+++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. But before that madness begins on May 9 in Philly, I thought I’d give you a little taste of what’s to come. Below is the dirt from our recent shows in Glasgow, Manchester and London. +++

23.04. Birmingham
Together with those Brummy bastards we are kicking off the short but sweet ‘Defenders Of The Faith’ tour with Opeth! Its very nice meeting these guys again! Per and Fredrik are basically part of the Arch Enemy family!

Today is quite a busy day for Michael and Daniel. Terrorizer UK are here to conduct a lengthy interview for both Arch Enemy and Carcass – plus an insane photo shoot in the vein of the movie 28 days Later! I captured Michael and Daniel looking a bit on the…ermmm…infected side. Just check out their bite and strangle marks! Yeeeeees, that reunion is going well. Haha.

The show itself went well – the UK is always great when it comes to live shows! But the set didn’t flow so well, so we decided to cross out the guitar solos and add “Enemy Within” instead for the upcoming show in Glasgow!

Here some cool footage from the show:

“Dead Eyes See No Future”

Chris’ solo

Check out some photos HERE.

24.04. Glasgow
I wake up at an the ungodly hour of 7AM, peeing blood. We decide to get me to hospital in an ambulance, so I get medical attention quicker and get some sleep afterwards. Exciting! The two meds are very funny and keep cracking jokes with a thick Scottish accent.

Turns out I have a bladder infection – I was quite in a bit of pain for over a week. I cant help but tell the crowd about ‘Blood Pee’ – its not as exciting as blood puke, but still a good Dethklok moment there. Btw, I will be in some of these episodes, playing a very insane character ☺ I have already recorded one episode, I will do more when we get to L.A. on the U.S. run!

The Glasgow show is awesome! Raging, set – it works a lot better, but Vultures doesn’t take off live, so we decide to swap it with “I Will Live Again” for the Manchester show!

And here comes Blood Pee:

The setlist has emerged to this version by now:

25.04. Manchester –
Raving mad! Together with Glasgow the highlight of the UK tour. Great crowd, fantastic new venue (purpose built, clean, lots of rooms and showers) and for the first and only time during the UK run – good catering! The set works great tonight and we are getting very excited about London tomorrow. We will have some pyros at the end of the show. We also know 4350 tickets are sold already – the Brixton academy will be packed!

Check out the review and pictures from Manchester HERE.

26.04. London
Opeth – as different as they are musically from us – experience the same crowd reaction. Birmingham good, Glasgow and Manchester super intense. All camps are a little nervous about London.

The Arch Enemies backstage, discussing tonight’s set:

All the media will be there, the venue is huge, but a bit of a dump as well.. The PA system cant match the Manchester Academy system, the sound on stage is pretty indifferent. And the audience is too far away from the stage – that photo pit is taking up a lot of space. It’s a bit of a shame, because we play the show for the fans and not for the photographers – and I like being able to see people in the front row straight into the eyes. All these factors fall short tonight – but we get a huge mass of people instead! And the show is probably the best we have ever played in London. Apparently it sounded massive upfront and the circle pits, hands in the air and chants reassure us, we are doing great tonight. And the pyro plus big bang at the end is pure rock’n’roll magic!

Here’s a couple pix:

And here the Grand Finale on video:

It is Sharlees birthday today, so there will be quite a lot of partying going on later. I have press lined up for Sunday, so I decide to leave rather early. We need to clean out the bus and move into a hotel room. I look forward to the festival season and a less rigid tour schedule – I haven’t really chilled for ages.

Here I am with my buddy Payman in the hotel lobby, where I will be doing my Sunday press. The fucker didn’t let me win though!

Now its Monday, midnight. We are almost home. I am beyond tired and looking forward to my fluffy bed! We will have a few days rest, until next week: When the Tyranny & Bloodshred tour will kick off in the U.S. and I will do another 4 weeks of mad screaming

This tour is going to be fun and will be our last U.S. tour for a while. We will do festivals in Europe in the summer, then Carcass will do some touring. We are thinking about another European round maybe end of this year. SO WHOEVER WANTS TO SEE US IN THE US: DO IT NOW, WE WONT BE BACK BEFORE LATER IN 2009!

This EU and UK tour has been an absolute success, we played to more than 15.000 fans in these 2 weeks and we explored new territory: Russia! I want to say a big, hearty THANK YOU to everybody who came out to the shows! And to all the bands, who came along for the ride: Textures, 3 Inches Of Blood, Devildriver and the great Opeth of course! Our crew did a fantastic job – We will bring the whole lot with us on the US run! Its good to have this ‘family’ with us – it’s a well-oiled machine with a heart of STEEL and a brain made of METAL!

Hope to see some of you out there!

Angela

PS: We have just launched our UNITED ENEMIES fanclub! Check it out HERE and join us!

PURCHASE TICKETS to the TYRANNY & BLOODSHRED TOUR by clicking the links below

Fri/May-09 Philadelphia PA The Fillmore

Sat/May-10 Towson MD Recher Theater

Sun/May-11 New York NY Irving Plaza

Tue/May-13 Montreal QC Le Medley

Wed/May-14 Quebec City QC Imperial

Fri/May-16 Toronto ON Opera House

Sat/May-17 Detroit MI The Majestic Theater

Mon/May-19 Chicago IL House of Blues

Tue/May-20 St. Paul MN Station 4

Wed/May-21 Winnipeg MB The Garrick Centre

Fri/May-23 Calgary AB MacEwan Ballroom

Sat/May-24 Edmonton AB Starlite

Mon/May-26 Vancouver BC Croation Cultural Centre

Tue/May-27 Seattle WA Showbox

Thu/May-29 San Francisco CA Slim’s

Fri/May-30 West Hollywood CA House of Blues