HAIL! - featuring F5/ex-MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson, singer Ripper Owens (ex-JUDAS PRIEST, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN), drummer Roy Mayorga (STONE SOUR) and guitarist Andreas Kisser (SEPULTURA) have been on the road in Europe - a new tour blog from Ellefson reads as follows:

"September 9 (9,9,09, or maybe upside down 666?)

We finished up our Denmark shows on Tuesday September 8 and flew Finnair flight #666 to Helsinki on Wednesday ("Hell, and fire, were sworn to be released"). Aside from some hellish turbulence on landing the flight was otherwise non-eventful and was our only day off on the tour.

September 10

Ironically, the venue in Helsinki was an old church refurbished into a hip night club and music venue called DANTE'S HIGHLIGHT (seems a bit sacrilegious, doesn't it?). In its honor, during the set Andreas broke into 'The Number Of The Beast', which we all joined in on up until the second verse when we realized we didn't exactly know the rest of the song very well without rehearsing it! Actually, that's been a cool trait of HAIL!, where we bust into songs not on the set list for about 90 seconds and then stop part way through, pretty much playing them off the cuff. It's comes from inspiration and is certainly something most metal bands never get to do outside of a casual and relaxed setting like this.

We also invited Helsinki up-and-comer Jules Navari from PROFANE OMEN onstage to sing "Walk" with us, which he kicked ass on. Later, Andreas and Roy finished 'South of Heaven' and segued into SLAYER's 'Jesus Save's'. Must have been in honor of the church and flight #666!

September 11

After a quick one hour flight we were back in Sweden and drove about 100 miles north of Stockholm to the busy little city of Gavle, the first of two Swedish shows on the tour. The gig was great, ran very late but was a laid back after show hang with fans and autographs outside the front of the club.

September 12

Stockholm was the last show on this particular tour. We had already asked our support band SVOLK (hailing from Norway) to join us for background vocals for our first encore 'Breaking The Law', but earlier today Ripper clued me that tomorrow would be his birthday. Seeing that our set would end after midnight, and technically allow us to celebrate his birthday in Sweden, we put the plan into action for a little onstage encore birthday party. Abba arranged a cake with the club as the plan started to unfold.

Roy invited his friend Seven from OPIATE FOR THE MASSES and his wife Anna from Stockholm's very own DRAIN S.T.H. to the show, as they had just relocated there from Los Angeles. Drummer Tomas from MESHUGGAH was in the house so we invited them all onstage with SVOLK to give a cake and toast to Ripper, led by Andreas singing 'Happy Birthday' in his amazingly powerful opera voice (no kidding!!). We then all launched into a cheerful version of 'Living After Midnight' for everyone to celebrate as Ripper tossed pieces of cake to the crowd. Being the birthday boy, and last show to celebrate the tour, he had a good send off from a rabid fan who bit his leg earlier in the night. Gotta love metal-heads..

The crowd left and we all hung out in the club for several hours afterward to wind down and reminisce on the shows. It was a great night and a Hella-cool way to end the tour!

HAIL! Scandinavia!"

Check out more new photos at this location.

Check out fan-filmed live footage (some featuring MERCYFUL FATE guitar legend Hank Shermann) below: