Tears and laughter

Our time here in Edinburgh is coming to an end. It´s Monday morning and time to pack our suitcases, clean the apartment and leave. We had an absolutely fantastic last performance, the audience carried us from the beginning to the end and by the time we came to the last song there were tears and laughter mixed in the singing.

After every show we put on our bathrobes and met the audience again outside the theatre for  CD signing.

It is also time to say goodbye to all the wonderful people we have met here. The staff has been so helpful and always in a good mood and we will miss each and everyone. They still have to tear down and clean up the festival and that will take some more days of hard work. I haven´t yet figured out when they sleep or do they sleep at all? Tough people!

Us with the wonderful ladies of Assembly.

When we got to our apartment last night we sat down and went through the schedule of this upcoming fall. Who is where, where will the mixing table be, when do we rehears, are we flying or taking the boat, who is picking up who, what clothes are we wearing, who takes care of what and when do we have vacation? So work doesn´t end here. It only just began!

One big happy family

On Monday we did a guest appearance on the newly crowned World Loop-station Champion Shlomos show Mouthtronica. He wanted us to improvise which can be lots of fun but sometimes a massive catastrophe. We were the last act on and had an hour time to watch his phenomenal beatboxing and singing, he is really something! I wasn´t sure how we would mix with him but I didn´t need to worry. He knew what he was doing and we had a great time on stage.

Shlomo and Fork backstage.

On Tuesday we did for the second time a guest appearance on Horne section. It´s a totally crazy show which we all love and have been watching many times. We had a great time even if we hardly heard anything of what we were singing but the crowd seemed happy so we were happy.

Between the guest appearances we focus on our own show. Serious business.

Yesterday we had a party at home with takeaway pizza and red wine. We had good discussions about the past and the future. Also realized that in a week we will be doing concerts in Sellosali, Espoo, Finland! Time flies when you are having fun.

One big happy family.

Respect

It´s been a while since I wrote my last blog and the reason to that is that the sun has been shining in Edinburgh! And when the sun shines you go outside and you pay your respect.
After three weeks we all have our own routines. I usually wake up first, then Jonte, Anna and Kasper. Then Gregory. And then Linda. We don´t talk during breakfast, only some short how are you and did you sleep well kind of phrases. Then everyone has their thing they want to do during the day. Jogging, climbing, reading, skyping, sleeping, shopping, seeing performances or just chilling. (Except Linda of course, who is working all the time. By now she has four phones...) Then we eat lunch and then it´s already time to get ready for the show. I am amazed over how smoothly everything has been going with this living all together-thing. No fights, no complaining and no hard feelings.

The other day Kasper, Jonte and I went climbing.

Kasper in action.

My climbing style is a bit different. But we respect each other nevertheless.

We also have the greatest respect for the staff at the George Square Theatre. They work 14 hours per day for the third week and they still smile. They even have time to take a pose for a picture.

This is Kate, Lauren, Liam, V-G, George and Stu. And some lens lice.

Make-up and glitter

Another side of the work here is doing promotion gigs, interviews, pod-casts, live radio shows and all kinds of different show-ups and hanging around. Yesterday we performed at BBC radio live in front of an audience with Viva la Vida and Bohemian Rhapsody. We had to be there quite early in the morning to do soundcheck, which you can sense in the picture below.

The day before we had a pod-cast performance at 11 a.m, also in front of an audience which of course means that you have to show up in full make-up and glitter pants. Picture the face expression of the waiter at the lunch restaurant we went to directly afterwards...

Tonight after the show we are going out for a drink with our flyer team. Our flyer team consist of six people whose work is to hand out flyers of Pink Noise to people on the streets and convince them to come and see the show. The importance of their work is huge and we really have a great team!

The other day one of them, who I had not met before, stopped me, gave me a flyer and begun his quite convincing speak about the show. I was like uuuuh hmm well thanks but don´t worry, I will be there every night. He looked at me a bit confused, said okay and walked away. I realize that you cannot underestimate the power of make-up...

Here I am in the Assembly garden, enjoying the few minutes of sunshine before I crawl into the green tunnel...

Catching

This week we have our families here and on the first (and only) rain free day we hiked to Arthur´s seat to experience the spectacular view over Edinburgh.

