After an intense last weekend in Berlin calmer days in Copenhagen awaited us. We arrived in the middle of the night and eventually we found the wonderful Villa Villekulla- house which was well hidden within the garden. A real size lion was watching over the night-snacks our new host kindly had left our for us. Ulla is a charming lady who has won all of our hearts, party by taking care of us as royalties but mostly because she’s an inspiration in how to age in style, with an active life and a great sence of humour. It’s made us wonder if maybe there’s a cool artistic and witty old lady trapped inside every old lady who thinks it’s her obligation to only bake cakes and talk about flowers?

Rainy cold weather and a sick Tess made us slow down for a couple of days but on Thursday we had a indoor-candlelight-picnic-concert for an audience mostly consisting of Ullas friends and a big group of Copenhagen Couchsurfers from all over the world. A beautiful evening which we ended properly by practicing the morning-gymnastics-salsa-moves in a real danish salsa-club!  

Scaringly close to something out of swedish movie ”Torsk på Tallinn” we also managed to store some great wines for the summer before leaving german and danish prices behind and spent a day in Malmö to meet up with our wonderful friend and coach Peter Tegnér for lunch and coffee. 

At night we played at one of Malmö’s most popular restaurants/bars called Carib Kreol. We were warmly welcomed by the lovely manager Patrik and enjoyed their wonderful food and drinks before performing. The gig was different from our other experiences on the tour, performing in a noisy restaurant/bar meant struggling to catch peoples’ attention but we’re pleased with our job and we were very happy to see old friends in the audience!  

After a lovely roadside-breakfast in the sun with our new

Dresden-friends we got back to Berlin and moved in with the lovely

boys in Prenzlauer berg. Rafael, Marcel, Markus & Mattias have

welcomed us into their home with open arms. At night we played at bar

Tristeza in Neukölln, with the audience full of old and new friends.

Thanks everyone for coming and being supersupportive! Dancing til 7.30

in the morning was a great way to celebrate afterwards.

We had a great sunday in Mauer Park, playing for a big group of friends

and a lot of people gathering around us as soon as we started! Taking

over the amfitheatre where the karaoke is usually held, we also played

for a superenthusiastic audience in the sunset. People took all their

stuff to move closer, get involved, sing along and dance! Another

memorable moment and another reason to never want to leave…

Friday afternoon we packed our car and left for Dresden which is

located 3 hours south of Berlin and organizer Stephan had done a

great job fixing eveything from backstagedrinks, dinner and breakfast

for the next morning. We were the headline out of 3 acts and we

started playing aorund midnight. The club was held in a small place

but it was completely crowded with people listening, dancing and even

singing along after listening to the songs on Myspace before the show!

The energy was through the roof! Thanks Dresden, we’ll be back!

On the way home we stopped to see some lovely german scenery, great to

be out of the city for a while!

Feeling like we want to give something back to the Berlin society we decided to make the city a healthier place by spreading our wonderful morning gymnastics to eeeveryone! We do 45 minutes of yoga, african, strength, hiphop, salsa and stretching in various places to make sure every Berliner gets inspired, or at the very least a reason to smile.

After a calm day with an excellent indian dinner the combined rehearsal/preparty could finally start. We put up the PA in our hostel- room and focused on learning a new swing- song called ”Fast forward”.  It’s all about sex , surprice surprice.

We went to an undergroundclub that was more underground than anyone of us had ever seen before. Brilliant. No photos allowed. Noone can hear you scream. Moving on we found an electro club in an old warehouse, we went all in and owned the dancefloor surrounded by people high on life… or other things.

Yesterday we split up to do some touristy stuff before heading off to the L.U.X. Such an inspiring environment, great arena and lovely people who hosted it. We played as as one of the last acts, it was a tough audience but we managed to charm them eventually! After having pizza at 2am it was time to say goodbye to our happy hangarounds who flew back to Stockholm this morning. Thanks Klara and Hannes for great times, you’ve been the best hangarounds a band could ask for!

Just when we thought life couldn’t get better…it did. We left sweden thursday morning and today (Monday morning) we wake up with aching muscles, happy smiles and already so many great memories we’re not sure where to begin the story… This is a summary of the days passed since leaving stockholm:

We were welcomed with open arms by Lena and Magnus in Malmö who made space for five people on their livingroom- floor. We had big falafels and a night of red wine, cheese, and jamming. Thanks for a luxorious start of our tour guys! Jocke also bought a gps from some guy so that we would be less lost in the streets of europe.

