EUROPEAN TOUR

März 2010

Soundchaser

Hello friends

Our "Strings To A Web" album is out now for about 1 month and it hit the scene like a bomb. It's about time for a proper tour now to let us present these songs live to you! In order to support our album we planned a world tour starting from Germany, with Hungary, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, France, Italy and Spain to follow, as well as shows in Russia and Japan for you to rock with us together. We've packed much new song material as well as some old hits into our bag. 90% of the setlist has been revised and so it certainly holds some surprises for you. For the concerts in Europe we'll have 2 bands with us on stage as support acts: Jaded Heart and Seven from the Czech Republic. Furthermore, in addition to our crew pals Gerd (sound) and Jürgen (light), we'll have Ingo (he works with Blind Guardian, Kamelot and many more) as the new stagecrew member on board. Also, with ArtWorx, we have a new merchandise partner who prepared many cool items for the tour which you can either buy from our "Empress Of Merch" at the show or on the online shop of our webmaster Joe. On Tuesday in the evening we are going to load the equipment from our band rehearsal room in Hamm and set off on our long way to Munich. We are looking forward to see you all!

RAGE ON!

Yours

Victor

03.03.10 - 1st day of tour - Munich - D

Munich/Backstage... Having loaded everything, we set off towards Munich. The trailer was jam-packed and we were overcome by a slight fear that it could possibly be overloaded as the trailer contained a substantial number of boxes with merchandise items. Our bus which was to carry us on this tour throughout Europe was a new model by Welter Reisen. However, we couldn’t quite believe the label reading ‘hotel bus’ as the bus hallway between the beds was so tight to even not allow a single person to pass it in an upright position, completely prohibiting two people from passing each other, and thus, creating a one-way street within the bus itself! As a compensation, our bus comes with unusually large beds which is of great importance for a relaxing sleep when being on tour! We arrived in Munich at about 11 o’clock and were told that the boys of our support act “Jaded Heart“ happened to need a new bus at half past six in the morning as their own car broke down. Thus, they joined the rest of the tour convoy quite late. The Boys of our other support act “Seven” arrived in Munich on the afternoon, and it quickly turned out that both Jaded Heart and Seven are quite relaxed and sociable guys. I cannot see at all the rumours on the Jaded Heart guys having allegedly caused much trouble on their last tour with Primal Fear. On the first show, the setup and soundcheck usually take some more time, but despite of Jaded Heart being late and all the stress we were able to start admission in time.

André, Peavy and me were very nervous before the show because we had to perform the new song material for the first time live in front of an audience. Together with our FOH guy Gerd we tried out a lot of new ideas via the monitors, and the tension vanished as soon as we noticed how unbelievably positively our fans responded to the first songs of our new album! Every new track of our new album was cheered and sung along just like as if they were an old hit, and when we played our new mega song Empty Hollow, our fans were singing along as early as when the instrumental intro started :-) This absolutely gave me goosebumps. To my surprise, the response to our older tunes was rather reserved – many weren’t familiar with our songs “Light Into The Darkness” and “Medicine” at all, which for our long-time die hard fans most likely was a really big surprise, and I liked that we played the tunes in full and not as a medley. I was extremely happy with my new guitar tech Ingo: He cared for everything excellently and very professionally and thus, provided me an unaccustomed luxury which I highly enjoyed. Our gig went off very well and made a great starting of the tour, but Peavy was quite exhausted afterwards which shows that we haven’t played for quite some time. Our merch stand turned out really great, with indeed lots of different items offered. It was somewhat unusual for me to see RAGE labeled baby rompers there, but there’s always something new to discover ;-) It seems we have a great team on this tour, everybody is nice. Seven are travelling with us on our bus while Jaded Heart are travelling separately. Oh yes: Peter, the Swedish guitarist of Jaded Heart, had his birthday whilst being on the first show, but we didn’t have much time to celebrate, though, as we had to start our long way to Budapest in Hungary immediately after loading in.

04.03.10 - 2nd day of tour - Budapest - H

Budapest/Diesel... Having slept some 12 hours, I entered the Diesel Hall in Budapest just in time for the soundcheck. Our crew guys complained that the local techs were very slow and not up to their job, and that several pieces of our equipment didn’t work properly, but there is always a way to make it work somehow... After the Soundcheck “Angel” served us a superb meal of eight dishes – why can’t it always be like this!? As we were subject to a very strict curfew today, we had to drop some songs, but it was well apparent that playing our second show today, we pulled off our songs much more effortlessly as compared to the start of our tour. This was also to be observed on André who during his performance occasionally found some moments for a couple of in-between jokes. By the way, specifically for this tour, André got a Reference drumkit by Pearl, matching the colour of our current album cover, and brand new Z3 Cymbals by Zildjian (his new cymbals save our ears on stage since they aren’t as loud as his old ones – André beats them quite hard one has to admit!!). The concert itself went on excellently – what a pity many fans arrived late and thus, missed the first bands. During my solo on “Set This World On Fire” I performed a little sideshow stunt, climbing the PA tower – but standing up there, I thought it might not have been such a good idea, as the whole tower was shaking back and forth quite a bit ;-) This evening, almost all of our Digipacks were sold as it seems that this CD / DVD combination is not available in Hungary. Later I entered the bus, having slight headbanging-induced neck aches, and we set off to Zlin, Czech Republic.

