The almost complete but yet to be finished tour diary of
2017 (continuing from after Dallas):
LA was one of those perfect nights when everything just felt
right and I felt gracious like a hummingbird. I discovered I
have this new sense of pride in my profession that I haven’t
felt before. For the first time I used the word ‘colleague’
in my mind when I thought about the staff at Teragram
Ballroom. There used to be a conflict in me about this
before because I never explicitly wanted to be a musician, I
just wrote songs in my own way, and all of a sudden people
wanted to book shows with me. The first times I showed up at
venues I got the feeling I was supposed to feel grateful and
impressed by the rock history that had taken place there
before. But I just felt the sticky floors under my shoes,
saw the dick grafitti on the walls of the backstage room,
and felt like I didn’t belong there. And then I had a number
of bad encounters with venue staff in the beginning, the
stage tech who yelled at me because my guitar was dirty
(“it’s disgusting, don’t you have any pride in your guitar
playing??”), the infinite number of sound engineers who
frowned upon my backingtracks and my little CD player I
brought along and that was that. The war was on. I decided
all people who worked at venues were assholes and just
didn’t get it. But during the process of making the last
album I came to a point where I realised I had to make a
choice. If I wanted to keep making music I had to
consciously decide to be a musician and find solutions to
everything that frustrated me. And one of the first steps
was to reevaluate how I felt about all the venue people.
One thing that helped was that I think things have changed
since I started. It’s not that prestigious to play in a band
anymore. And some nights when we’re packing up our stuff and
the cleaner is sweeping up the broken glass and someone is
playing one last sleepy tune on the piano at the other end
of the bar, I feel like we’re all together in a fading
dream. But we’re a team, a family, and I love that
high five at the end of the night.
San Francisco was emotional for me as it reminded me of my
friend and sound engineer Barrett who passed away in the
Oakland warehouse fire last year. We had talked about
meeting up when I got to SF and it became very real for me
when I got there. I kept thinking “I gotta text Barrett and
see if he wants to…” and then I choked up. I really miss him
a lot and I can't believe he's gone. I played Into Eternity
for him those nights as that was the one song he kept asking
me to play every night we were on tour together and it felt
fitting. After the 2nd show the staff at the Independent
came up and said they all knew Barrett, that he was a very
respected person in the music scene, someone they looked up
to, someone everyone loved and admired.
In Portland I went for a run and was reminded of what a
romantic town that is, with the rusty old bridges, the
pinetrees and the trains whistling in the distance. Lisa Liza was
our new opener this night, she had flown in from another
Portland - the one in Maine, to join us and play her
beautiful songs.
The show was crazy, I anticipated a seated polite crowd that
I would have to work with - a posh theatre tends to make
people self aware, but I got the wildest crowd on the tour
so far.
Seattle started with a day off. We did
KEXP which was fun but I messed up. I always mess up
when it’s big, important and live. No big deal. Then we went
to the cinema and saw Get Out which was great. Cinema in the
US is different from what I’m used to. People bring beer and
they shout at the screen. I liked that a lot. The Seattle
show was great and I had some really nice conversations with
people at the merch table afterwards. I decided for this
tour that I would be at the merch table and sign records as
much as I could, as long as it worked with the venue and our
schedule. I sometimes used to hide after the shows in the
past to not have to face what people thought, a strategy
that wasn’t helping me much. I thought I’d try the opposite
now. The perfume I made was selling like crazy, some people
rushed in through the doors when they opened to get one and
we had to seriously limit the number of perfumes we could
sell each night so that they wouldn’t run out before the
tour was over.
Then we started our long drive east, I woke up in the early
hours shivering as we were passing through a snowstorm in
the mountains. The bus was unable to handle the cold and it
came in through the windows. I slept in my coat. The next
day we just drove. Through the Rocky Mountains, Idaho's
desolate fields and Montana's breathtaking hills. We had an
extra driver for this route, he was nice but our
conversation drifted into politics at some point and he
mentioned he thought the United States couldn’t take more
immigrants, because the place is full already. We looked out
the windows at the empty Montana fields. We hadn’t seen a
human being for hours. Maybe a few cows. I know that’s not a
valid argument in this issue, integration isn’t about
physical space, it’s about getting into society. But it was
just such a sad visual punchline in an otherwise bleak
conversation.
