CANDLEMASS Bassist Checks In From The Road

CANDLEMASS mainman/bassist Leif Edling has posted the following message on the band's official web site:

"We still live and breathe after a week on the road [with German thrashers DESTRUCTION]. It's been good and a bit bad too.

"The bad things first: Had to cancel two shows: Oslo (Norway) and Oulu (Finland). Oslo because of shitty ticket sales. The presale was 250 tickets 5 days before [the gig] at a place that holds 1,800. So maybe the advance could have been 300 in the end and 500 people would [have] attend[ed] in all. Not too bad, but at the Centrum it would be [bad], because of the size of the place. And Rockefeller, the main (and great club) 500 people would be totally cool, but it was booked for something else that day. We always get good crowds in Oslo, and we love to play there so this was very disappointing.

"We also had to cancel Oulu. But because of a totally different reason. No bus and no gear!! Storm on the Baltic sea! We drove through Polen from Berlin towards the Tallinn ferry to get to Helsinki. All car ferries were in shore because of the bad weather. We took a passenger ferry instead to make the show in Helsinki, only with some clothes and a guitar in each hand. The backline was provided in Helsinki by the promoter 'cause ours was still on the bus we had to leave in Tallinn. The Helsinki gig was awesome. Lots of people that went completely nuts to us and DESTRUCTION. The support acts DEATHCHAIN and AFTER ALL had great gigs too.

"Heard that a good crowd was waiting in Oulu, apparently a metal city in Finland. But we had no backline!! Ours was still on the bus and the gear in Helsinki had to be driven to Oulu. The promoter tried to get somebody to drive it up to Oulu — a 10-hour drive — and it was too late. The backline would not arrive in time for the gig. The distance to Oulu is too long. Bummer!! [We] really apologize about this to all you fans out there in Oslo and the Oulu area. We had no power over this and hopefully we can make it up later.

"Otherwise the tour has been great. All the bands get along superbly and the gigs have been great. Ludwigsburg and Berlin... not so many people as expected but I think CANDLEMASS have done great gigs anyway. We play different sets every night. Each person in the band choses a personal setlist every night. Jan started because he’s first in the alphabet, then Lars, then me, Mappe, and Messiah last. Very democratic. We play all the songs from the new album (not every night of course) and we got all the classics in the song pot as well plus things like 'Demons Gate' and 'Crystal Ball' some nights."

CANDLEMASS's latest album, simply titled "Candlemass", was released earlier this year via Nuclear Blast. Six back-catalog items from the group — "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus", "Ancient Dreams", "Doomed for Live", "Nightfall", and "Essential Doom" — will be issued in the U.S. via Candlelight in February 2006.