05.03.10 - 3rd day of tour - Zlin - CZ

Zlin/Masters Of Rock Cafe... Today we have a stopover at the "Masters Of Rock Café" in Zlin / Czech Republic. Unfortunately, directly after our arrival, we discovered that some assholes had broken into the Jaded Heart car and stole a case. Being on tour, this happens every now and then, just as at that time when myself, being with Mind Odyssey, was support act for Savatage and some complete idiot stole the complete Savatage merchandise stuff, and we even had such incidents when touring with RAGE. Zlin is always a nice stopover and we’re always looking forward to coming to this place. George, the initiator of the "Masters Of Rock Festival" gave us a visit and I have to admit that the whole Czech Republic owes a great deal to him as the Czech metal scene has benefitted greatly from his commitment! After breakfast me and George spent a visit to a nation-wide radio station to do an interview and I was very surprized to learn that this radio station is actually broadcasting metal music 24 hours a day! Would be great to have something like this in Germany ;-) I was very happy to learn that on this radio station, our song "Empty Hollow" was on 3rd position in their radio charts.

Prior to the show we had some time backstage for surfing the internet and we stumbled across some funny reviews. For example, someone claimed that the break for changes on stage on our show in Munic lasted about 1 hour – which is plain rubbish because the first notes of our intro were heard exactly half an hour after the beginning of the break. To be honest, I’m very proud of our crew for being such a quick team as there’s a whole bunch of channels to be checked. I think its better to let the break last 5 more minutes and then have a really great sound, instead of having a short break and an inferior sound for the not so short remainder of the concert. But it was André who showed us the very best critique: Some Mr Martin Schneider wrote a concert review for the "Rock It" magazine on the Knock Out Festival on which we performed in December: The show was described to have been absolutely superb, but instead of the drum solo we should have better performed another song. (Thing is: We didn’t have any drum solo in our set at all, and in fact ripped one song straight after the other. We still wonder until the present day which concert that nice fellow had attended... Anyway, on festival shows, press guys can be seen rather hanging around the VIP bar instead of being in front of the stage most of the time...

We liked our concert in Zlin very much, and especially for the guys from Seven, this home game was really nice of course. I invited Honza, the guitarist with Seven, to perform our song "Down" together with us on stage which went very well with the audience. After the show we raised a quick toast with a shot of Slivovic to commemorate this successful evening and set off on our way to Prague.

06.03.10 - 4th day of tour - Prague - CZ

Prague/Abaton...That night we didn’t really have a good sleep as the Czech country roads are rather bad and gave us a good shake in our bus. When I left the bus in the morning, there was snow on the ground and the air was terribly chilly. (During such weather conditions I miss my EVO car to go for some drifting... lol) The Abaton club formed a contrast to the Masters Of Rock Café from the previous day and resembled an abandoned house more than a rock club. It has a wooden stage with subwoofers below which gave us a good shake during the soundcheck. We do have damn high volume levels on stage and sometimes it’s very hard to suppress all the feedback going on there. For this reason, I kicked the initially planned cello part from our setlist. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen anything of the beautiful city of Prague, as any sightseeing in this weather wouldn’t have been any fun.

When the audience had completely filled the club, this made the image of the club change enormously, and we had great fun on stage. The audience was fabulous and we made out many fans who followed our trails from Zlin to Prague. This made us spontaneously decide to change a few songs as compared to our show in Zlin from the previous day. However, our positive mood changed all of a sudden when we were told that Muelli and Axel from Jaded Heart had a terrible accident while unloading their equipment in an open elevator. When the elevator was going down, one of the hardcases got stuck in a way to have almost crushed Muelli’s head! Axel also got stuck extremely dangerously, and thanks to everybody’s help, these two guys were helped quickly. I really hope that the strain of bad luck of those guys is finally over now!!!

