Lamori: Despatches From The East…

Join Finland’s Lamori as they document their Eastern European Tour…

April 7TH:

We kicked of the East(er) Europe Tour 2023 in Timișoara, Romania. The venue, Manufactura, is a rockers paradise in the heart of the city. A brick wall basement with arched ceilings. The crowd was wild as Lamori entered the stage. By the last song everyone was covered in sweat and beer. We could not think of a better way to start the tour!

Right now we are sitting at a cafe, treating the hangovers from last nights wild party with the locals. Lots of coffee! Getting prepared for the four hour drive to the next city.

April 8TH:

We arrived at our hotel, in the outskirts of this sleepy little Romanian town called Târgu Jiu. Four hours on winding roads, through small villages, beautiful mountains and national parks, had taken us here.

Tonight’s show was taking place at a small hole-in-the-wall placed called Club Piano, a medium sized basement the size of a living room. The place is packed when we let in fifty people, the owner told us. We are expecting a full house with you tonight, she said with a smile, as she led us down the stairs to the bar and stage area.

We started to put up our rig and did a soundcheck that took forever. People were already starting to pour in and the place was starting to get packed. Someone had brought a Finnish flag with him,and was waving it at us through the whole show. We never stop to be amazed over how energetic the crowd is over here.

We had a blast rocking this place! The locals had us stay up late, partying the night away. I don’t think we have ever been asked for so many selfies. We love these people!

We got some hours of sleep, and now a seven hour ride awaits us, as we strap our boots and get in the van, steering towards Bulgaria and Sofia.

April 9TH:

It was a long nine hour drive today. And we were going to be crossing the border to Bulgaria – with a ferry! Never had it crossed our minds that you could actually enter Bulgaria with a ferry, crossing the mighty Donau river.

It was all a somewhat interesting, and long, experience. After waiting for what seemed like ages, we were let onboard a strange looking ferry with a dozen or so harsh looking truckers. We were all ready late. But it was on the other side of the river that the real hassle would begin.

Stamps had to be collected on all sort of papers. We had to pay ridiculous sums to people in different booths. And then we got screamed at by some crazy guy who spoke no English whatsoever. After all this, they finally let us into Bulgaria.

All this hassle at the border had put us back in our schedule. We arrived in Sofia, the capital, just minutes before our soundcheck at the venue. We were hungry and tired, and we had a long night a head of us.

Something you usually learn the hard way when on the road is this: always eat whenever you can get your hands on proper food. Now our diet had mostly consisted of whatever we could grab in a hurry at the gas stations: chips, cookies, protein bars, coffee and beer.

The venue for tonight was The Pit. We were greeted by the staff and were amazed by the fact that they had all ready everything set up on stage for us. We did our fastest soundcheck ever and were ready to roll!

A handful of people showed up. Apparently Sundays are hard the bartender told us. But as always, we deliver a full blown show even if there would be only one guy in the audience.

We had a great time after the show with the locals, and we made lots of new friends. They all promised that they would bring every one they know to come witness our amazing show the next time we are in town. We hope that will be soon. See you again Sofia!

April 10TH:
Last nights endeavours in Sofia ended with oven baked pizzas consumed in the hotel bathtub. With our hungers satisfied and all sweat and beer washed away from our bodies, we all hit the sack.

Next morning, our singer drank so much coffee at the hotel’s breakfast restaurant, that their coffee machine broke down. They do not seem to be used to Finnish coffee drinkers around here. After begging the staff to fix the machine to get just one las cup out of it, we were ready to hit the road again. Fortunately for our banging hangovers from last night, today was only going to be a three hour ride to Kazanlăk.

Our driver, organizer and tour manager, Kris of Rock Tour Agency, has been doing a great job in getting us safe and sound from place to place. The roads over here can be pretty hairy.

We arrived midday in Kazanlăk, a medium sized city located between some beautiful mountains in Bulgaria. Our accommodations have been pretty decent on the tour, up until now that is. Todays venue had arranged some shady looking place for us to stay the night. The rooms were ice cold cement bunkers with thick air reeking of cigarette smoke. The beds were full of stains and in the corner of the room was a small tv. We put it on. The first channel showed some cheap porn movie. It didn’t take long before we were all coughing and feeling nauseous. We had to get out of this place.

