Back from Fusion-festival tour!

Mohlavyr is back from the greatest tour ever!
Together with my new tour band we performed at five venues in five days, spread out from Sweden to Germany. Since every venue and performance turned out to be so unique I will take the time to write about each one. View the "diary notes" below and feel free to view the pictures in the gallery section that really captured the wonderful atmosphere during this Mohlavyr TOUR 24-28 June 2012. Gotta do this again next year because Fusion-festival IS amazing!



Day one. Concert at "Båtklubben" at Black Pearl in Varberg, Sweden.
Kicking off the Tour! Couldn't start better than this! After hours of packing, long driving, picking up the drummer in Gothenburg and having a quick rehearsal we finally arrived at "Båtklubben" located in a rainy Varberg a couple of miles south of Gothenburg. To be honest the band and I didn't really know what to expect of this venue, in our minds we had a bar, a club and lots of drunk people.. and that was actually what was served to us, but 70% of the audience were also addicted to follow the live stream of the European football championship. The only way to handle that situation was to take advantage of it. This ended up with a dancing and loud singing crowd (the football watchers also sang along in the songs)! Believe it or not but even our own driver began to dance (view the gallery for evidence) and thanks to this we all got a successful kick off of the tour!



But fun nights never end… not until the drummer takes the command and starts up a sing-a-long in Disney classics at the after party. I believe there were many guys who never before would have dared to take a tune, but now they sang like never before during this magical night… "…Can you feel the love tonight…"



Day two. Concert and support to "Poetry Slam" at Malmö, Sweden.
We were already exhausted but at the same time also curious and full of expectations for the upcoming events and challenges in front of us! On our way to Malmö we luckily stopped by the family home of our bassist and were served home cooked lunch. Thanks to that we had a lot more energy for the evening concert! This evening the band and I were invited to open the competition in Poetry Slam, held at "Moriska" in Malmö. While on the spot, and in action we really enjoyed singing and playing together, and it would have been lovely if we could have taken part of the poetry slam, but unfortunately we had a ferry to catch.. Luckily we made it on time and suddenly we were on our way to Germany and to new frontiers!



Day three. Concert at "Wombats Hostel" in Berlin, Germany.
Woke up in Rostock 05:30 AM and headed to Berlin! On our way we stopped by a breakfast place with terrible food, but with a lovely play garden! While riding the slides and rocking swings out there it struck me that we really should take the time to play more! Or what do you say? I suggest you think about it while you have a look at the Beatles inspired photos we took from there… they really captured the moment! There are also some photos from when we spontaneously started to paint the car with crayons, and decorated it with the Mohlavyr text and portraits of the band… It captured the curiosity of some German travelers who asked a lot of question, and who in the beginning suspiciously asked if the van was really ours…





Three hours later we finally arrived at the "Mitte" region in Berlin where we also found the Wombats hostel where we would perform as well as spend our two nights in Berlin! This hostel turned out to be really popular among young adults, who also liked to hang out in the bar at the top floor, where the band and I gave our performance. Since we were free to play as long as we liked we took the advantage to perform a whole bunch of songs. It took an hour, but it felt like ten minutes. I guess that's a good thing!



Day four. Concert at "Soupanova" in Berlin, Germany.
Performance at Soupanova with an audience addicted to football… It isn't easy to be a musician when the European football championship runs at the same time, but since the band and I already had the experience of it from the first concert in Varberg, it turned out quite well. Unfortunately the football game got extended for one whole hour, and when it finally was Mohlavyrs turn to enter the stage a lot of people had already headed home. But in the end some true music lovers took their time and watched our concert. And I had the privilege to perform the duet "tipsy" together with the talented Flavia whom I performed a lot together with last time I stayed in Berlin (I've got to organize a gig so she can come to Sweden and play!)



Day five. Concert at "FUSION-FESTIVAL!" in Lärz, Germany.
Finally time for our big line-up! Mohlavyr at Fusion-festival! None of us could ever have guessed what we were about to experience when we arrived at the Fusion-festival in Lärz. As we rolled in with the van we realized that 55 000 sold tickets also mean quite a lot of people… Beautiful people were dancing around and sitting in front of stages built of wood, designed as fish, octopus or other lake monsters! The design was amazing, and you really did wonder how the crew managed to set up everything, and soon we found out that the festival owns the old Russian military field that the festival is positioned at. Impressed by everything that surrounded us, it was finally time for the band and I to enter the stage in order for our sound check. It took a while, but the audience patiently sat down on the grass and waited for us to finish. From this you could really feel that the people were there for the sake of the music! Finally ready for concert time the band and I had a blast and managed to amuse 700 people who took the time to listen to us. And among them we also found some swedes! Therefore I took the chance to perform my most recent song "Farfar". It was appreciated and I think the Germans liked the sound of the Swedish lyrics, I don't know if it's true or not but some say the Swedish language is really melodic. Well, let's just hope so! While rounding up with the song "Simplicity" a guy in long blond dreads ran up in front of the stage and did an amazing solo dance. Our driver Axel captured it on camera and it was fabulous! Unfortunately the artists are not permitted to share video recordings from the festival... but here is a screen shot that will give you a sense of it;



After a successful concert we took the time to explore the huge festival area, and by night we caught sight of fire-breathing robot monsters, and a robotic robot band (who actually played on real instruments!) and we even caught sight of a band consisting of real humans making music out of flames of fire! It was almost hard to believe your own eyes at this moment, but it was surely for real (I have photos). Summing everything up, I just have one thing to say about this tour and fusion-festival. Got to experience it again!



P.S View more photos in the gallery section under the topic "Mohlavyr on TOUR"