07.03.10 - 5th day of tour - Hannover - D

Hannover/Musikzentrum... There was still snow in front of the bus, however, due to the warming sun's rays the climate was much more bearable today and so our crew guys perceived the loading works as being a bit less icy! Actually, Hannover is so to say our "home game" on this tour, so a good many friends, acquaintances and lots of our hardcore fans came along, for example our webmaster Joe and his family, who is maintaining our webpage for years and running our online shop as well. As during this tour we have a guest book deposited at the merchandise booth where our fans can leave messages (yes, we read them at night in the tour bus afterwards!) it was naturally to find an entry by Master Stickendale there. What really astounded us was the fact that this show was already his 40th (fortieth !!!) RAGE concert – man how time flies. Also, our Japanese girlfriend Yuki arrived today with a suitcase full of presents. Peavy was totally enthusiastic about his present: small, transparent fish skeletons swimming in little bottles filled with fluid!

The whole concert in the sold out hall was a single goose bump feeling and our fans in front of the stage had at least as much fun as we had on stage. With every show we're gaining more and more confidence on stage and we're getting the feeling that "Empty Hollow" is emerging as the crowd’s favourite in this set. Also, our small drum solo-aside in a threesome is fun somehow, our particular thanks go to Beyerdynamic for their special drum microphone set, making our drum sound even better.

Also, I'm more and more getting the hang of the Whammy - WahWah - Midi - toggle stress during my solo on "Saviour Of The Dead" by every show! This solo is a real challenge! On this tour I have to warm up even longer as usual ;) Every concert could be like this - not only for us, but also for Seven and Jaded Heart who went down well with the audience. After loading and packing everything we hit the road for Berlin where we're going to spend an Off DAY prior to our show at the K17.

08.03.10 - 6th day of tour - Day Off

Our first Day Off! I enjoyed the immobile bed in my hotel room and the tasty food at a Greek restaurant. Furthermore we've considered changing the set list for the Berlin show a little bit as we haven’t played there for quite a long time... And as we have the International Women's Day today: CHEERS to all our female fans!

09.03.10 - 7th day of tour - Berlin - D

Berlin/K 17... I was very happy indeed to finally have us play a show there after so many years. Many say Berlin doesn’t have a really good metal scene but concerning this city, I can only remember good shows, no matter whether being on tour with Helloween, but also with our unplugged show at Sven’s rock café Halford. I was very pleased that my "Mind Odyssey" lads gave us a visit; thus, we could have a couple of beer and talk once again. Dan presented me a final copy of his CD with his project "Pandea". As we haven’t played any shows in Berlin for years, we decided to play a few songs like e. g. "Higher Than The Sky". I’m sorry to say that the club K17 didn’t really address the needs of a touring band because they didn’t have any helpers at their place, and also, many of the conditions stipulated on our rider weren’t met. I have the feeling that some organizers don’t have any respect for musicians. Despite all this, the show was great and many local fans told us that for the Berlin inhabitants who usually are very reserved, this show must have created a tremendous atmosphere! However, there was one thing which irritated us – 2 plastic cups of beer were thrown towards our drum riser – if that beer had landed onto our harddisk machine or another important electronic device on stage, the show would have been over at once for everybody! So please stop shit like that!

On this tour I’m testing a few new guitar prototypes, and on our show in Berlin the previous day, a new tremolo system failed on stage and thus, was somewhat disturbing during my solo on "Saviour Of The Dead". A tour like this is really the best material testing for equipment! At the moment, we’re also looking for different frequencies for our transmitters as the current frequencies will be changed in 2015! So watch out when buying new transmitters – make sure to be informed! After the concert I had some conversation with some fans at our merch stand telling me that our music is aspiring for them and motivates them to practice even more. To be honest: Every time I find enough energy to visit the merch stand after the show, I enjoy talking with our fans who are very interested in what we’re doing etc. Thanks again for your support! Many showed great interest in the "Into The Light" compilation featuring Hansi Kürsch and Tobias Sammet, but also Tarja Turunen among others. I believe that in regard of this compilation, many still don’t know WHO actually participated in this. For me, this album is of unique historic importance because it’s the first CD on which the current RAGE line-up has collaborated! Strangely enough, in Berlin, a very great number of fans were interested in our baby rompers... Does Berlin breed the metal offspring of Germany? ;)

10.03.10 - 8th day of tour - Hamburg - D

Hamburg/Markthalle... Having surmounted the 63 stairs into the backstage area of the Markthalle, we found that apparently, it is of some problem to provide Powerade energy drinks in Hamburg!? We prefer to drink this stuff during our show to quench our thirst... But let’s start from the beginning. As the elevator was broken, our crew had to carry our complete merch items over quite some distance. I remember our gigs at the Markthalle to have been much more relaxed and stress-free, but as it seems, the economic crisis also hits some of the promoters. Tonight we had many guests, and among others, Jens Becker (Grave Digger) and Markus Großkopf (Helloween) dropped in which we were very pleased about. As always, Markus was pretty funny and in good mood, and we chatted about the recent album by Helloween as both RAGE and them commemorate their 25-year band anniversary. Otti from the Headbanger’s Ballroom was also there and invited us to his new club which is located directly on the Reeperbahn.

