Although they’d never played with or even met Solence before, Auckland’s high energy progressive rock act Written By Wolves were invited to join the Swedish electronic rock/metal band on their 21-date month-long Angel’s Calling Tour of northern Europe and the UK. Vocalist Michael Murphy provided NZM with this entertaining early part-of-the-tour guide.

In 2023 Written By Wolves made our first trip to Europe and the UK, headlining a whirlwind 12-show tour through the continent. It was an incredibly exciting experience and since then we’ve been searching for the right opportunity to return.

Touring Europe from Aotearoa is a huge undertaking – and it was important that the tour we chose next was the right one to continue to grow the band, and cement future opportunities in these territories. We are independent and self-managed, and three quarters of the band have young families, so the timing had to be right.

Solence are a band we’ve admired for a long time. When they approached us with this tour opportunity we felt like we had finally found the right tour that ticked all of boxes, and we jumped at the chance. Written By Wolves are incredibly grateful to the NZ Music Commission for their assistance with Outward Sound funding grants for both our 2023 headline tour, and once again for this tour supporting Solence.

Unfortunately our percussionist Oli was unable to make this tour. He’s a doctor and is nearing the end of his anaesthetist training. On the road with us this time round we have myself, Davie Wong (guitar) and drummer Karl Woodhams from the band, plus our incredible sound guy Seth Suter, tech John McCaffrey (previous 5Star Fallout bandmate), our driver Peter Just, and videographer / photographer Jaden Moss.

We didn’t take a content creator with us on the last tour and found that we missed so many golden opportunities to really take advantage of the tour across our social media channels, and already Jaden has proven his worth. The shows have been incredible and Jaden’s ability to capture the energy, excitement and connection with the crowd has been absolutely phenomenal.

We are away for five weeks on this tour so having a team that all gets along and genuinely enjoys each other’s company is very important to ensure everyone’s sanity remains intact throughout the late nights, early mornings, horrible load ins and pack outs, and constant curveballs that touring throws at you.

Davie, Karl, Seth and myself left from Auckland, bound for Helsinki on Easter Sunday. We organised the flights to arrive a few days before the first show to allow a bit of time to adjust to the new time zone, and get our bearings a little before we began our run of 21 shows in 28 days.

John and Jaden are both based in the UK so they flew out from London to join us, and our driver Peter started the 21-hour drive from Bratislava, Slovakia to Helsinki. We managed to find a great little rock bar in Helsinki called The Riff, and celebrated the beginning of a super exciting run of shows.

Helsinki, Finland – April  8, Tavastia Club

After almost a year of negotiations, planning and hard work we were finally here, and it was time to do what we actually came here for. We arrived at the amazing Tavastia Club for load in with a mixture of excitement and nervousness.

We had never actually met the members of Solence before and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about the first impressions and interactions. It could be a very long month if it turned out we didn’t actually get along…

Within moments of our first interactions with Solence and their team I realised I had nothing to worry about, and any trepidation was unfounded.

Every member of the band and their entire crew are incredible people and right from the get go they have all gone out of their way to make sure we felt welcome and to ensure we have everything we need. They went a long way to putting my imposter syndrome at ease as well, with early conversations of mutual respect for each other’s bands – and that we had come all the way from NZ to tour with them.

The venues in Europe that we have played in have mostly been phenomenal. Purpose-built for live music with large capacities and great facilities. This one had a similar feel to the Powerstation – slightly smaller, but similar in vibe and layout.

We are touring with our own dLive desk and mix rack, which helps make things easier and super-efficient on tour, and means our sound guy Seth can get our sound and our monitors dialled in nice and quick. We were ready to go when the doors opened.

I always man the merch desk on tour, we find it draws fans in and often means we sell more. We were absolutely blown away in 2023 by how much merch we were selling, and this time our tour collection designed by our guitarist Davie Wong (Produce Creative) is absolutely outrageous.

It wasn’t long before there was a queue at the merch table with fans thanking us for making the trip to Finland. We were unsure what to expect, but were blown away by the reception before we had even made it on stage…

The show was opened by a phenomenal local band called Balance Breach, then it was our turn. Night one of a tour can often be tricky, and all three bands had experienced soundcheck issues that day so we were slightly on edge.

