Deggial

I had a meeting with Hansi from Blind Guardian and the booking agent we both use. I suggested we could save the day by taking down Blind Guardians drums after sound check, put ours up there and then in the change over we'd put their back again. This is how we did it on the tour we did with Grave Digger and it worked fine. Hansi had some doubts being afraid it "may change the sound of the drums in their in ear monitors". I also use in ear monitors (like most other in Therion) and given the fact that Blind Guardian had their own drum microphones (like we also did on the tour with Grave Digger), I could testify that the risk of a notable change is increadibly small, basically non existing. As a matter of fact the sound anyway change a bit when you go on stage with a crowd on the hall, as they absorb much of the reflections coming back from the hall when soundchecking in an empty venue.

We called the crew and asked about it and Peter (the best damn tech on the planet) said it could be done, but admitted it could make some minor changes to the sound. Hansi agreed to do it when it was clear the option would be Therion cancelling. However making this happen would require a much longer change over, which would mean much more work for the crew (which we agreed should be paid double for that sake) and it would therefore be very unlikely that there would be time also for any of the other bands to perform, as the technical difficulties reported from the crew at the venue seemed to be enormous (there was for example several power losses where the entire PA went dead).



We waited at the hotel for some hours while Blind Guardian soundchecked. When we finally were brought to the venue Hansi told me that "there was no space" to put away their drums. There was space for it behind stage and when I mentioned that, he told me the sound would change, so it became clear to me that he just simply changed his mind and didn't care about what he promised earlier. Or there was some other guy in the band not happy with what Hansi promised and made him take it back.

I then went down on the stage, checked how it would look like and it became totally clear that we wouldn't be able to use any scenery and that absolutely everything was totally fucked, we were to appear on stage like some fucking support act and all the scenery I payed to fly over would be lying behind stage. I went back backstage and said that I wanted to cancel if this was the circumstances for us and Hansi made clear that it was more important that Blind Guardian don't risk* having a different* sound in the in ear monitor than Therion performing (which is quite notable, as if they din't see any point with us playing and pulling people, then why did they agree to the arrangement with both bands playing in the first place?).



* Notice "risk" and "different". it is in no way sure it would be different and also "different" doesn't automatically mean worse either.



I then told Hansi I would cancel and he made clear he valued the Blind Guardians drum sound in the monitor more than Therion performing.

I was about to go outside the venue and tell people we're cancelling and tell them why. But I thought I'd speak with the band first. I realized I was maybe too fucking angry to take good decisions, so I told Kristian that lay down my own vote and let the band decide. They decided we play.

If you on the other hand like to hail some great musicians, completely without ego problems and with a totally non-pretentious self image, also send some roses and greetings to Blind Guardian, congratulating them for their outstandingly remarkable generosity and comeradeship, not to mention the great honesty shown. They're bigger than Metallica, have more complex music than Dream Theather and Meshuggah and a more delicate sound than Pink Floyd - yet they did SO many great sacrifices to help our little band warming up the stage for them, the only band people wanted to see that night. Sometimes the word "thank you" is simply not enough...