We finally reached Fargo, North Dakota, a place I’d been
wanting to visit for a long time. Not because of the movie,
which I don’t think I’ve ever seen but because of the
stories I’d heard from the brothers who run my label
Secretly Canadian and grew up there. Their dad's old store,
Swanson Health Products was still there, just across the
street from the venue. I think about 60 people came to the
show, but basically everyone who came out bought a record
and said hi after the show (we later checked the merch sheet
and percentage wise this was the best selling show of the
tour!). I did some songs in Swedish this night just to
humour all the Anderssons and Svenssons and other swedish
descendants.
We had picked up our friend Emma Lagerberg along the way and
she had joined to hang out and play a little violin on
Opposite of Hallelujah. She had just spent some time in
Minneapolis, teaching Swedish folk music at the Swedish
American Institute. She told us about Swede Hollow, the
valley in Minneapolis where Swedish immigrants lived in
extreme poverty just a century ago. It’s fascinating for me
as a swede, being from a quite wealthy and privileged part
of the world, to be reminded of how people from where I live
- who spoke the same language as me and had the same history
and culture as me - were once the poor immigrants, seeking
shelter and trying to just get by in a new country far away.
The Minneapolis show was so much fun and it felt good to get
up on stage on International Womens Day and have an all
female band including a female sound engineer and tour
manager.
The next day I checked my mail in a cafe somewhere and
spilled coffee over myself as I read that I had been granted
tour support from Kulturrådet (the Swedish Arts Council). I
can’t tell you how much pressure that took off my chest.
Trying to make this tour come together financially was so
stressful. At first balancing on the break even point and
then slowly starting to lose more and more as unexpected
costs came up. Now things were looking brighter.
On our drive to Chicago I couldn’t sleep, the bus was
shaking, the body was aching from a cold and I felt stressed
knowing I had a packed schedule. I made it through the A.V
Club session, got to see the Onion’s office which was fun,
like I was visiting the physical address of the Internet. I
tried to memorize some unpublished ideas for headlines on
their conference whiteboard. But later on I got so very
tired. The Chicago show started nice, I introduced “The Wall
of Love”, probably the silliest idea I’ve ever had - a twee
take on the Wall Of
Death - dividing the crowd into two parts and then
have them run towards each other and give each other... a
hug. That was fun. But I didn’t feel like I did a good job
in Chicago, I was exhausted and I messed up a few songs.
Came off stage feeling that old shame for not delivering the
goods, not being good enough. But our sound engineer Anna
came backstage and didn’t agree at all, she thought it
sounded awesome from where she was at. I thought of that
part in Bruce Springsteen’s biography where he talks about
revisiting the recording from an old London show he thought
was terrible and not understanding at all what he was so
disappointed by... it sounded great. The band sat around
listening to clips on Instagram and yeah, it sounded good.
What was my problem? I went out and signed records and
talked to people for two hours and everyone was super happy
which made me happy too. Thought about the fact that someone
had thrown up a bra at our bassist Hanna, and the look on
her face. I giggled inside.
Got to sleep a bit more on my way to Columbus and did
finally the best show of the tour so far. Thank you Ohio.
The morning after I woke up from the beeping sound of the
truck towing our bus off the highway. We were 20 minutes
outside of Detroit when the bus had just given up. We got
our stuff into a taxi and made it to Magic Stick just in
time for soundcheck. I had hoped to get to see the city and
the Heidelberg Project which a fan had sent me links about,
but this became another night of just seeing the inside of
the venue. Such a shame, I'd really wanted to see Detroit.
We got a different bus delivered and packed our stuff in it.
Had time to get a slice of pizza. The delay meant we
couldn't see the Niagara Falls on our way to Toronto either.
I'd never seen it. Only heard the sound as I once stopped
there late one evening when it was dark. Maybe it’s better
in my imagination anyway.
The show at Great Hall was good but yet again I felt like I
didn't do a good enough job. Felt ashamed. Reminded myself
of Bruce again and had some vegan poutine from round the
corner. The next day I woke up in the bus and heard the crew
talking but it wasn't the old tour talk, the inside jokes
that occupy most of the casual conversations in the bus. I
found out that the wi-fi had stopped working because we were
in Canada and our bus was parked in the middle of nowhere.