The intro started and we came out on stage with a hiss and a roar, the crowd were pumped and we ripped into Give ‘Em Hell to get the party started… and then as soon as we got through the first chorus there was a technical issue with the venue and we lost all sound… absolute worst nightmare material.

My job back home, other than a musician, is an event MC, so I quickly allowed my worlds to collide and transitioned into MC Michael, while the rest of the team worked on getting the sound back on. Five very impromptu minutes of (if I do say so myself) my greatest ever stand-up comedy ensued – thank fuck everyone in Finland can speak English!

What could have been an absolute nightmare became a minor hiccup and the rest of our set was absolutely magic. Not the exact way we wanted to kick off the tour but a confidence boost for the team to know that we could handle whatever this tour would throw at us and still put on a great show.

Solence’s set was incredible and we finished night one on a high knowing that the tour was going to be a whole lot of fun, and together we were going to give audiences a hell of a night.

Stockholm, Sweden – April 10, Fryshuset Klubben

The drive to from Helsinki is 17 hours, and includes a car ferry. Our legend of a driver took one for the team and drove the van and gear by himself, so we were able to take a two-hour flight and explore another city we hadn’t made it to on our previous tour.

The Stockholm show was the start of a three-night run, so we knew once we got into this one we would really start to get into the swing of things.

Another amazing venue – great sized stage and facilities. It is part of a music school as well – apparently, they have an amazing music program including one specifically for rock music. These venues in Scandinavia all have in-house techs who are hired to help load in and load out your gear. Absolute luxury!

Soundcheck was a lot smoother, but even so we were still pretty nervous. After the tech issues in Helsinki we were desperate to have an issue-free run and to put on an epic show.

And that is exactly what happened. It still blows my mind when I hear people singing the words to our songs back at me. When it happens on the other side of the world it seems even crazier. After the show the merch table was an absolute vibe. An entire family had come to the show and they each bought every single item of merch from both WBW and Solence! It was wild…

There are always things you learn while touring that you hadn’t thought about beforehand. Our merch is set up through our Shopify Website Store with Shopify POS. But as the store is based in NZ we have to sell in NZ dollars. This sometimes makes the transaction decline for security reasons. It also doesn’t support payments from particular cards throughout Europe as well – it was a nightmare on the last tour and we thought we had it worked out for this one, but still rears its ugly head sometimes… We’ve found Paypal to be a bit of a fix if the POS system doesn’t work, as everyone over here seems to have Paypal.

Oslo, Norway – April 11, John Dee

We set off bright and early at 6am ready for show number three in Oslo, another city we hadn’t been to previously.

Our driver had warned that we may have an issue with the merch at the border in Norway as it is not part of the EU, and he had experienced issues with bands on other tours. We have a carnet for all of our equipment that we travel with to ensure we can take that gear into all of the countries. Essentially it holds a percentage of the duty charges until we return. However, this doesn’t cover the merch.

We had already paid duties for getting the merch into the EU, but Norway could try to charge us a similar fee to bring the merch into Norway.

We figured we would get to the border and have a chat about what we could and couldn’t do, hoping to use a bit of Kiwi charm to get a positive outcome. No such luck… After a chat with the border official, and then with the Maersk shipping logistics agent at the border, we were told we would have to pay 30% of the value of the merch to take it into Norway, and there was no guarantee that we would be able to claim that fee back… We tossed around a few ideas and ways to make things work. On our friendly Maersk agent’s advice we found a cheap motel right by the border, and left behind all 20 merch boxes to have a little Swedish night off while we carried on into Oslo.

Oslo is a beautiful city and it was another really cool venue. The room we were in, was slightly smaller than the last few we had played, with more of a dive bar vibe, and the more intimate setting made for an amazing show.

I felt we were really starting to hit our stride show wise. The crowd were amazing and sang along through the entire set. Even though we had no merch I headed to the merch table and had a queue of new fans lining up for photos and sweaty hugs. Not a great night to have nothing to sell, but an amazing night for connections with fans in a new city.

Copenhagen, Denmark – April 12, Pumpehuset

Another 6am lobby call after getting back to the hotel at 1am, and we were well and truly back into the swing of tour life. Because we’d left the merch in Sweden we had to go the long way to Copenhagen, turning a 6-hour drive into a 9-hour one!

We loaded into another amazing venue – another with house techs hired to help load our gear in and out, so good!