On our concert, we decided to do without the usual barriers which as a result gave us the feeling as if our fans were almost standing with us together on stage. To me, it’s totally awesome to have an atmosphere like this because this way, we perceive the energy of our audience much better. On the other hand, this presents a callenge to us musicians to play even better, as every tiny mistake will be heard. In terms of sound engineering, the Markthalle is not an easy job and I always recommend our fans to always "search" for the optimal sound, as depending on the exact position within this individual venue, the sound varies continually. Having played "War Of Worlds", we had run out of energy but were very happy about how the show proceeded! Peavy was totally out of breath and when he was taking off his bass guitar he almost knocked himself out with it – thank goodness the only damage he got was a scorching devil’s horn... Many who came to the show told us that they very much liked our package of support acts, formed by Seven and Jaded Heart. In particular, Seven sold many copies of their new CD "Seven Deadly Sins" and their album "Sevens" on which Doro Pesch participated as female guest vocalist. However, after the show we and our stagecrew had symptoms of a strange scratching throat – was this maybe caused by the new fog machine our light engineer Jürgen!?

11.03.10 - 9th day of tour - Day Off

Our Day Off which we also spent in Hamburg was very calm and everybody relaxed in his own way: Peavy visited the Railroad Museum, André made a shopping tour with his family, and I spent almost the whole day at the Automobile Museum where there was a really astonishing exhibition on the history of "Le Mans".

12.03.10 - 10th day of tour - Speyer - D

Speyer/Halle 101... It turned out to be a difficult night as our guys started an internal competition on who will be the loudest snorer which Peavy won by a large margin! According to my guitar tech Ingo’s level meter, Peavy was snoring at 70dB – that’s a level one has to reach at the first place! When everybody was having breakfast I tried to get some sleep after all. That was one of the greatest shows on our previous tour so we did have a big anticipation. The promoter and his family are big fans of ourselves and made a great effort to make our stopover as cosy as possible. We were served a great catering whic didn’t leave anything to be desired. Due to this hall being a kind of old aircraft hangar, it was very cold during the setup, but the concert which was attended by 700 guests changed this very quickly in the evening. Our Czech colleagues spent a visit to the Speyer Museum of Technology while we were doing our soundcheck and returned with excitement. We had Wolfgang Küpper (Käpper? Köpper? – bitte nachfragen) with the RockHard magazine as a guest and he did an interview with me, but also, there were several representatives of smaller online magazines to do interviews with us. One of them was especially funny: I think this one was with the "FFM Rock" magazine or something... In any case, his interest was more towards the beer-filled fridge in the backstage area than tonight’s live performance! He showed up at our backstage room, having filled himself up properly, and insisted on immediately getting a setlist prior to the beginning of the concert, on which I responded that in case he’ll make it through the evening despite his alcohol level, we’ll be happy to provide him a setlist. As expected, nothing of the concert arrived at that person’s brain and he was even completely irresponsive when we entered the stage. THAT’S THE WAY HOW LIVE REVIEWS ORIGINATE VERY OFTEN – HAHAHAHA! I think that’s a pity, though, as this was a really great concert for all. On this day we had an additional band on board (Powerwolf), but I think 4 bands an evening are a bit much. Especially the guys with Jaded Heart perfectly heated up the audience, and when we entered the stage there was a terrific atmosphere. I have to say this show was the best concert of this tour so far. Due to this really brilliant audience, all our accumulated touring fatigue vanished by itself! Many told us about the excellent sound and the great lighting – let me grasp this occasion to thank our crew guys! And when we left the hall and entered the bus after the show, we left back loads of empty boxes from our merchandise items ;)

13.03.10 - 11th day of tour - Andernach - D

Andernach/JUZ Live Club... And we thought our Speyer show couldn’t be matched in terms of atmosphere... that was before we played at Andernach! ;-) What a terrific evening, at this place, it’s all coming together. Once again, we had many guests visiting us, among them friends with their families, several of our former crew members, many bands we are on friendly terms with, e.g. Perzonal War, and many more. I was particularly looking forward to seeing my visitors from the Nürburgring: The whole racing team had arived and who brought a draft of the car for the upcoming season. Half of the car’s exterior will be matching our current RAGE album cover. So don’t forget: Come by and visit the first VLN race at the Nürburgring on March 27! Also, race commentator Lars Gutsche and his girlfriend stopped by. Being racing enthusiasts, we were naturally all very happy about Vettel’s Formula 1 pole position in the qualifying.

