Fall Of Minerva – TOUR TIPS

In this Tour Tips segment, the post-hardcore band, Fall Of Minerva, give you their tips for being on tour. You can check out the feature, after the break.

Fall Of Minerva – TOUR TIPS

In this Tour Tips segment, the post-hardcore band, Fall Of Minerva, give you their tips for being on tour. You can check out the feature, after the break.

Hi guys, we just came back from our second Russian tour, and we would share some of the things we learned along the way.

With these Tour Tips, we will try to advise you on everyday matters in Russia, rather than offer the standard tour advice, i.e. “have as many showers as possible ‘cause you won’t know when you’ll next get the chance”!

1. Be ready for all weather conditions.
Russia is a really huge country. Even just the West “European” part is bigger than you would expect, and moreover, if you are touring it in middle seasons like Spring or Fall you should be ready for every climatic condition. The cities are really far one from each other and it happened to us where we had snow in Moscow and really warm, sunny weather the very next day. This can become risky for your health if you are not prepared, and everyone knows that catching a cold on tour is really bad.

2. Always ask your promoters about the usual price of the merchandise in different cities.
There are really big wealth disparities between the cities in Russia, especially the North and South, so this can really impact merch sales if the band is not aware.

3. Learn some ‘key sentences’ related to food and what you might need every day.
Russian people hardly speak English, in fact, most of them don’t speak it at all. Therefore, we learned how to say phrases such as “a hot tea please”, or “no meat” and “no fish”, for those situations when you’re on the highway from one city to another and in the bar where you want to have lunch but no one speaks a word of English. Vegetarian people should be prepared for this even more because meat is part of 90% of Russian food.

4. Be ready for long days sitting in the van.
If you think that “yep, Russia is big but our booking agency booked a convenient tour in order to spend the minimum time possible in the van” you’ll definitely be disappointed. The fact is that distances in Russia are really different from a normal country. I mean, if you drive 5/6 hours, then that is a lucky day. We had to spend 13 hours in the van from Belgorod to Krasnodar and 10 hours from Tolyatty to Nizhny Novgorod. It is even worse because Russian roads are full of craters.

5. The sleeping spot near the window as to be avoided if you can’t sleep with the light.
If you’re the kind of person (like me) that needs total darkness in order to sleep, you should always remember that you’ll never find blinds on windows and you’ll hardly ever find curtains. So forget about the great view from the hostel room in the afternoon when you arrive for the check-in because tonight after the show you’ll learn that the beautiful sun you saw this afternoon from your bed will be the same one that will burn your eyes early in the morning.

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