The opening act in Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen were a Copenhagen band by the name of Gradience, whose sound is a fusion of black metal and hip hop. They were an absolute vibe and some of the nicest people.

Another great crowd in and lots of familiar faces from our previous tour. It was another big energy show with everyone singing along to almost every word of every song! It feels so amazing to be able to make these connections with people on stage – especially with everything going on in the world right now.

There had been a point recently where we thought there was no way this tour would actually go ahead, so it is an incredibly cathartic experience to be up on-stage night after night connecting with the crowds.

The next day was a day off, and after a much-needed sleep in we piled back in the van to make our way to Hamburg. After the band card took another absolute hammering at the petrol pump we were set to make the leisurely five-hour trip. The first port of call was the laundromat, not one of the most rock’n’roll parts of tour life, but as the German drinking laws are pretty relaxed we did manage to get a few beers in while waiting for our clothes to dry…

Hamburg, Germany – April 14, Logo

The Hamburg venue was similar to Auckland’s old Kings Arms (RIP), and the show had sold out so we knew we were in for an incredible night. As the time drew closer to the doors opening, the line of people waiting to get in had snaked down the road, and by the time we hit the stage the venue was a heaving, expectant ball of energy.

The show was electric with the crowd taking the energy we were giving them and sending it back to us tenfold. We left the stage on an absolute high – all of the shows had been incredible so far, but this one felt special.

One thing that blows my mind about this part of the world is the ages of some of the people coming to the shows. One couple in their 60s came to chat with me at the merch table wearing t-shirts from the previous tour – and proceeded to re-stock on the new run. It really is pretty amazing to see!

Warsaw, Poland – April 17, Proxima

A great sized room and stage but screaming of loud, sweaty, good time vibes, and once again promoters who seemed to actually, genuinely be willing to help.

Warsaw is another city where we have a small group of diehard almost cult like fans. Some of them had our signatures tattooed after the previous show, so we were confident we were in for a warm welcome on the stage – they did not disappoint.

The venue was another that was part of a university, but once again very well set up for live music, and the atmosphere was electric from the moment we hit the stage with the crowd hanging off every note and singing along to every word.

Prague, Czech Republic – April 18, Futurum Music Bar

Pro tip – don’t eat 30 Wicked Wings at midnight when you have a 6am lobby call the next morning. We loaded up the van with evident signs of a fried chicken hangover to make the 7-hour trip to Prague.

The drive into the city is stunning with incredible architecture all along the river. The weather was amazing and being a Saturday the city seemed to be buzzing. We loaded into another amazing venue – once again along the Kings Arms’ vibe, in the sense that it could tell infinite stories of rock’n’roll glory.

The sound was huge, the first time we’d heard a KV2 Audio PA designed in the Czech Republic and we were blown away. It was going to be a good night…

Once again the show had sold out – I looked out from the side of stage and saw the place was absolutely packed. From the moment we took the stage the crowd erupted. It was one of the best shows we have ever played – probably in my top three. The crowd sang, jumped and screamed the lyrics back at me for the entire set!

Budapest and beyond…

I’m finishing this off in the van on our way to Budapest, reflecting on the tour so far and it is making me quite emotional. Touring is hard, home sickness is a bit of a killer, I find it so hard to be away from my family for so long. That, combined with constantly feeling exhausted from the late nights and early mornings and never-ending curveballs that tour life throws at you, can make things pretty tough. But shows like last night make it all worth it.

I had a moment on stage last night where I just felt so grateful that I get to do this for a job. That I get to be on these stages offering escapism and connection to people all around the world. The world is an incredibly messed up place right now and it seems to get worse every day, and whilst I know music won’t necessarily fix any of that, sometimes it feels quite healing in a way to be in these rooms surrounded by people that all get to forget about everything happening outside of those four walls, even if just for one night.

Hungary will be amazing – they have just managed to vote out their government after 16 years and we are seeing footage of people still dancing in the streets. After tonight we will have 12 shows left, more sold out shows in Germany and then onto the UK.

 It is a long tour, but the crowds and the shows have been good for the soul. I’m sure I will have plenty more tour stories to add to these by tours end. If you see me at a show sometime come and say hi, we can have a drink and I’ll fill you in all that happened in the next few weeks…  Mikey