Today was Muelli’s birthday (he’s the bassman with Jaded Heart) and during the show the guys slammed a cream-pie into his face ;-)

Thus, our concert began on a slightly slippery stage floor in the sold-out JUZ Halle. This was definitely the RAGE show with our best playing so far. We had at least as much fun on stage as our fans in front of the stage. When I glanced into the audience from the stage, I only saw happy faces ;-) One totally feels as if being among one’s best pals! This makes you reluctant to leave the stage. Meanwhile we are very well matched in regard to our new songs also, and we slowly start to allow ourselves some in-between jokes. During my 11 years of membership with RAGE I never experienced that new song material can create such a fantastic atmosphere! Seems in the end we did do everything correctly ;) However, it was so hot on stage that, André’s sticks were slipping out of his hands due to perspiration all the time, and afterwards I had to use the oxygen bottle for the very first time. Also, I said to my racing colleagues that in terms of fitness my stage performance equals the physical efforts during the 24h race ;-) We brought the evening to a cosy end, celebrating Muelli’s birthday, and after driving by McDonald’s (at 3.30am) where André and Ingo consumed loads of junk food we set off towards Colmar.

14.03.10 - 12th day of tour - Colmar - F

Colmar/Grillen... We arrived, unloaded, performed, loaded once more and moved on...

15.03.10 - 13th day of tour - Nuremberg - D

Nürnberg/Hirsch... Well, today we’re at Nuremberg. The weather is really shitty and it’s raining, the hall was cold when we set our foot into it and we fell upon our coffee and breakfast.Basically, the Hirsch venue is a very good concert hall, but all the musicians are complaining for years about the fact that there’s neither WC nor showers nor sinks in the backstage area! Thank goodness, after many years on tour we have become hardened – and we don’t have to pee but instead, are sweating it all out on stage. As a compensation, the stage sound of tonight’s show was among the best so far. Although the hall was filled very well, our audience was somewhat restraining themselves and made a reserved impression on us – especially in comparison to Andernach... Still I had the feeling that everybody liked our concert, and we had much fun on stage. Together with André, I spontaneously improvised some really cool breaks, and the promoter was very excited about the fact to have that many guests at the Hirsch on a Monday! In the press person area in front of the stage I made out Hans-Martin Issler from RockHard and Manuel Liebler from Metal Hammer, among others – who knows, maybe we’ll have a live review to read soon. I had the feeling that everybody liked our concert, and we had much fun on stage. Also, the promoter was very excited about the fact to have that many guests at the Hirsch on a Monday!

Besides, it was a small surprise for us that tonight, Jen participated in performing the song "Following you..." by our support act Seven. Also, we’re looking forward to tomorrow – Pratteln, Norbert’s legendary Z7! This club is one of Europe’s best concert halls!P

16.03.10 - 14th day of tour - Pratteln - CH

Pratteln/Z 7... As always, we are welcomed heartily and with a tasty meal (thanks Babs!) and can make use of the practical washing machine and washer drier in a stress-free and relaxed atmosphere. Norbert, the boss of the Z2, is not only a very good friend and one of the most likeable promoters I know, but also a rally driver. Every time we meet we cheat about cars, motorsport etc. and watch racing videos. We’re planning to jointly compete in the "Rallye 200" for years now, but unfortunately, due to time restraints, this never worked out as we’re both very busy. I find it great how Norbert handles both headliners and supporting bands – and he doesn’t like having rockstars as guests (which might be the reason that Manowar don’t play at the Z7 ;-)!). Thanks to the really professional local crew and a superb system, the soundcheck proceeds very quickly. The concert starts with a minor mishap with Honza, the guitarist with Seven, when his amp broke down at the beginning of their set. The guys mastered the situation respectably, though, and delivered a good show. There was more space on stage for Jaded Heart also, allowing these guys to run riot this time.

I don’t know exactly for what reason, but concerts in Pratteln are always something special for me. Having been declared part of the venue inventory by Norbert after our last show at the Z7, and receiving the key for the K7 from him, today’s concert formed another highlight again. Benefitting from the huge stage, the light show uncovered its full potential, and thanks to the good sound, we played very good I think. And having played Empty Hollow when I said that we play this orchestral piece without an orchestra, Norbert entered the stage and whispered into my ear that he offered us organizing an orchestral show at the Z7! How awesome is that?! That would fit very well - as I plan doing a solo tour with orchestra next year, I want to do a few shows with RAGE and orchestra afterwards – which can be implemented in a great way on the large stage of the Z7. I’ll be looking out for further show opportunities for sure... From today on, we have another helper on board on stage: Eddy – who fits the team very well. When playing the encore we really had a party on stage: Our friend Schmier who among others was our guest tonight, spontaneously entered the stage to perform as guest vocalist on "Down". After the concert we had a really nice and extensive party in the backstage area which caused many headaches on the following day. As always one simply feels reluctant to part with the Z7, as the atmosphere is so friendly and cosy there.

