Chapter VIII

During the Summer we did numerous festival gigs. We got to play with Metallica in Belgium and Dio in Turkey. Old heroes!! I knew a guy in Dios crew and had asked him to introduce me to RJD.

The festival was a small bill of us, Kreator, Rotting Christ and Dio. The dressing rooms we're all located in the same house, and Dio's dressing room was the backstage bar basically. After our gig, I was told I just should go over there to the bar and say hi or whatever. I got a new beer and walked up. As I opened the door to the bar I got everybody's attention, including Ronnies.

Once I stepped into the room, the fucking door smashed back at me hitting the beer out of my hand. So I spilled beer all over the floor and was instantly thrown out by Dios tour manager. Later got a signed poster at least saying "Michael magic", but I lost it on the tour bus.

We also did a festival in Poland and the Czech republic together with numerous bands. Biff Byford of Saxon introduced Samael as "Samuel" I remember. Nice! And we shared a small van with Anathema who we're singing Beatles songs ALL THE TIME!.

5 in the morning in a freezing van through Poland, the 5 of them singing "She came in though the bathroom window". I love those guys, but at the time they had a death wish!

Since we'd decided to record 2 albums that meant double the touring than what you do for a single album. The first thing we did was another North American tour. We had to cancel 2 festival appearances in Finland so we'd be able to rehearse. And we got flamed for that.

We'd no idea we had fans in Finland at all, let alone that people would be upset by our cancellation. However, a lot of people got upset, but we literally had to do this. The "Damnation" tour meant a set list of 14 songs we'd never played live before, with few exceptions. Per Wiberg had also accepted to help us out playing the keyboards on this tour, so we obviously had to play with him and learn the tracks together. The tour, together with Porcupine tree went great too. We played some great places like the Fillmore in San Francisco, the Metro in Chicago and the House of Blues in L.A. There we got a visit from Linda Perhacs, who is basically my idol. She did one album in 1970, which is absolutely stunning!! She came to see the show! At the last gig in Seattle I did a song with Porcupine tree.

I went up and sang on of my favourite PT tracks, "A smart kid" off the "Stupid dream" album. It went well, but I was nervous like a little kid!

Once we got back home I had approximately 10 days before I was supposed to get married. Everything went great, the marriage itself was more or less a great dinner and party with all our friends and families. The ceremony took maybe 15 minutes. At was pouring down with rain, but it was a cool day I must say. The band was there, Per even played the wedding march! Steven Wilson also played a song in our honour!

Then it was off again for a short European tour. It started with 3 gigs that were all double sets, one mellow and one heavy. The third show was recorded and released on DVD recently under the name of "Lamentations Live at Shepard's bush empire". Then we did another 10 additional gigs with local support acts. Best show was the 013 in Tilburg. Nice!!! Few weeks off, then we had our first Scandinavian tour.