

After one of the best tours
of our entire lives, we jetted back to Europe to begin our summer
festival run.First stop: DEUTSCHLAND!

What U Lookin At

Germany is an epic place to
play shows.First stop was two sold-out shows at the Batschkapp in
Frankfurt. They were intimate shows. Part warm up. Part a chance for
us to get up close and personal with the echelon. Thanks to everyone
who came out.

Rock Am Ring crowd
The
first fesival show was the gargantuam ROCK AM RING. If you haven’t
heard of it before, it’s the biggest rock festival in Germany and
hundreds of thousands of people go to both Rock Am Ring and Rock Im
Park for 4 days and camp and watch bands play. I can’t describe what
it’s like to step out in front of a crowd and not be able to see where
it ends.The show was pure madness. Unforgettable and impossible
to really put into words.

We played at sunset. The
weather was perfect. The crowd was on fire. Everything came together.
Quite possibly the best festival show we’ve ever played.We look
forward to seeing everyone on this tour across Europe and can’t wait to
share this adventure with you.
- jared
This week has been
incredible! It started with 2 small shows in Frankfurt, the energy was
amazing! Then we went to Rock Am Ring and played at 8:50 PM as the sun
was going down…. The feeling was indescribable with 85,000 thousand
bodies moving to our music!
- Shannon
Walking through the streets of
Frankfurt and came across this little skatepark under the bridge. Why
couldn’t stuff like this exist when I was a younger! I would have
killed to have this place somewhere near where I lived… Oh well, in
another life. For now, I’ll just enjoy it through these kids.
- TomoMessages from Mars n° 2
After
an EPIC weekend at Rock Im Park and then Rock Am Ring we headed away
from Germany to the city of bikes and canals… Amsterdam.


The
city is so beautiful – delicate buildings leaning on one another,
impossibly crooked, cobblestone streets and winding waterways.
Spent most of the time editing the new video
but snuck out and went on a late night walk. Wandered through the red
light district, met up with my friends including Remco from G Star. Was
great to see familiar faces. Made friends with some fish and saw the
worlds smallest starfish. The weirdest part was when the rats stormed
the restaurant we were eating at. Not exactly dessert but… ugh.
Had a show in Tilburg the next day. First
time we’ve played on that side of the country and the show was
incredible. Thanks so much to everyone who organized and participated
in “light night”. It was a beautiful sight to look out onto from stage
and be floating in that sea of neon.

After
Tilburg, we headed to Paris and were locked down in a studio just
outside the city all day. I left at 530am, had a quick bite to eat at a
place called ‘aux pied de cochon’ or ‘I peed on your croutons’.
Wandered through the streets. Paris is an incredible city at any hour
but in the early morning light it’s eerily quiet and empty and a great
time to discover things about it that you’ve never noticed before.

After
2 hours sleep, I’m now on a train to Geneva to headline the Caribana
Festival. Looking forward to seeing all our Swiss friends again. The
train ride is beautiful and I love Europe.

We’ve
only been here for a week but I feel right at home again.
See you soon.
- Jared

Just
got off the stage at the Caribanna Festival in Switzerland and it was
epic! Energy was sick!
Day started off
with me waking up on the bus and walking out of it to find a huge lake
with mountains in the distance covered with snow. Nice vision first
thing in the morning. I ended up getting on a speed boat and taking a
ride around this pond with France on my right and Switzerland on my
left, pretty relaxing being out there.
Here’s
a pic, till next time!
-
Shannon
Here
we are in Switzerland! What an amazingly beautiful place! Sometimes
while touring around the world, you forget to stop and just enjoy the
scenery. This photo is of the marina at the Caribana Festival here in
Switzerland and I was just sitting here forever just enjoying the view.
Feels good to take a minute to yourself and just enjoy the
surroundings. Looking forward to Download Festival!!!
- TomoMessages from Mars n°3[center]


After a sleepless night we left Paris (and a
sweaty hotel room courtesy of a broken ac) and headed to neutral
Switzerland to the beautiful Caribana Festival. It’s situated right on a
lake between France and Switzerland and boats were moored right by the
stage.

We actually did some interviews on
one of the sail boats that afternoon and Shannon even took a ride to
the middle of the lake. Still not sure where he commandeered that
vessel…The sun went down right before we played and it started pouring
rain which made it even an even more chaotic show. We all went nuts
together singing nx and drenched or not it was perfect.We headed
to the UK after Switzerland to play Download Festival. This was one of
the first big festivals we ever played (in 2007) so we have really
fond memories of it. We were playing on the Ronnie James Dio stage (I
wore my Sabbath shirt in tribute) and were greeted by none other than
the legendary Tommy Iommi when we were walking up to stage. It was an
honor to meet him and see him side of stage right before we went on. We
played at the same time as Rage Against the Machine (we must be out of
our heads) but somehow people stayed and it was incredible. I couldn’t
even begin to image how many people were watching but thanks to all
who did. You blew our minds.

Sang happy B to our friend Nichola
(of Kerrang fame) and our good friend Chino from Deftones came out and
sang The Kill and surprised the already raukus crowd. He nailed it
again and I got a chance to publicly thank him and his band for making
such inspiring music all these years. Thanks again Chino.

After the UK, we went to back to
Germany, which is feeling more and more like another home. We love the
people and the shows are always crazy energy and insane – We played
Dortmund on the Tuesday night – Leipzig on Wednesday. Both magical.

PS. We announced a brand new show in
Germany at oberhaussen in december. Can’t wait.I had actually
been to Leipzig once before but I didn’t realize just how beautiful it
is. I took a walk around when I first woke up and got to enjoy a quiet
moment in the park with some sunshine, a busy little family of raher
large otters, some granola and soy milk, and a few fans who were about
and about getting ready for the festivities.

Hopped off a plane this morning and
am now in Finland for Provinssirock. Stays light outside till 1am.
Midsummer madness they call it… I got a chance to get some great
finnish food at a place called JUURI and now I’m back to life and ready
to work all night.I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
-jared


A barely standing building from
world war 2 in Leipzig, Germany…there was a gate surrounding the
property so I had to jump it to get this photo. Pretty amazing what we
all humans had to go through to get to where we are today. Lives lost
and and many a born to help carve today’s society.



I also went into a church in the
town center where in 1989 a secret meeting was formed to start the
beginning discussions of the destruction of the Berlin wall…it began
with a few people and ended up growing to over 100,000 protesters,
basically the size of the crowd at the Download festival in England
where we performed! Have a great week and enjoy the moments of this
short life we have!!!
-Shannon

Waking up at 4am for ferries to
cross the english channel use to really annoy me. Although, when you
look out over the horizon and see views like this one it becomes quite
difficult to be angry at the opportunity to see something like this. I often imagine what it was like 300-400 years ago when crossing these
waters were much less peaceful than this. What has become a routine
trek from the UK to France was once quite a perilous journey. Its easy
to forget the history here, and I believe it is important to remember
that no privilege we enjoy anywhere on this earth came without the
ultimate price from so many people. Nothing in this world comes easily
and this luxury is no exception…
-Tomo