+++ Hey guys! It’s Angela from Arch Enemy here. Over the next few weeks I’m gonna be checking in with updates from our U.S. Tyranny and Bloodshred tour, which starts on May 9 in Philadelphia and ends on May 30 at West Hollywood’s House of Blues. With supporting acts Dark Tranquility, Divine Heresy and Firewind, it should be a crazy time. So keep checking back each week to get the inside dirt! +++

This week’s update begins on a slightly sour note caused by a very, very long travel day to Montreal due to our tour bus breaking down. Shortly after departure the engine started running on half the power and our max speed was capped at 40mph. So we slowly crawl up and down the mountains to the Canadian boarder, where they manage to take three-and-a-half hours to look at our papers and pale faces. Yep, not too much fun.

We get to Montreal at 4AM, Tuesday the 14. Instead of 8 hours the trip was almost 20 hours – so we are kinda wrecked and basically flee the bus immediately upon arrival. The bus then goes straight to the garage to be fixed. Despite being tired, I am looking forward to the show, the fan meeting, the lovely Miss Alissa White-Gluz (from The Agonist), our fanclub winners and my girl Hadass, a devoted metal soldier flying in from Jerusalem to catch the show! And what a show it is! Pure fucking metal magic, soaked in sweat, screams and moshpits – Montreal, we love you!!!

Hadass:

Michael backstage:

“Ravenous”

“Dead Eyes See No Future”

“Blood On Your Hands”

Firewind tearing up the stage:

We are having a hard time saying good-bye to our friends and fans that night – everybody wants to cherish that day as long as possible! At 6AM we finally make our way to Quebec, le capital du metal!

I don’t know how, but we manage to break the last five years record in attendance figure for a metal show! The L’Imperial is packed with almost a 1000 souls, ready to tear it up!

“Nemesis”

The promoter couldn’t look any happier and saying good-bye after this show takes a while. Thanx for all the love and care we got that day..and to everybody who came out to the show that night – pretty much every metal head in town!

The same goes for Toronto! Great show, extremely dedicated fans, singing along every line!

My friend Rebecca a.k.a. NEKRO – a fashion and fetish designer comes out to the show and brings me a new pair of her self-designed pants – they look killer!

I am very sorry I didn’t hang out with fans after the show – I had a very packed promo day and I can feel the bus-cold has gotten me too now. I am unusually exhausted after the show. I barely made it out of the shower there and back on the bus. I crash into bed immediately.

And on we drove to Detroit with a lovely three hour stint at the border…and this time we were intoxicated and not so innocent looking. But we managed to pull ourselves together, even Michael, who had some ominous space cookie after the show and looked scared shitless all the way through in the interview room. Priceless. I get to take a few early morning pictures from the beautiful scenery we are driving through:

Today it’s Detroit with very low ticket sales. A shame – the city of Rock’n’Roll isn’t doing well – Hip Hop, Rap and R’n’B have taken over this place! We have fun anyway, and the 300+ kids manage to fill up the run down Recher Theater with a huge circle pit! I think it was our last visit to Detroit though, if even such a strong package as we have right now isn’t doing well there. A shame indeed!

The next day at the House Of Blues in Chicago is a great ‘pick-me-up’! The place is packed and the crowd intense, celebrating every single band on this bill! We get to meet our lovely fanclub meet’n’greet winners, Stach who did a great airbrush painting of the Rise Of The Tyrant cover artwork and Bridget, a dedicated Arch Enemy girl with a great AE tattoo!

Jody from Randall (who came to hang with us and check Mike’s & Chris new sound) sums up the show in three words: Pure Metal Magic! Hells Yeah!

St. Paul, Station 4: This place is a dump, but the most popular venue in town – all metal bands are coming through here! We stay on the bus – the backstage room underneath the stage reeks like a pig stall! But a crowded sh*thole is better than an empty arena – and we have a killer show again! Btw, I think its time to introduce our lovely merchandiser Jake, who has been with us since the Ozzfest tour in 2005!

He is the undisputed master of his domain!

The prospect of four sold out Canadian shows coming up makes the smiles on our faces even bigger and the pain of the border crossing this night slightly more bearable. Oh yes, the Winnipeg border customs kept us there for quite a while again. We actually start to feel at home in fluorescent lit halls, haha! Fuck the system!

Later,
Angela