17.03.10 - 15th day of tour - Milan - I

Milan/Magazzini Generali... Italy – land of chaos! One already kows from previous experience that you cannot expect things to proceed on time! The scheduled soundcheck time alone from 18:00pm to 19:00pm for 3 (three!!!) bands caused headaches even before the beginning of the concert. However, there are few headliner bands who can run down their soundcheck in just 10 minutes and afterwards, leave the remaining time of the soundcheck to the supporting acts!? As in most cases, the meal was served later than expected, one simply can’t devour a pizza shortly before stagetime... Also our apologies to all magazines which we were to have interviews with: Because of the chaotic organisation, we had to keep all interviews very short. I’m willingly accepting all that haste and stress for that really fantastic audience, though! The reactions sound as if there are 4 times as many people in front of the stage – what a pity this venue has a very early curfew and thus, we didn’t have a chance to play for a bit longer. And once again, standing near the edge of the stage, it gave Peavy and myself a big smile when everybody sang the chorus along to the intro of "Empty Hollow"! The setlist worked out great another time, too, and towards the end, we could even play and implement our song "Soundchaser" which the audience had desired.

As the concert was over very early, we had much time for our fans who were able to chat and make pictures with us. As we learned, there was actually a fan who specifically was flown from Palermo to come and see us. Laurent, one of our French fans who has been following our trails from show to show for about 1 week and who has been a tremendous help, for the time being, attended his last RAGE concert on this tour tonight! When our caravan set off towards Montpellier where we were to spend our travel day on the following day, we were still up and sitting together, reading our guestbook which is always displayed at our merch stand. Among other things, we also read how much our fans like our new setlist, as we don’t always play a best-of set and have integrated many new songs into our programme. I think there’s nothing better for every musician to play newly-composed songs live – which makes bands like e.g. Motörhead, Saxon, Europe and many more very sad as their fans only want to listen to the old hits. At the end of Lemmy’s audio book in which he tells the history of his band Motörhead it can clearly be heard how sad this makes him. As a producer, I’m very pleased that everybody is satisfied with the DVD bonus material which I produced completely on my own, and that for the first time, everybody is satisfied with the sound of our new CD.

I think it’s a great pity that we play only one single show in Italy – greets to our booking agency Dragon Productions: We’d like to have more, please!

18.03.10 - 16. Tourtag - travel day

And yet another travel day on which I worried about my system as our whole backline in the trailer was highly suffering from the bumps and holes due to the bad roads and our bus drivers’ extremely racy and risky way of driving, and every time I open the trailer I pray that our system has survived in one piece. This joggling and shaking is definitely detrimental to tube amplifiers and any other high tech equipment, and André, too, has never experienced that he had to repeatedly tighten up all the screws on his drumset every day. But thank God that my ENGL amps are holding out bravely and without any problems!

19.03.10 - 17. Tourtag - Barcelona - E

Barcelona/Razz 2... Finally nice and warm weather. Shortly after our arrival, the too well known parking problem with our tourbus on the main street prompted our crew to hurriedly move our whole system through the inner courtyard and with an elevator into the club, with our bus being directly surrounded by the street traffic which was continuing to flow. As early as in the morning there were some fans and guitar pick collectors awaiting us in front of the club – it’s always funny when you just got up and someone is embracing you with great anticipation to make a picture of you before you even had the chance to brush your teeth in the first place. Inside the Razz it was so dark and cool that I changed my mind and take a stroll to the beach with the Seven guys to relax a bit there. A sunny beach café allowed us to have breakfast in the fresh air while viewing the sea - every day of our tour could start like that ;) Today Peavy was visited by his girlfriend and her daughter who came by airplane from Germany specifically to go on a city tour together. Peavy’s friend Fran also showed up before the show start already and bought loads of merchandise items for his shop. Unfortunately, Jen wasn’t allowed to sell our merch items herself as in Spain, this is done by local employees of the clubs who, moreover, demand high commission fees. I’m pretty sure Jen is taking much more care of our merch stand. The Razz club brings back many memories - good and less good ones, too. I’ll never forget the power outage 4 years ago at this club when I was playing my guitar solo with a flashlight fixed at the guitar neck and afterwards gave away T-shirts and beer from the stage. As to Peavy, this club’s backstage area brings up rather negative memories as on the "Speak Of The Dead Tour" in 2006, he had an argument with Terrana at this club who spat at him – this irrevocably made us split with him! The soundcheck went exactly on schedule and so there was nothing to prevent a good show, and as we already know by now how ardent our Spanish fans are, we prepared ourselves with vitamins and a great deal of water for this expectedly low in oxygen but absolutely awesome show.

