საქართველოზე ბაზრობს სტანნე, კიდევ ჩამოვალთო
Georgia…a totally different thing! It’s always interesting, something that we are looking forward to, to play in countries that we’ve never been before because that first experience of going into a new country is always the best – that “holy sh*t, you’re here” and that “holy sh*t, we’re here”; that kind of feeling is amazing. The promoters in Georgia were known to us as we had done a festival in Kiev with them two summers ago or something, which was kind of sh*ty and chaotic but it worked out in the end and people were really cool, so we thought we should give it another go. So this promoter came to us and said “I am doing this festival” which was called Global East Festival and which was done in Kiev before and now it was to take place in Georgia for the first time. So he asked us if we were interested and we were like “ok, just give us the money in advance” but that never happened so we said “fine, we will cancel the show”. Then he started saying things like “we will give you more money, we will fix everything – don’t worry” and stuff like that. We thought that this sucked but, at the same time, there were so many people on Facebook and so many people visiting our website saying things like “you are coming to Georgia, it’s going to be awesome as we’ve been waiting for years and years as we never get any concerts here” and we thought that even though it’s going to be crappy, it’s going to be an experience so let’s do it. Once we arrived in Tbilisi (note: the capital of Georgia) we figured out straight away that these guys were probably going to rip us off as things looked kind of weird – not the kind of way that things normally work. So, we decided to kind of hold out there and say “look, we want cash in hand before we go to the festival site” which was six hours away from there. So, we spent the night in Tbilisi and nothing happened – the promoter guy running around, coming up with all sorts of different excuses every time. We were just laughing about it thinking that this is the craziest thing ever! The morning of the show, which was on a Saturday, they all of a sudden as if by magic come up with the money and we were like “ok, so now we can have it”. We went to the festival which was in the middle of a square in a city by the Black Sea – beautiful but not…it is a poor country, for sure, but they don’t really have the stuff needed. The festival doors were supposed to open at one, with six bands performing and Sabaton and us being the main groups. When we got there, the stage was not even finished and it was like six in the afternoon (laughs). So our guys started building the stage and everything but in the meantime we realised that we needed to be back at the airport in Tbilisi early next morning and that was a six hour drive away! We had to be there at either three or six in the morning, I cannot remember exactly, in order to catch our flight home and in order to do that we had to have finished our set within the next two hours and the stage was not yet ready and they haven’t yet let any people in! There was no backstage area at all, not even an area where we could be and stand where we would not be surrounded by members of the audience, no bathrooms to use, no beer or water to drink!
• Are you serious?
Mikael: At that point, all I wanted to do was to get drunk and forget about the whole thing (laughs). Eventually, Sabaton started playing in front of two hundred people or something like that, as small audience, but that is probably because most people expected the show to be cancelled at this stage. These few people were happy. When we went on stage we found out that the electricity, their currents and all other systems, were not strong enough for our guitar amplifiers so our guitars were not working and we had no time to fix them because we needed to play as many songs as we can within forty minutes and then leave straight away for the airport! So we played four songs without guitars, just bass guitar, drums, keyboards and vocals which was absolutely the worst show ever! Having said that, the audience was amazing! The guys who were there, they loved it and were amazing towards us so I felt so bad for what we have given them! When we were leaving we were all like “we’re so sorry – we will never do this again”. It was horrible – the worst show ever, and then we had to drive six hours back to the airport worrying that we would be late for our flight…that was the worst experience, I tell you, but we did it, the people that were there seemed happy even though it was the worst show ever, so I cannot wait to get back there and give them a proper show and make it up to them!
• I really hope that this experience does not stop you from going there again because remember that the same thing was pretty much happening in Greece in the late 80s and, as you well know, that is not the case anymore.
Mikael: No, no – we are not put off.
• That is good because these people are really hungry for it and these are the ones who deserve to get bands playing for them!
Mikael: Yeah, exactly. It was the same in South America for a long time; so many crappy promoters and dishonest people but we have been really fortunate as we have done some fantastic tours there.
http://reviews.getreadytorock.com/blog/Pur...30/4969055.htmlGlorfindel
Dark Tranquillity, Melodic Death Metal [Sweden]