And Stella, the snowstorm was raging outside. Trapped inside
with no internet something had happened. We sat there and
opened up, talked about the universe, faith and our
existence. Until we got too hungry and headed out into the
storm to search for food. After finding some internet, I
noticed an offer had come in from a guy who had been at the
show, he asked if we wanted to 3D scan ourselves to make
digital avatars. We went to his studio and stepped into a
small room filled with cameras from every angle. Watching yourself
being put together, pixel by pixel on the screen, was
like watching David Cronenberg's 'The Fly'. We had a final
dinner before we left and when the wi-fi started working
again we sent our new 3D avatars out into the universe. I
looked out the window at the snow and started thinking that
maybe I should dust off The Cold Swedish Winter for the next
show.
Boston was a lot of fun, I got to see some old familiar
faces in the crowd but we had a long drive so we took off
right after the show and headed for DC. There I had press to
do until the show started. I ended with The End of the World
is Bigger Than Love since it takes place in DC, I hadn’t
played that song in a long time, it made me remember how I
felt about things back then when I wrote it, how everytime I
closed my eyes I thought about how a big nuclear bomb went
off and wiped out everything and everyone, including myself.
It worked like a reboot of my mind when there were too many
emotions going on inside. Later that night we took a walk
over to the White House where we took photos of our middle
fingers. But the White House looked dark and sad, no lights
on, no one home, our middle fingers were aimed at nothing,
just darkness.
Philadelphia. I am so filled with brotherly love for this
place. Union Transfer must be one of the best venues in the
country. We had a long day, we played World
Cafe in the morning but still had time to meet with my
old friend and drummer Charlie who now plays with the War On
Drugs and gives the best hugs.
The next day we got to New York and played a sold out Bowery
Ballroom. Unfortunately all I remember from this show was
getting electrocuted in the 2nd song. After that I just lost
momentum and forgot everything I was gonna say or do. My
guitar kept going on and off for some reason. I couldnt keep
up with the 2-3 rowdy guys close to the front. I went to
autopilot and then came off feeling terrible and ashamed but
decided to still go sign records so I wouldn’t just sit
around dwelling on stuff I couldn’t do much about. Everyone
I talked to loved it, they didnt even notice what I had
experienced.
Bruce…
The next day we killed it at Music Hall. TOTAL REVENGE. Btw,
that venue is actually the best venue in the world. Such
nice people and such amazing sound. I must’ve played there
over ten times now and it’s always great. Then I did a
soloshow at Rough Trade, I started with playing Lovin
Spoonful’s ‘Do You Believe in Magic?’. The crowd answered
yes to the question that the song is asking so I continued.
A young woman in the crowd asked for Your Arms Around Me and
I promised to play it for her later, but she said she had to
leave to get home before midnight or her parents would get
mad at her. So I played it for her right away because I’m a
nice guy. Saw her leaving with a smile on her face a few
songs later and it made my night.
Since the US tour was over I sat around and reflected on it
and came to think of how differently my all female band and
crew had been greeted compared to last time I played in the
US with just women, back in 2006. This time, no one said
anything sexist or dumb at all. We were met with pure
respect. I choose to take this as a sign that things have
really happened over the last 10 years, despite the election
of Trump. A small light of hope in an otherwise dark era.
Then we flew to Dublin, played a great set at good old
Whelans until my voice started acting up. I went to sign
records and my voice kept sounding weird. Then on the ferry,
in the middle of the night, I got a high fever.
I woke up in London feeling terrible. Slept all day in my
little bunkbed, feeling miserable, until showtime. Took some
paracetamol and made it through, it was a great night and a
great crowd. But I came off dizzy and feeling worse.
Woke up in Leeds and could barely stand up. My voice worse
than ever. Still feeling worried about the tour budget I
didn’t cancel, instead I did a short show with barely any
voice at all, the band and crowd covered for me. It was
touching the way Leeds carried me through that.
The next day in Manchester I was even worse, I had to cancel
which broke my heart. We found a doctor - a “rock doc” who
prescribed me a whole bunch of drugs. I checked into a
hotelroom, took my steroids and antibiotics for the chest
infection, turned on the TV and ordered a veggie burger from
room service. When I got it, it tasted awful! Like metal!