Seven performed a solid show once more, but unfortunately, at the beginning of their set, the number in audience was a bit too low – a phenomenon many opening bands are confronted with and which makes them hardened. We’re always trying to have the first band start their performance at least half an hour after admission to give the fans some time to get in. Jaded Heart had told us that on their tour with Primal Fear, they once had to play even before(!) the doors were opened to the fans. I find this very incomprehensible but I still remember my time being with Mind Odyssey as support acts for Savatage and that during our set which in most cases was performed simultaneously with the admission of the audience, my guitar cabinets had to be left in the corridor and that apart from that, we had to play in halls which were almost empty. It’s not exactly easy for musicians to persuade fans who are waiting outside the venue. Particularly in regard to Spain, I’d schedule the shows to start a bit later as half past seven on a Saturday might probably be too early!? Subsequently to Seven’s performance, Jaded Heart entered the stage and then in the midst of their set, Jen appears on stage and surprises us all with her guest appearance on the song "Rising" – as she wasn’t selling our merchandise and thus, managed to very quickly learn a song by Seven.

After that it was time to CLEAR THE RING FOR RAGE! There was already a mind-blowing heat and the "Olé Olé Olé" choirs were deafening when we entered the stage. As early as after the first song we were wet all over. I had to wipe my strings dry with a towel every now and then to prevent my fingers from sliping off the strings when playing bendings, but the show went off smoothly and felt too short for us all! What an awesome audience! One feels the urge to thank every single person of the audience after every song. Why do the greatest moments always have to go by so quickly!? Unfortunately and analogous to Italy, directly after the concert, there will be a disco held which means that we have a strict curfew tonight. Thus, our crew once again had to lug our whole system to the elevator and through the inner courtyard to the street back to the trailer and load it there. We reserved the time until just before our departure for our fans who were still waiting to do some pictures with us, and to sign autographs. Then our journey continued to Bilbaooooooooo...

20.03.10 - 18. Tourtag - Bilbao - E

Bilbao/Rockstar Live... The last show of our European tour which this time happened to be a bit shorter than the previous. That was due to the fact that in the meantime, we had played a great number of single shows. We’d liked to play many more shows but it isn’t up to us but up to our booking agency and the local promoters. This year, we’ll certainly make up for this, playing several single shows. Also, it would be better if the playtime ran a bit longer as the permanent curfews keep shortening our set. Often times we have to keep an eye on the clock and drop a few songs from our setlist because otherwise we wouldn’t manage to stick to the individual venue’s timeframe. Towards the end of our tour we are pretty well matched playing-wise, and us three form a tank that would crush any possibly arising monitor problems. As the last show is known for always putting each other on and playing loads of tricks to each other, there was a mood of secrecy among the bands the whole day. The only one who wasn’t to be found in a good mood was Peavy who started an argument with our bus driver and preferably would have strangled him. We really didn’t have too much luck with our bus company: The bus itself leaves quite many things to be desired, and additionally, the only “rock star” who was permanently travelling with us on this tour was – the bus driver! Given this situation, I do understand Peavy’s point of view. And so André, Jen and myself planned many funny surprises for our support bands.

Seven entered the stage – being a bit timid of what may lie ahead of them, and began their show. Lukas, the drummer with Seven, was a bit confused as his whole drumkit was taped up with Gaffa tape, but these are jokes which can only be made with pros who are flexible. As to Honza, all of his pedals were hidden under a black towel, and standing in the dark, he was briefly shocked by where his pedals happened to disappear. The Seven instrumental began with the baby screaming from “Hellgirl”, and Honza couldn’t help laughing when he started with his guitar sounds. The baby screaming was to be heard throughout the song, and behind the stage, everybody laughed their head off. Disguised under my hooded jacket, I entered the stage during the guitar solo and played a short solo on the Jaded Heart keyboard. On the following song we had our RAGE opener explosion sound sample played back amidst the song and burst at stage at so high a volume to make the Seven guys’ faces suddenly turn pale white and they wondered what object must have exploded just a moment ago. Then all of a sudden, in another song, Jen is sneaking up from behind onto the stage and tapes up Thomas’ (the bass player) strings while him playing his bass. Last but not least André slaps a healthy dose of shaving foam onto Lukas’ (the drummer) head, and simultaneously, I put ice cubes into every other Seven band members’ t-shirts ;) The Seven guys were provided for... For those guys it was the first time, this was new to them and they were lucky that nothing more had occurred while they were playing. Just as with the FreaKozaks a few years ago, with Seven, I discovered a very good band and I’ll continue fostering newcomer bands and providing them the occasion to join us on our tours as supporting bands. I definitely have further plans with Seven, as far as their new CD is concerned.

