Biography

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Chapter VI

Well, well, what can you say after all we've been through since "Blackwater park" came out. All of a sudden we're highly regarded, highly sought after with a credibility going through the roof. "BWP" did so much for us. All of a sudden we were offered several tours and we even got to do our first ever headline tour of Europe. Pretty much everywhere we went we were greeted with open arms and the crowds grew bigger and bigger.

We appeared on some of the most famous Summer festivals, same thing there. Didn't matter if we're playing in the middle of the night. Our fans were there, going crazy! The cheesy term "You guys are moving up into the "big" league now" all of a sudden applied to Opeth. Even though "big league" in the metal world isn't really comparible to the rock or pop scene. Still, a big step for us. We did our first ever tour of the USA. Still, thinking back on this tour with great memories. In fact, I think it's the greatest thing I've ever experienced. We shared a bus first with Amorphis (8 gigs or so) and then with Nevermore (5 weeks??).

We were partying like never before. Warrel (vocalist in Nevermore) and myself were banging down Vodka every night. I was pretty much out of my head every single night on that tour! I got a Spanish nickname for "bum" or something from the Martins after that tour. And since, every time I get a little bit drunk, they always call me that. I don't do any other drugs really, so alcohol is my vice so to speak.

Anyways, all the US gigs, good or bad, I have fond memories of. Maybe LA or Chicago were the best for us, even though Atlanta, NYC and all Canadian gigs pretty much rocked!

Coming back home didn't really mean any rest as we had several festivals booked. Wacken/Germany, Waldrock/Holland, Eurorock/Belgium, Hultsfred/Sweden, Quartz/Norway and more. These were hectic days for a band used to have no bookings whatsoever.

The European tour, although great overall, didn't come close to what we experienced in the US. Partly we had severe routing problems which meant several days off on which we had no money or anything. After a while there definitely was a tension on the bus between the bands and the tour manager. Katatonia (our best friends in the biz) we're out on a limb (as usual) and we tried to take care of them the best we could, but it is hard when you're not exactly on the top of the world yourself. Overall though, the tour was good and it made us realize that we're a headline act now, and in the future things are going to change to our benefit. Best gigs on this tour I guess was the one we did in Milano/Italy + London/UK.

On one of our gigs, in Bradford/UK our record label had set up a meeting with a certain Andy Farrow who run Northern music management. MFN more or less demanded that we found ourselves a good manager. And after a brief meeting, we'd gotten ourselves one.

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