We found another place nearby that was decent enough. There, we got into our stage outfits, jumped back into the van and drove off to the venue.

Hope Live Club is your typical basement rock bar. The sort of place you know you will have a good time at if you are a rocker or metal head. We started to put up our rig on the small stage, grabbed a couple of beers with the owner and admired all the Banksy artworks plastered on the walls.

Being a Monday we didn’t expect a full house. But slowly the place was starting to fill up. We hit the stage and started to rock out. It’s always fun when people come up to you after the show and thank you. This night a guy came up to us and was sorry he had missed the show. But his friend had sent him a video of it. He told us the show looked so good in the video, that he had to come down here and thank us and get some of our merch.

The night ended with some vodka shots with the owner, who insisted that as we are from Finland, we have to drink some Finlandia Vodka with him. Bottoms up!

 APRIL 11TH:
We woke up to rain and thunder. It was pouring down like hell out there. And that’s when we remembered. We had left all our gear at the venue last night, meaning we would have to get back there and pack up the van in the pouring rain. Guess this was the price we had to pay for drinking all that vodka last night, getting too hammered to pack up after the venue had closed.

Now with the van packed and all of us soaking wet, we drove off towards the beach town of Varna. Looking at the map, we had a nice scenic route through the mountains ahead of us. Or so we thought.

With the rain pouring down, we couldn’t see shit. And the narrow mountain road was so messed up that we practically had to crawl forward to not break the van. There seemed to be more holes than actual road ahead of us. Safety barriers were non existent. A wrong turn and we would be sent off flying towards our doom, down the steep cliffs that began just inches from where the so called road ended. Miraculously, we all made it in one piece.

Stopping at a gas station for some quick snacks and coffee, we started to get harassed by some drugged up guy running around between tables. Decked in Adidas three stripes and a big swastika tattooed to the back of his head, the guy had bad business written all over him. Two minutes later a cop car shows up. Two cops enter. Both with their hands on the guns in their holsters. This could get nasty. But five minutes later the guy is in the back of the cop car, and they are driving away with him. No one at the gas station even seemed bothered. It was all business as usual.

Tonights venue, Hale, is a combined inside skate park and live club. The place could easily swallow over three hundred people. Being a cold and rainy Tuesday, we had no hopes of filling the place. But as we left the backstage area, heading for the stage, we were all surprised by a large crowd that was greeting us.

As we were delivering them our show, we were again surprised! These people knew our songs and were screaming along with us. Afterwards even the sound guy came up to us and told us he was surprised to see so many people showing up. We definitely had to come back again soon, he told us with a big fat smile as he shook our hands.

Five shows down, four to go!

APRIL 12TH:
The night in Varna was full of adventures. But after being denied access to the hotel pool area in the after hours, we all decided to call it a night.

After heavily caffeinating ouselves the next morning, we were ready to leave Varna. Today we were off to Ruse, a border town next to the Donau river. We would be crossing the Friendship bridge over the river, back to Romania, the next day. But tonight we had a show in Ruse at Max Club.

The drive to Ruse went fast and smoothly. Today we actually had some time to rest and relax before the show. And have a proper dinner at a restaurant.

While finishing our dinners we get a call from Kris, our tour manager. Apparently Bulgarian national television had snooped up that we were in town, they wanted an interview with us.

The TV crew was waiting for us at the club when we arrived. The reporter asked us what we thought of Bulgaria and all the cities we had visited. To be honest, we had only seen beat up roads, hotel rooms and the venues we played at. But we put on our best behaviour, smiled and told her that we loved it here. At least we were not lying when we said that we have met some amazing and very friendly people here. The crowds had been amazing every night and we were grateful for the warm welcome we had received here.

As we started to get our rig up on the stage, the venues sound engineer started to look more and more confused for every cable we handed to him. As it turned out, he had never gotten our tech rider. And their outdated in-house mixer did not have enough inputs nor outputs for us. Ah shit! We would have to wing it tonight.