Stage break for Jaded Heart. The Jaded Heart guys checked every singe thread, setting and detail with noticeable thoroughness prior to beginning their show. Then came the intro - everything as usual... Then, unexpectedly, André appears on stage and, with serious countenance, attaches signs to the micro stands with labels like "I wanna be a girl", "I was a girl", "I played for D.Hasselhoff", "Wanna Kiss?" etc. The first riff starts, and then suddenly during the guitar solo, Jaded Heart guitarist Peter was standing completely in the dark and couldn’t see anything on his fretboard. The darkness was followed by a stroboscope lightning and strange disco swirls, while Peter bravely struggled through his first guitar solo. During the 2nd song this happened again, apart from the fact that this time, over the monitors on stage and via talk back, there would be heard strange choirs which were purposely sung along out of tune. During his guitar solo I surprised Peter when I, secretly hidden, played a shredding guitar solo at full throttle via the PA and monitor system at a time when there normally would be a very calm melody. In the midst of the 3rd song André, Jen and myself, forming an eager cleaning crew, entered the stage and began sweeping between the guys and wiping the dust off, covering and taping up Peter’s Midi board with a towel to leave the stage afterwards. In the middle of another song, all of a sudden, my racing car sound (taken from the song Unity) was played via the system and mightily scared those guys, as also did the various explosion sounds ;) On one song, André started playing along to Axel’s drum playing in rhythmic opposition, hoping to make him mess up his rhythm. To top it all, at the end of the set, a backdrop reading "Jaded Fart" was hoisted, and Lukas and André started to dismantle Axel’s drumkit, except for the hi-hat, snare and bass drum. In the end, Axel was holding a single cymbal in his hands, allowing him to play the last accents ;)

As until this time, Peavy, André and myself have been laughing our asses off behind the stage the whole evening, we were already pretty well warmed up for our show. Unfortunately, due to a mistake of the local rew, there was a 15 minute delay. But when we finally started, as early as from the first song on, there was a great atmosphere. During our presentation of the individual band members, suddenly, a double of mine entered the stage whom I didn’t notice at first, and then loads of "Peavy Wagners" consisting of Jaded Heart and Seven musicians with stuck-on Gaffa tape beards came on stage. During "Straight To Hell", we were suddenly visited by the Seven guys disguised as waiters who were serving us drings and snacks. For the very last song "Highway To Hell", everybody entered the stage: There were 5 guitarists, 3 bassists, 3 drummers and, additionally, 3 vocalists on one stage – which was crammed indeed! Presenting the audience countless solos and sing-along parts, the song, the evening and thus, also our "Strings To A Web" European tour was slowly coming to an end! The aftershow party went on long, and everybody was reluctant to say goodbye.

On the next day we had an enormously long journey home and, being dead tired, had to unload at our band rehearsal room at Hamm in the middle of the night where unfortunately, André jumped off the trailer and twisted his ankle which was very painful for him but doesn’t jeopardize our plans for our upcoming shows. We wish you a speedy recovery, André!

21.03.10 - Back home

It is very nice to spend a few days at home now, but the break isn’t to last very long because as early as on Thurdsday, the Musikmesse at Frankfurt is on our schedule. Having played many concerts on our tour, there emerges the setlist which works best for this specific tour:

01-The Edge Of Darkness
02-Hunter And Prey
03-Into The Light
04-The Beggar's Last Dime
05-Drop Dead!
06-Empty Hollow (without Fatal Grace)
07-Saviour Of The Dead
08-Straight To Hell
09-Higher Than The Sky
10-War Of Worlds
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11-Set This World On Fire
12-Down

All our attempts to also incorporate older songs made the atmosphere flatten. Which doesn’t mean that we won’t play any older songs in the future, but we’ll continue to change our setlist in the future, too, and integrate some older songs into our programme. We had hoped that our new songs would work as they did, but we didn’t expect this. Which also shows that RAGE are developing continuously, and hopefully, our best album is yet to come.

For me, this tour was the most enjoyable and relaxed tour for years because the package with our two supporting bands simply worked great. Both bands are very nice people and, moreover, great musicians. Together with our crew members and the 3 bands we formed a 22-people strong family of campers ;) I want to express my thank to our crew for the great job they performed every evening. They really didn’t leave anything to be desired. Ingo and Eddie who, among others, works with Arch Enemy, Destruction, Edguy, Doro etc., integrated perfectly into our family. Never before did we have the system and organization on stage which Ingo provided us! A big compliment also goes to Gerd and Jürgen, our two FOH and light guys, for their great job! Thanks to Arkadij Friedt also for his support.

We’re looking forward to our promo tour throughout Russia and the following concerts in Japan and extend our thanks to our fans for their unbelievable support!

YOU ROCK!

Yours Victor

Photos by: Savafan, Bretislav Stasta, Ludek Ovesny, Joe Derschka, Elke Brassel, Claudia Kubowski, Dietmar Schäfer, T. Rex

70000 TONS OF METAL 2011

EUROPE TOUR 2010

25 YEARS ANNIVERSARY TOUR 2009

JAPAN TOUR 2008

EUROPE TOUR 2008

LINGUA MORTIS SHOWS 2007