The Rebels in Recklinghausen

We are back on the road again. Arrived to Recklinghausen yesterday after a smooth and easy flight (not in business class though but oh well you cannot have it all. At least not all the time.) We are here to do 6 shows at the Ruhrfestspiele and rumor has it that our shows are sold out! Liking Germany very much already!

Not much going on in this town on a Sunday evening.

Not everything has been going as smoothly as the flight and the sold out shows.. When we came to the hotel last night we were kindly told that all the twin-bed rooms were occupied (even if something else was promised us in emails ) so we would have to manage with double beds. If it would only have been the double bed problem things could probably have worked out between us and the hotel, but it was also about broken windows, rooms so small you couldn´t fit a suitcase in it and trains passing by so close you woke up to the snoring of the train passengers, if you by any chance had manage to fall asleep in the over-heated rooms while the hotel manager was out in the lobby solving his problems with a load and clear voice. So after one night we said thank you and goodbye and moved to another hotel. 

Oh yes and in between this there was the incident with the receptionist wanting to call the police since we didn´t want to pay for two nights even if we stayed for only one. Let´s just say we are not welcome there anymore. 

This is our current hotel and we love it! And by the way, did I mention it is so sunny and hot and we will all be red as a crayfish tomorrow (directly translated from Swedish).

Soundchecking. Well actually having a small beer break. But working hard nevertheless.

The festival staff seems very nice and already invited us to a barbeque party tomorrow. (I guess they haven´t heard about the hotel incident...)

Here are some ideas on what to do when you are in Germany and go out with good friends and get some glowing sticks in your drinks.

Glasses.

Weird mouth.

Even more weird mouth.

Chong-what?

Chongqing, China. That´s where we spent last weekend, in one of the biggest cities in the world with approximately 32 millions habitants. Why, one might ask? Well it all begun with a phone call from Finnair with the very common question "would you like to perform on an airplane on a flight to Chongqing?" To which we answered "yes, of course. Chong-what?"

First there was the soundcheck. The sound system on board an aircraft is of course slightly different to what we are used to and as you can sense on Gregs expression he is not totally convinced.

At least the loudspeakers were nice looking and easy to carry on...We had four of these which covered about ten rows at a time.

Backstage. There is always time to pose. This time the time was limited because just as we were ready to start singing the Captain turned on the seat belt sign because of heavy turbulence and we had to go back to our seats. The guy in the seat next to me gave me a very strange and a bit scared look...

Performing up in the air. Our audience had literally nowhere to run but luckily they didn´t seem to mind at all. We divided the aircraft into five sections and moved our "loadspeakers" between every performance. And as always the wildest party was happening in the back of the plane.

Afterwards champagne. Of course. In Finnish designed glasses. Of course.

We arrived to Chongqing early Thursday morning. The city is a mix of high technology/high fashion/high humidity/cars/people/more people/Chinese language/ spicy food/ grocery stores where a woman actually chops the hen´s head off before you put it in your Louis Vuitton bag on your way home/blinking lights/ very load pop music from not so good loudspeakers/friendly people/not so much English/local people taking pictures of tall giants from Europe with big noses/ very few Europeans.

We had time to do a short cruise on the Yangtze river. We took pictures of the city, the Chinese took pictures of us.

We had some very delicious local street food, no idea what we ate but it was good! I did try to show that I wanted chicken, with the moves and everything, but maybe the chickens move differently in Chongqing because the Chinese cook just looked at me like I was insane.

Yes, we did work as well, we had a concert at a party arranged by Finnair. In the beginning the audience was a bit like question marks even if Jonte did his absolutely best to speak some fluent Chinese but when the second set started people where up dancing and singing along. Did I mention it is humid in Chongqing?

Greg had his own groupies. Look at his happy smile.

When it was time to fly home Finnair had a surprise for us. Business class! It is a quite mean thing to do because how can we ever fly tourist class after this?

Happy people flying home to Helsinki. Thank you Chongqing and Finnair.
Next week we have some Casino shows in Helsinki and then we are off to the German Ruhrfestspiele in Recklinghausen!

Spring poses

It´s been a busy week. After a month of laying low we finally had a concert at Sellosali last Thursday. It felt awesome to perform again and a big Thank You goes to the great crowd in Espoo! But before we got this far a couple of things had to be done...

Here is a quick update on what has been going on:

First Jontes wife had to give birth to this wonderful little baby girl. She is already giving Jonte a hard time: "who are you and what am I doing here?".

Then we met at our new rehearsal studio. Yes, now we finally feel like a real rock-n-roll band. It might not be as pretty as our former studio but we really love this space. And Greg says the acoustics is so much better. I wouldn´t know.