In the evening we visited a Japanese restaurant, Koi, were the chef gave us an unforgettable evening when serving the rice by throwing it at us. And we were supposed to catch it. Let´s just say that all the kids caught their portions and the adults did their best...

Gregory in action.

We have also been watching different performances, from Korean drum sessions and wild dancing by Flawless to a cappella singing by the Magnets to extraordinary beat boxing by Shlomo. There are so many performances to see here and every day I hear of  new shows that are must-see shows. The first show starts at 10 a.m and the last show at 1 a.m and after that you have to go and have a drink and talk about what you´ve seen and then suddenly it is morning again and there is a new performance you just have to go and see and so on and so on. This festival is addictive! And in between all of this we are supposed to squeeze in our own performance...

Some of us wont let the festival chaos disturb the holy moment of playing phone games.

Sunday morning

I cannot believe we already been here for a week. I guess time flies when you are having fun.

Jonte having fun in the kitchen.

The shows are going well and the fast changeover hasn´t given us any trouble. Last night after the show we had dinner with the Finnish embassy. I guess we are doing something right because the lovely ladies from the embassy came to see our show, twice.

Anna in her most positive morning mood.

Today after the show we are going directly to Radio Forth to do a live performance in front of an audience. At least we should be well warmed up.

Mia not quite yet ready for the show.

Next week we are having our families over and maybe we´ll even have time to see some shows. And then of course we want to do some hiking in the mountains with a nice picnic under a great blue sky. Did I mention by the way that it´s raining every now and then here in Edinburgh?

Product placement a la Fork.

Furniture?

Two nights down, 22 to go! Yesterday was our first pre-show and I would lie if I would say I wasn´t nervous.  The staff at the George Square Theatre is wonderful, I cannot believe how calm they are even when surrounded by neurotic performers. They have 20 minutes time to make changes on stage between every show. And there are eight different shows on our stage each day...
So far everything has been going fine, knock on wood. As far as I know we all have been able to get into the right clothes on time, no one has been naked on stage. Yet. Yesterday we had a clock on stage to make sure we kept the 70-minute time limit and lets just say we were pretty exact on that.

Work doesn´t stop after the show. No, that is when we put on our bathrobes, jump into a taxi and go to do some promotion performance somewhere.

Two things are difficult for me here in Edinburgh. First we have the left-hand traffic. I still am not sure where I should look when I cross the street, I am a real hazard for the drivers.
And then we have the language. The other day we were on our way to an interview. Outside the radio station a woman came up to us and asked, or at least I thought she asked, if we were here for the furniture. I was thinking come on, look at us, do we look like we are here for some furniture and just swept by. Well, imagine how stupid I felt when she some minutes later came up to the studio just to check that everything was okay.... I tried to make a joke about how difficult english is for me but she probably just thought I was the weirdest person in town.

Celebrating our first Fringe performance with the whole Fork crew.

The green door

Welcome to Edinburgh! Behind this door lives Fork! After two nights in the same flat I already have deja vu feelings from Friends. So far we are having a great time.
Yesterday was our only rehearsal time at the George Square Theatre. We had eight hours time to load in, build up, install the video, rig the lights, make a soundcheck and have a run- through. On the technical side everything was working perfectly thanks to our wonderful crew. On the artistic side we had some issues... Somehow Jontes white shoes did not make it to Edinburgh and finding white riding boots in size 41 is not that easy. But Linda, who can fix most things, also fixed this one as you can see in the picture below.

The other excitement was of course the already by now well known changing-clothes-while-singing situation. We finally got to try it with all the bits and pieces that goes with it. Did it work? Lets just say that none of us were naked when entering the stage again... It didn´t go as smoothly as I had dreamt of  but I am sure that in two weeks we will not only have time to get dressed without stress, we will also have time to put on new make-up, have a drink and make a phone call before re-entering the stage.
This is our theatre.

And this is what we look like when we are lost.

Right now we are sitting in our dining room trying to figure out how to be able to do some of the promotion gigs when the arrangers think we can perform without any technic. This is where the word a cappella gives you problems. "Come on guys, just sing one song, you don´t need any microphones or PA." Well... we do claim to be the group that reinvents a cappella.