THUNDER ROAD, Pavia, Italy 29 march -and the trip back home...

Gianrico explain the road trip for today..

...so.. time for the last gig of the short italian tour! Like always when we are in Italy it's bad weather, I don't know if it's us who brings it from Sweden... Anyway, we drove for a couple of hours in heavy rain, and went straight to Thunder road to load in.
Ida with her Alien head holder
When we arrived, we were personally welcomed by the staff of Thunderroad, which immideately gave us a good vibe of the evening!! We were impressed by the cool venue as well, it all looked very good. We just hoped that people wouldn't care about the rain and come to the gig..

Since we had missed dinner every other night, our tour manager Gianrico ordered dinner after the gig instead of before, so we could eat at least sometime during the night. Great idea!! So instead of waiting for dinner, we ate some sandwishes and went to check in at the hotel...

....GaaaAAAHHH hhhhh ..... the hotel was ... a 2 star hotel worth -1 star! It was a combined gas station with "hotel" and when we entered the doors we were struck by a horrible smell of old sweat and cigarette smoke, mixed with a taste of whiskey breath. We got our keys as quick as possible and then ran up to our rooms. Ida and Klara are happy in their nice room...
I shared room with Nicki again and we just went in through the doors and laughed, it was just terrible. We sat down on the beds and looked around, there was a balkony and window with view of the highway, and the sound of the heavy traffic was mixed with the rain hitting the roof. A cold constant draught came from the windows and the floor was ice cold, so it was impossible to walk without shoes on. The view from our hotel room

Since Nicki still was a bit sick she went straight to bed. Somehow I found the room and hotel pretty entertaining, it was just too aweful. It felt like being in a Psycho movie. I layed down under the bed cover and watched the swedish movie Let the right one in on my laptop, as the sky got dark outside. -trying not to smell the cloth of the bed.. After that I fell asleep and didn't wake up until both mine and Nickis cell phone alarm woke us up at nine. We put our stuff together pretty quick and went back to the venue.

This night it was a festival, with 7 other italian rock bands except from us. We got some time to watch the 2 last bands a bit, Tarchon Fist and Heller. Ida and Klara did an interview with italian Rock Hard magazine as we warmed up and tried to get in shape for the gig. Thunder road wins the dressing room price this time, Jailbreak was great as well, with fantastic service .-) but this was a bit bigger...! I was so happy when I saw that there was a shower as well.. but my happiness didn't last very long since there was a "flood" in the toilet and shower so it was quite impossible to stay in there... Of course I had to take a picture of the toilet, it will be posted here soon :-)

There weren't so many people from the beginning at the venue but at least it felt like there were more when we entered the stage. It was a fun gig, lots of well-known faces in the crowd and lots of happy new ones!! We played for about one hour, and I went of the stage still full of energy. I think it was because the atmosphere on Thunderroad was so good, and the stage wasn't that steamin hot like some other stages use to be, it was just perfect. Good sound as well!

After the gig I took my regular towel-and-water-bottle-shower in a corner of the room, trying to be quick since people ran in and out in the dressing room all the time. After putting some dry and a bit better smelling clothes on, we went out to say hello to the rockers. Then back to the dressing room for our d i n n e r! Mmmm... good hot pasta and some meat with mushrooms, the first real meal we had this tour!

In the end of the night there was just us and our italian friends left (http://www.crucifiedbarbara.it/) so we invited them to our dressing room for some drinks and to hang out a bit, it was a nice last night of the tour for us!!

Thanks to all the bands this night: LUCKY BASTARDZ, Salt Flats, Reckless, Charcharodon, Tarchon Fist and Heller!!!!
And thanks to Thunderroad, we'd love to come back again!

We came back to the hotel around 3.30, and had a small party in one of the rooms just to have a nice last night chat + birra.. but since we got yelled at, first by 2 dogs and then some people who tried to get some sleep, and threatened us that if we didn't shut up soon they would get "ten people"... so we decided to finally call it a day, we weren't really up to find out how THAT hotel's 10 people looked like..

We always eat breakfast in the morning, it's something we can't live without without turning to monsters, but this morning we just flied out through the hotel. I ain't that picky with things but when I came down in the lobby again and was hit by that horrible smell I couldn't just stay in there for one more minute, just took my bags and ran out in the rain instead, much better.
We drove for a couple of hours, and arrived to the airport around 11. Checked in and then had a meal at McDonalds.. Really sad to know that we've been in a country with such fantastic food culture and we didn't see much of it.. :´-( especially since we all are true food lovers... :-)

The travel back home to Stockholm went smooth, no delays. Våfflan, our stage manager was stopped and searched for drugs, poor boy, what a welcoming treatment ha,ha..

So now we're back home again, clean and dry with all the dirty stage clothes in the washing machine.. Now the regular after tour-recovering starts, to straighten out the body after all the hours in a bumpy car, trying to cover the darkness under the eyes, trying to comb the frizzy hair, stretching the muscles and sored neck....

Thanks to all of you who came to the shows during this italian tour, it was great to see you all and meet you after the gigs. And thanks to Gianrico at Getrocked.it who is booking our gigs, and to Davide and Marco for a great time and work together.
We have 2 gigs coming up in the summer, it will be published on our myspace as soon as they are confirmed. Hope to see you then!!!

Ciao with love and scarrafaggios,
Crucified Barbara g:m Mia