We drove all the way to Berlin from Malmö (with one stop for morning gymnastics outside a petrolstation…) We learned that all streetnames in germany sound the same and ended up in the Berlin equivalent of Skärholmen before finding Kora’s house. Ate good pasta and beer for less than 40sek and decided we might never go home again.

In Kora’s house the party was already on and we surpriced everyone with a groovy gig in Koras big room, highly appreciated and flyers were of course handed out to everyone! Kora has lent us her whole room and we were treated like royalties.

Saturday morning (read 3pm) we had our first real morning- gymnastics J everyone in the band has chosen and leads the others in 2 songs each, it’s a 40 minute long yoga/dance/strength-workout and the plan is to do it everyday… so far so good!

The Road junky film festival has been a great part of the weekend, alternative travelers gathered from all over to share documentaries, travel stories and dancing to Balkan music, in all a  brilliant idea! We played a short appreciated gig after the screenings and later on we initiated something that turned into a HUGE sambapercussion-jam with glassbottles, chairs -whatever people could get hold of. It seriously went on for an HOUR non stop, people were like in trance, magic!

Sunday afternoon we spent in Mauer park shopping at the famous market, listening to bad karaoke in the amphitheatre drinking caipirinhas. Life could be worse…

Nickname: tess the mess

Boring name: Tess Mellberg

Role on the tourbus: Sugarmama/Singer

Might be kicked out of the bus because: the others get sick of turning

around for stuff she lost or forgot on the way

Might be taken aboard again because: she’s the only one who knows

where we’re going and what we’re doin this week

Personal item: kickassbackseathippie-guitar

Rumors say that: she’s already wanted by the cops in Berlin

Mission: faking innocence

Nickname: the man

Boring name: Klara Stenfelt

Role on the tourbus: (fridge)bouncer/bassplayer

Might be kicked out of the bus because of: talkin and laughing in her sleep

Might be taken aboard again because: sometimes she gives us beer from the fridge

Personal item: swedish poison called snuff

Rumors say that: she wants to trash hotels 

Mission: becoming a rockstar

Nickname: the myth

Boring name; Mårten Pella

Role on the tourbus: wunderbaum/percussionist

Might be kicked out of the bus because: we wanna se if he can catch up running

Might be taken aboard again: if he makes it

Personal item: drugs

Rumors say that: he might chain himself to any oilrig in sight

Mission: saving Germany

Nickname: the legend

Boring name: Markus Hahn

Role on the tourbus: centre of attention/ guitarist

Might be kicked out of the bus because: he comes with overly smart

comments about geography and hacking computers

Might be taken aboard again because: at times it’s kind of handy with

someone who actually listened at school 

Personal item: trimmer

Rumors say that: his part of the morning- gymnastics will make us all cry

Mission: Deutsch Zentralbank

Nickname: the fixer

Boring name:  Jocke Söderblom

Role on the tourbus: captain of who gets to pea/ driver

Might be kicked out of the bus because: of extremely smelly feet

Might be taken aboard again because: well…he owns the bus

Personal item: portable fridge for front seat

Rumors say that: he knows how to charm metermaids in german

Mission: become wanted by the cops in Berlin

Nickname: U.S. Hamster

Boring name: Klara Näslund

Role on the tourbus: feeder of the troops/ happy hangaround

Might be kicked out of the bus because: she brought bad wine (and spilled it)

Might be taken aboard again because: bad wine is better than no wine 

Personal item: “the tandoorimousse” now smelling like wild strawberries

Rumors say that: she’ll represent the rockstar- lifestyle while the other nerds do gymnastics

Mission: impossible

Nickname: The tripod

Boring name: Hannes Anagrius

Role on the tourbus: Carrier of light/ happy hangaround

Might be kicked out of the bus because: his hair is in the way of the rare view mirror

Might be taken aboard again because: the hair is beautiful 

Personal item: blue diablo

Rumors say that: he will tag the berlin wall with a happy lobster

Mission during the tour: tripod phone home

First day in Berlin. We almost found the right street. But it wasn’t. Finally we arrived at Koras place in wich apartment we had our first gig in Berlin! :)

Tess guided us to a wonderful and very cheap Italian restaurante. We are happy!

More updates will follow soon!

<3

Nedräkningen fortsätter. Nu är det endast tre dagar kvar tills vi sticker söderut mot Berlin via Malmö! Woho!