Considering none of us really heard anything on stage, the show turned out to be a success. The crowd was a bit restrained at first. But after a couple of songs into the set, everyone was waving and shouting. As we kicked off our closing song Palace of Pleasure, and our singer Matt pulled his shirt off, the place went crazy.

After the show, some local strippers tried to drag us to their club. Having heard only bad things about people being scammed and ripped off at those places around here, and with a five hour ride ahead of us early the next morning, we kindly refused their offers and headed back to our hotel.

APRIL 13TH:
Latest update from the road, two more shows to go!

Bright sunlight came crashing into our hotel rooms, touching our tired faces. Slowly we were coming back to life again. But considering we had been on the road for about a week now, doing shows back to back every night, we still felt relatively fresh.

Outside we were greeted by blue skies. Not a cloud in sight. A warm breeze blew through our hair. It felt nice, as we’ve had nothing but grey skies, rain and chilly winds for the entire tour up until now.

Today we were leaving Bulgaria, heading back to Romania. Some two kilometres from the border a line of trucks began to form. Oh shit, we thought. Will this be a reprise of our last horrendous border crossing?

Surprisingly enough, we were allowed to pass the two kilometre truck line, paid two Euros for crossing the Friendship Bridge, showed our passports, and then we were in Romania. That’s it! My God, why could it not have been this simple coming into Bulgaria?

Ahead of us was now a long six hour drive to Galaţi. The town, located just thirty minutes from the Ukraine border, had us a bit worried considering the Russian invasion. But Kris, our tour manager, reassured us that we should have nothing to worry about.

Coming to town we went straight to the venue. There we were greeted by the owner who had trays full of some local shots stacked up for us. These “bullets”, as the owner kept calling them, were potent AF. And we hadn’t even started the soundcheck yet.

Versus Pub, the venue for tonight, has an amazing outside stage and bar area. But apparently the weather wasn’t warm enough yet for them to open it for the season. Meaning the show would have to take place inside the pub, where the stage was the size of a kitchen table. We would have to get creative here.

We set up the drums on the stage. Crammed the keyboards into a small corner. Put the bass and guitars on the floor. And Matt, our singer, had to be standing on a speaker. It was cramped, but doable.

The place was quickly getting packed. And with the owner handing us shot after shot, we ourselves were getting pretty packed too. We took one final pre-show-shot with the owner before we entered the makeshift stage we had built up. We kicked off our opening song Born to Lose and started to rock out like there was no tomorrow. The crowd went wild! And they would only get crazier as the show went on.

After finishing our last song the crowd just wouldn’t let us leave. They were begging us on their knees for more. We were looking at each other all perplexed. What should we do? Then the owner comes running to us with more shots. “Just take a small break guys”, he said with some seriousness in his voice. “Drink some shots with me backstage and then you come back and do a couple of more songs, OK? You have to he said, now sounding a bit desperate. These people will tear the whole place down if you don’t”.

Hell, we were not expecting this. We took a small break, posed for some photos with the crowd and downed some more shots with the owner. It was all a big party for us by now. All right everyone, we told them as we entered the stage again, this is exclusively for you guys because we love you all so much. Everyone went wild.

We played three more songs. The rest is all a blur. How we managed to get ourselves back to our hotel is a mystery. But we all woke up there the next morning, realising we had a seven hour drive ahead of us…

APRIL 14TH:
Câmpulung, a small mountain town (the oldest in Romania) with a population of about 20.000, situated between snow clad hill tops and long fields, some 50 km from Draculas castle, was our destination for today.

The winding mountain roads took us past some beautiful vistas with deep valleys, rushing rivers and tiny villages with more Tsigai sheep than people. The fresh mountain air was a soothing relief to the state we had found ourselves in after last nights shot race with the owner of Versus Pub. Little did we know that we were about to top that endeavor tonight…

Kris, our tour manager, told us before we left Galaţi, that tonights venue in Câmpulung would be very very very small. Arriving at the place, we could see that he had not been exaggerating.

Pub Rock, as the place is called, is a long concrete block with the entrance in one end, and the bar in the other. Looking all confused, we asked where the stage is. You can set up your things in front of the bar, the owner happily exclaimed. But first he wanted to take us out for dinner.

