!