The Tour Disease

Haninge is the place where I live. It’s a suburb to Stockholm. I am looking out the window and it’s… grey… grey and then it’s grey, and I am all alone. My little daughter is with her mom right now. I am thinking back on the tour with Therion. And I realize that touring is a disease. When a tour is about to end you think “It’s gonna be great now, to come home and do nothing!” And it is! But only maybe for two days. Then you are back in to this normal stuff again.

I started to go through the great column of bills that I left by the door hoping they would disappear the next day. But they remained. In the big pile of post there are also a lot of presents from fans. Necklesses, pictures, drawings, you name it! And it reminds me how much the fans mean to me. Before going on tour I thought that was only an empty phrase used by artists because it sounds good to say it. But speaking for myself: I really mean it! I am starting to think back on the tour and getting sentimental…

It’s six a clock in the morning. I am waking up in the bus (first of all as usual) I have the lower bunk. The other guys called mine “The junkbunk” because I have so much stuff in it including myself. Like an athlete in mordern gymnastics I am getting up and out of the very narrow bunk. Go down the stairs and put on some strong coffee in the machine. I go to the front with my coffee and say hello to Klaus, one of the drivers from Germany. Paul, the other driver from England, is sleeping. Waiting for his turn to take over the wheel. We all know the ritual. We dont have to talk so much… I take the first morning cigarette and it gives me the usual chills down my spine. Then I make coffee for Klaus. “Where are we now Klaus?” “Vii aah inna Sloovackiaah” he replies with his heavy german accent. Slovakia… I realize that I am blessed. I am travelling through the whole world and getting paid for it. The sun is shining outside and it makes the landscape beautiful. And I think for myself that I will always be very humble for this fact! I will never complain about bad food, stinky toilets etc. etc. I love this and it’s a lifestyle! I look at the clock: 08.00. I know it’s time for Snowy Shaw to soon be down in the lower front lounge to ask me for a cigarette. I am already holding it in my hand ready for him. This “thing” comes down with mascara on all his face, black painted toenails, blond hair that points both to south, west and north at the same time. This man IS rock ‘n’ roll. For real!

It’s now evening in some country. Getting in the stageclothes. Putting on the make up. Our tour manager Richard Peach enters the dressingroom. “Fiiiive minutes to show!!” He shouts. We are getting ready, the light goes down and you can hear the roar of the crowd. The adrenaline is pumping and the hair on my arms stands right up and in this moment nothing else matters. Real normal life is something else right now. When I enter the stage and meet the eyes of all the happy people in the audience it’s so magic it’s simply no words for it. And in that moment I realize that I never want to do something else whatever the price is. And that I got the touring disease.

So now, like a junkie, I am sitting here and feel abstinence over the fact that it’s not going to be another gig or another travel for a long long time. My doorbell rings and wakes me up from my daydream. It’s my neighbour Dimitri. “Hey Thom!! Can you borrow me some coffee of you??” I walk smiling out to my kitchen to get him some coffee beans. He said “borrow”. I know I will never get it back. He soon owes me the entire island of Java. But it’s okay. I better get used to these normal situations again now. Until the next tour! And I will survive the normality!

Written by Thomas Vikström
More: Guest Columns, Therion