It’s August 29, and HAIL! is set to plunder with the Vikings and Norsemen across Scandinavia for the next weeks. We all arrived in Norway’s northern city of Trondheim on Sunday August 30. Ripper, Abba and I flew from the USA while Andreas came up from Oporto, Portugal where he played a festival with SEPULTURA the night before.
 
New to the outfit on this tour is our friend and skins man Roy Mayorga, now of the famed group STONE SOUR. I first saw Roy play with SOULFLY on OZZFEST 98. His hair was red and he was a ball of fury behind the drums. Today, his hair isn’t red, but his playing is still the ball of fury it ever was. It’s good to have him on board this month. He came over from Glasgow, Scotland where he was recording in weeks prior with punk legends AMEBIX.
 
Norway is my father land, originally spelled ‘Elevsen’ and traced back to the late 1600s. Our promoter Havard (“Howard” to us Americans) gave me and Abba a factual tour of the city, informing us the Trondheim airport is technically in the city called HELL. Now, we can officially say “We’ve been through and hell and back”!
 
AUGUST 31   DAY ONE- Rehearsal
 
We spent seven hours rehearsing the set today with Roy. We were in an old WWII submarine bunker in Trondheim, built by the Germans back in that day. Apparently, the place was built so well built that they can’t even destroy it with dynamite without completely ruining the entire downtown area of Trondheim! However, the inside was nice and remodeled and sounded good for our first time playing with Roy. The chap certainly did his homework and is going to bring some good mosh-ability and punk rock chops to HAIL! this month.
 
Afterward, the promoter took us to his family’s house for a wonderful dinner of whale and salmon. With Marty Freidman’s solo album peacefully offering us subtle background music, we had a wonderful meal and received some amazing Norwegian hospitality.
 
SEPTEMBER 1   FIRST SHOW- Trondheim, Norway
 
We played in this20really hip area of town with old buildings remodeled into lofts and restaurants. The club was in this area and was really together on all fronts. The show flat out rocked! We built upon our past songs and designed a new set list for the evening, and brought out five new classics from DIO, VENOM, MAIDEN, SABBATH and even SLAYER. Andreas sang “BLACK METAL” which the crowd hailed him for.
 
Our goal with Roy on this tour was to allow him to be much more than just the drummer, but rather to explore his musical origins (turns out he’s a big punk rock drummer) so he could bring his offerings into HAIL!.  He’s got the trash/punk stuff down pat and also cops the older MAIDEN Clive Burr stuff to a tee.  He and Andreas could probably do an hour of SLAYER and SEPULTURA songs alone!
 
We did a meet n greet afterward and the crowd was in high spirits.  It was a great beginning to the tour.
 
ACE OF SPADES
TERRITORY
SYMPHONY
GRINDER
STAND UP AND SHOUT
WALK
BALLS TO THE WALL
NEON KNIGHTS
WRATHCHILD
RUN TO THE HILLS
BLACK METAL (Andreas Sings)
GREEN MANALISHI
BURN IN HELL/SYMPTOM OF THE UNIVERSE
SOUTH OF HEAVEN
PEACE SELLS
PARANOID
 
Encore:
REFUSE/RESIST
WHIPLASH
 
 
SEPTEMBER 2-   BERGEN, NORWAY
 
Upon arrival into the Bergen airport, I spotted former GORGOROTH bassist King in the baggage area. I knew him from his autograph signing at the Peavey booth last WNAMM so was a cool connection, especially here in his homeland, of all places! Turns out he was picking up a friend at the airport so we invited him to jam a couple songs with us tonight.
 
At the show, I handed King my bass and he slammed through a great rendition of “Paranoid” and “Run To The Hills” with the band (should have ph otos in the gallery shortly). Also joining us onstage was up and comer Martin Legreid of the Bergen based band HELLISH OUTCAST. He ripped it up on “Hostile” and “Symphony”. That spirit of having people join in with HAIL! is part of the original concept…make it something a lot of different musicians and artists can participate in as we travel around the world. This whole trip to Scandinavia is ALL about that.

DIMMU BORGIR Guitarist Guests with HAIL! in Norway
 
We rolled into the small town of Jevnaker, Norway today, about an hour north of Oslo. The HAIL! global community of good will, and all things metal, expanded out to our brother Silenoz from DIMMU BORGIR, who joined us on guitar for three Judas Priest songs during the show. He’s a great dude and the songs sounded awesome with him playing on them. He and Andreas were great together and the crowd loved it!
 
Ripper also killed it on “The Trooper” and tonight was the second time this week we delved into a little punk rock with “Blitzkrieg Bop” by THE RAMONES, taking our cue from the audience who had a “Hey, Ho, Let’s Go” sign waving high in the air. Very old school punk and being all things HAIL!, we had to tip our hat to the punk that influ enced us as kids. Plus Roy rocks that stuff.
 
Roy was in top form tonight as MAYHEM/DIMMU drummer Hellhammer is letting him use his own personal drum kit for the next few days, which is a righteous act of metal brotherhood on his part. Roy plays hard and has been leaving disheveled drum sets in his wake across the country for the past week. It seems Hellhammer’s weapons of choice in drums can finally handle the abuse and it makes the trip just that much cooler. Thank you Hellhammer, you are awesome indeed.
 
We also threw in some some other little gems like KISS’s “Cold Gin”, S.O.D.’s “The Ballad of Jimi Hendrix” and ANTHRAX’s “Got The Time”…..which was a good live tune and a chance for a bass solo!
 
David
HAIL! Norway
 
Set list
 
ACE OF SPADES
TERRITORY
SYMPHONY
STAND UP AND SHOUT
WALK
BALLS TO THE WALL
RUN TO THE HILLS
 
(w/Silenoz)
GRINDER
METAL GODS
BREAKING THE LAW
 
BURN IN HELL/SYMPTOM OF THE UNIVERSE
SOUTH OF HEAVEN
PEACE SELLS
BLITZKRIEG BOP
GOT THE TIME (Anthrax)
 
Encore:
COLD GIN
BALLAD OF JIMI HENDRIX (S.O.D.)
THE TROOPER
REFUSE/RESIST
WHIPLASH