After finishing our dinners and having some great conversations with the owner, we returned to the venue to start unpacking our stuff, only to find the place full of people. Trying to set up our rig in front of the bar in a jam packed room, where everyone wanted drinks from the bar, was an interesting experience to say the least.

After doing our best to set everything up we asked the owner when the sound guy would arrive. There was no sound guy. But the owner reassured us, with that big smile of his, that he would help us. In that case, we said with a hopelessness in our voices, we will be needing some vodka shots to brace ourselves for this shit man.

We did something that was almost resembling a soundcheck and downed some more vodka shots. The place was now jam packed with people, and the ones who could not fit inside were standing outside looking in through the doorway. OK, we thought, we are not going to let all these people down. Our setup for tonight may be crap, but we will give these guys a show they will never forget.

Having the bar behind the drummer was dangerously convenient. The drinks just kept pouring in. And it didn’t take long before the crowd was chanting SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS! after every song. They just wouldn’t let us continue if we did not take a shot with them. The place was getting wilder by the minute. As usual, we closed our set with Palace of Pleasure and everyone just went totally crazy.

After the show, the party continued with the locals. One guy asked us how the hell we had found this tiny place. He was so grateful that we had given the him the opportunity to witness a show like this in his hometown. No one in here, he said, would forget this show. Neither would we, we told him, raising our shot glasses and cheering with him.

APRIL 15TH:
It was early morning and the alarm clocks kept ringing in our rooms at this hillside hotel, in the mountain town of Câmpulung. The hotel had a somewhat eerie atmosphere to it. There were no other guests staying here. The interior looked like it had not been touched since the early seventies. And we were certain we had heard some strange noises coming from the hallway in the night.

Of course, all the shots we’ve had yesterday were still doing their fair share of keeping us drowsy. But this wasn’t just our drunken minds playing tricks on us. Or was it? Slowly getting out of our rooms for a quick breakfast, we were expecting to be greeted by an axe welding maniac and twin girls asking us if we wanted to play with them. But the hallway was empty. This was not The Overlook Hotel after all. And we were not in the movie The Shining. We were just hungover. And for the first time on this tour, we felt pretty exhausted.

Eight shows back to back, with an average of five hours in the car every day, it was all starting to take its toll on us. Just one more show we thought to ourselves, sipping some coffees in the hotel bar. We got back into the van and started our six hour drive to the beautiful town of Cluj-Napoca.

We arrived in town early enough for us to grab a proper dinner at a restaurant. We even had time to take a stroll through the city, snapping photos like crazy tourists.

Our last show of the tour was taking place at Flying Circus. Located in the heart of the city, it is a decently sized cave bar with a large stage area. Tonight was the only show that we would have an opening act perform before us. And this was the local vampire post-punk duo Bossferatu.

After rocking out to Bossferatu’s set, we got up on stage and prepared ourselves for the show. As this was the last show of the tour, we would not need to be holding back on anything. After this, it would be over. We squeezed out absolutely everything we had left in us. And the crowd was wild! Romania, we love you!

With the show over, we quickly had to pack all our stuff and get going. We said our goodbyes to Kris, our tour manager from Rock Tour Agency. He’d done such an amazing job and we’ve had such a great time together. We love you Kris. Covered in sweat, beer and other fluids, we got into a taxi outside the venue. And then we were off towards the airport, to catch our flight home. The tour was over.

EPILOGUE:

If there would be a tagline for this tour, of nine shows back to back and over 2700km of road traveled, it would be this: expect the unexpected. And have an open mind. So many times did we arrive at venues and thought that this would not be a very good show. Either the mixer would be outdated, the stage would be non existent, or there would be no sound guy showing up. But in some strange and twisted way, those were the shows that turned out to be the most memorable.

We have learned a lot during this tour. It has been a great experience. We have met so many lovely people and made lots of new friends in these countries. We really hope to be back again soon!

And again, to all our fans out there who shows up at our gigs, buys our merch and shares us on social media, we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. See you all out there!

LAMORI out.