Then there was the soundcheck. Someone is trying to lift up the spirit a bit. In the front you can see one of the staff members from Sellosali helping us pull some cables. The staff there is the best!

Then there was the show. Oh, did I mention that we have been practising some Tai-chi. This is Kaspers verison of the Golden cockerel.

Here we have the Grasp the Sparrows tail á la Jonte.

This is Anna doing the Snake creeps Down.

And finally the White Crane spreads it´s Wings by me.

In two days we are going to Asia. Maybe we should practise a bit more on our tai-chi poses before showing them over there. Or?

Edinburgh Fringe - round two!

So it is finally decided. We are doing the Fringe festival this year as well!
We got the perfect slot at 22.25 in the Spiegeltent at the Assembly and it suits our new show ElectroVocal Circus just great! This will be a bit different from last years sophisticated Pink Noise at 18.05...

Now we just need to find a place to stay (since our last years green door apartment isn´t available...) and then book the flights and we are on our way!

When I, in the beginning of August,  slip into this outfit I wont take it off before the month is over. It is just too complicated. And let me introduce to you the blond Björn Borg aka Kasper R... Who said the headband is out of style? And Anna...well she has what we in Finland call tiukka pipo which in English would be something like tight hat. Which basically means she is the boss. 

And Jonte. I wont say anything about him because he should only be focusing on getting that Ramsten child delivered into this world NOW! 

Back with more news later.

Changes

All good things must come to an end.
We have had the pleasure to rehearse in this wonderful studio for many years but last week it was time for us to move out and on. Until the last minute of the last day we used the space as it is supposed to be used, we worked on a new arrangement. A heavy nightclub-medley, of course.

As you can see there is a camera in the background. Yes, there is a  new some kind of a documentary made about us, not quite sure yet what it will be but lets just say we have had some funny moments so far.

But as something old comes to an end something new begins. We have found a new "living room" for us, it is less a cappella and more rock-n-roll but that´s fine with us. And I guess the champagne will taste the same. Gregory is very happy, he thinks the sound is much better and the roading is easier.

The Finnish version of a vacuum cleaner. Anna is a beast when it comes to cleaning. I was trying to stay out of her way not only because I have a nasty cold but also because she is a bit scary when it comes to cleaning...

We are having a break from rehearsing now for some weeks. First there is Easter and all that, chocolate and food and eggs and pasha and baba and so on.
And then we are waiting for a little baby-fork to be born! Any day now Jonte will become a dad and we are all keeping our fingers and toes crossed that everything will go well. Anna and me are both pretty sure it will be a girl.

Some things never change.
Happy Easter!

Stay calm and breathe

This week we finally got to try some of our new arrangements on the audience. On Tuesday we were in Ekenäs and had a great time like we always have when we visit this small but sassy town.
The challenge when performing new stuff is to stay calm enough to be able to breathe. It is scary what nervousness can do to you. If you lose your harmony you can always find it again, if you forget the words, well, we are all pretty good at making up new ones as the song goes on... But if the breathing fails, then you are in trouble. Especially if you are supposed to sing a long sweet ooooo.
It will sound more like o-o--o-o---o-hh-h-o.

Sound check. Baba, our local guy, is giving us some last minute advice on how to take over the Ekenäs crowd.

We had a quick brainstorming about what to do to get this thing going.

Of course the answer to that was coffee, which was brought to us by the wonderful Mr. Pöysti.

Sometimes after a successful gig we look like this:

"Yeeei, Ekenäs, Thank you! We are happy and almost sane!"

or like this:

"Money, wuahhahhaa!"


But sometimes we look like this (in a town far from Ekenäs):

"No, that was not fun."

or:

"I want pizza."

To sum it up, so far the week has been interesting and I think we managed to perform our new stuff with our honour intact.

Multitasking in Frankfurt

Last night we came home from a very short trip to Frankfurt. We flew in on Tuesday, did a gig in the evening and back home on Wednesday. The wonderful thing about this trip was not only the great audience we met but also the feeling of SPRING! Once again I realize that we live very far up north.

Major sun-worshipping.

The bad thing about this trip was that Linda decided we could do this without her. Which meant that suddenly I was in charge of all kinds of practical things.

"Where is the car that should have picked us up? Who should I call? "

"Where is the person we are supposed to meet outside the hotel? What was her name again? Are we at the right hotel?"

"Where are our rooms?" "When is our soundcheck again?" "When do we eat?"

While the rest of the group is taking a power nap I am ordering the food for everyone. "Ok, Jonte will have the ceasar salad, Kapser wants the sushi platter, Anna wants chicken, Greg wants french food..."

"Where is the cold beer? where are our sun hats?"

"How long was the set again?""Which songs are we singing?"

Meditation time.