The wait is over: HammerFall will finally return in style to the United Kingdom! Kicking off spring and May with a week of Templar invasion on the British shores, it will be nothing short of...yes, a crusade. In the name of heavy metal, time to fly your rebel banners high, folks!

And don't forget to cast your vote for the Swedish Grammy nominations (see details below).

The Swedish Grammy has taken a different approach this year, by letting fans decide who gets to be nominated. Voting is open until midnight (CET) on December 14th. Go to the Grammy home page and let your voice be heard!

It's a year old, but some things you can just watch over and over again. Or not. The 2008 Advent Calendar is still up, and you can find it here. For those of you who don't know what this is, every day from December 1st-24th a new door will be opened with some exclusive content.

It was rehearsal time again last week, and it was the première for us in our new facilities. We've got so much stuff now from the tours we've done over the years - decorations, backdrops, equipment we don't use - that we need somewhere to store all the junk. Plus we wanted to get out of the cramped, dark, badly ventilated space we had before. Now, we've got 150 square meters to use for storage, rehearsing and lounging; we've brought couches, table and a pinball machine to make it more hospitable.

The sound in the room is great, and we've got lots of air in between our equipment to make the rehearsing more pleasant. HammerFall will only do one more show this year, at the Knock Out Festival in Karlsruhe on December 12th. Together with Edguy, U.D.O., Rage and Pink Cream 69 we will end the year a little prematurely but with no less of a bang than had it been New Years Eve itself! The setlist will be a mix between the tour and the festivals, and even if we haven't played together since August 20th, it sounded like we just left the tour yesterday (well, almost…).

The North American tour in March and April 2010 is now confirmed. Check the tour section for complete listing, or go to Enter The Vault for all the relevant North American Tour info.

Each show on the tour will have a limited number of VIP tickets available. This will grant the fan entry into the building one hour before scheduled door time for an exclusive meet-and-greet with HammerFall.

Both VIP tickets and regular tickets are on sale now and can be obtained exclusively through EnterTheVault.com until November 24, at which point they will be made available through all normal ticketing systems.

Wednesday's gig at Kulturkalaset in Göteborg was nothing short of amazing! Outdoors and free for everyone, the people flocked en masse, estimated to at least 25.000 invading Götaplatsen and Avenyn the most central part of downtown city. There were so many people, the bus and tram traffic had to be impromptu stalled during our show, hehe. We love our city!

I can't even begin to describe how awesome the gig at Wacken was for us! There were literally no end to the fists banging in the sunny air, and I am not sure anything could have made this show better for us. Well, maybe a couple of more songs to prolong the sensation, but not much else.

The next day we had a long travel day, beginning at noon and ending around ten. On paper. We had a couple of hours at the airport in both Hamburg and Copenhagen, and we were all ready for a lot of waiting and boredom. What we didn't expect was that some of the In Flames guys would have exactly the same trip as we did (they also played yesterday). We had some beers and hung out and just had fun, and it made the day go by really quickly!


After another beer at the Göteborg airport, some of us went straight to St. George's, the pub of Henrik from Evergrey, and continued our drinking there. When they closed, Fredrik and I left our luggage at the pub and continued by closing down Kelly's, another pub. Then it was off to Sticky Fingers, but while in the cab I realized I didn't have the keys to my apartment with me; they were still in my luggage at St. George's... It took some telephone calls and some waking up of spouses, but eventually I was let in and could collect my keys and luggage. By then it was time for me to head home. A really nice and unexpected day/evening, and I haven't laughed like that in a long while! I really needed it. Thanks for everything, guys, it was truly a pleasure! "Alright, thumbs up. Let's do this! Leeeeeeerrroooooyyyyyyy Jeeeeeenkiiiiiiiinssss!"
 
/Oscar

We have arrived at Wacken Open Air, flew in a day early to catch the shows of Running Wild and Heaven & Hell. Started by having a beer at the airport around noon, then just kept going. Those Strawberry Frozen Margheritas were awfully good!

We arrived in Åland around noon, gig at nine. Lots of free time, so we took a walk into town. The others tried to flip over the festival check-in booth, but stopped just short of succeeding.

Anders and I found a bike-rental place where we acquired two bikes for €10 a piece. They provided us with much fun during the day! We went up to a classic make-out point next to a water tower (we verified this was actually what it was with one of the locals afterwards), took a ride through the harbor and on main street, where we met up with the others in the band.


In Sweden and Finland, you can not buy alcohol in regular stores. To be able to control the drinking, the governments theorizes, they have kept the monopoly and decide when and where the people of the countries can buy their spirits. The outlet in Sweden is called Systembolaget. In Finland, they are a little less subtle and simply named it Alko.



The bikes were a big hit, as we played with them more or less throughout the entire day. We drove them round and round indoors, kicking at things, we competed in drifting, tried to make a turn without putting out feet down in the truck that carries our equipment (called a "garagevändning" when you take your motorcycle license in Sweden) etc. I lost the key for my bike while trying to make marks in the gravel in front of the stage, but some friendly photographer had picked it up, saving me from having to pay €50 in penalty.



Thank you Åland, for an absolutely amazing time yesterday! There is absolutely no question that you enjoy your heavy metal, and we were very, very excited afterwards. Too bad we had to leave so soon, but we had a ferry to catch. Overnight to Stockholm, then about 13 hours on the bus awaits. Going to the north of Sweden, to Piteå.

The world has lost a great bass player, fantastic song writer and an all-round super musician today. He was a long time really good friend and band mate of both Pontus and Anders since many years, and he was on the short list to replace Magnus in HammerFall two years ago. We mourn his death and celebrate his memory, as a lot friends, fans does as well. R.I.P., Marcel!

/HammerFall

Marcel Jacob dead