Flashback #1- completion of the October Side A concerts… After and extreme day of traveling to and performing in Poznan, Chad Taylor, Håvard Wiik and I flew from Berlin to Sibiu, Romania to perform at the Jazz & More Festival. After we arrived Håvard and I grabbed some lunch at a traditional restaurant (I accidentally got a grilled meat platter that featured 4 sausages jammed into mounds of mashed potatoes like enormous candles), then some sleep before our setup and gig (the band arrived too late for a standard soundcheck, so we had to do this directly before the concert while the audience hung out in the foyer of the venue). The trio played a good set before a small but attentive crowd, then we hung out with the other musicians and fans at a bar in a beautiful part of the old city. Taking advantage of the fact that we didn’t have to travel until nearly 6pm the next day, Håvard and spent the evening with a couple of young fans, ending up in a Romanian disco at 3 in the morning; I watched mesmerized at the quiet town was transformed into a jumping party of twenty year olds dancing to 90s Hip Hop, looking like something out of a scene from a current MTV video. Oct. 14th was another travel day, we arrived in Brussels at 10:30pm, were picked up by Christel Kumpen and Koen Vandenhoudt, and had a late night soup and story exchange, soup designed by Christel, stories helmed by Chad Taylor; we were up to 4 laughing our asses of. The 4th and final concert for Side A took place in Antwerp and was the most successful of the trip- great venue, great staff, great sound, great audience, strong performance (aside from me butchering the head on one of Chad’s pieces, “What Is Is;” I felt like an idiot). With the new album out and the creative feeling within the band, I hope that we’ll be able to do a lot more together in the near future; a fantastic, if short, trip. Solo in Girona:
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