How typical, I thought to myself, why can’t people learn how
to cook vegetarian food? How can it be so hard? I called
room service, I’m not the one to complain usually but this
just tasted so bad. They came over and I said “this tastes
horrible, I’d really like my money back”. They left looking
confused and I had some fries. And they tasted awful!! Like
metal too! And the cola - like metal! I had an apple in my
bag - it tasted metal! And my cashew nuts - metal! I
thought: “Wait a minute”. Then I checked the side effects
for the pills - “common side effects - makes food taste like
metal”. I called and apologised. Realised during the call
that my voice had started coming back. Woke up the next day
feeling amazing. Not just like I wasn’t sick anymore but as
if I was in the best shape I’d ever been in. I was sweaty
because I had been dreaming about flying through burning
cars all night. I was ready for Glasgow. And also ready for
ANYTHING. I was ready to run a marathon and sort out all of
the worlds problems. But first, I checked the side effects
for the pills again. “Common side effects - an intense
feeling of euphoria and self importance”. Ah, ok. I unlaced
my running shoes and took them off.
I laid in my bunkbed looking out at Glasgow, at the street
outside. First, about 50 heavy metal guys walked by. Then a
busload of nuns. Then a funeral procession. Then a group of
clowns, actual clowns! I thought of what I’d read about
Pyongyang, how visitors who’d been looking down at the
street from their hotel had started suspecting that maybe
all the people who walked by were actors, who maybe just
walked round the corner and changed their clothes and then
walked by the hotel again in an endless parade for them,
giving the impression of a city full of life. I don’t know
what this was that I saw, maybe there was just a heavy metal
show, a bunch of nuns on holiday, a funeral and a circus,
all happening at once. Whatever it was, I whispered “thank
you for the entertainment, Glasgow” as I laid there. Then we
played the show, me sitting down (doctor’s orders), the
crowd standing up, dancing, having a blast. That was a very
memorable show. Thank you again, Glasgow.
We flew to Stockholm. I've always been terrified of playing
in Stockholm, I think because I've felt judged there, I've
been carrying around the idea that the cultural elite lives
there and it stirs up fears in me that go way back. I think
it has to do with class. When I was a teenager I looked
towards these sophisticated people in the city and wished I
could be one of them. They made me jealous, the way they
wore their coolness so casually, that they looked like they
belonged there, that all these social and cultural
codes had been given to them through their DNA. Luckily
however, I was still high on the steroids and they gave me a
sense of importance and fearless euphoria and I bashed
through the show like a graceful dancing elephant.
Shameless.
In Uppsala it was the same thing, thank you steroids!
Then in Malmö they had worn off, I had stopped taking them
because I could barely sleep. The nervousness came back like
an invoice with the VAT slapped right on. I had to shape up,
but I came to think of how the story in Hotwire The
Ferriswheel took place in Malmö once and it gave me a focus.
13 years ago I walked through Malmö with a friend who had
just found out her boyfriend had been cheating on her, and
the mood was dark as the night. We walked by Folkets Park
where there used to be a ferriswheel at the time and my
friend asked if we could break in and hotwire it like you
would hotwire a car. I said I didn't know how to hotwire a
ferriswheel and she smiled and said 'yeah, neither do I'.
Then she said 'but one day you should write a song about
this night, and when you do - don't write one of those sad
songs that you always write, write a happy song, write about
how we actually did hotwire that ferriswheel'. There was a
silence and then she said 'it's in your hands now - you have
the power to make this a happy memory'. And I spent 13 years
working on that song, trying to not let her down. I hope I
didn't, I don't know her anymore, we're not in touch, not
sure if she even remembers. But I thought of that as I
played this night in Malmö and it helped me through.
In Copenhagen we played at the prestigious concert hall, the
same night as the New York Philharmonics. In the corridors
outside, distinguished violinists walked by in their
expensive suits and dresses, as we unpacked our broken amps
and tangled cables. One of them mistook me for a staff
member and asked me to bring some coffee. I brought it for
him anyway, just to have a chance to chat. I played How Can
I Tell Him as an encore, and a guy yelled out 'fuck yeah!'.
I'm never sure how that song will go down, if people will
laugh, cry or just shrug their shoulders. Or start
questioning me, like when I played it on the radio earlier
that day and the host said that he didn’t understand why it
was such a big deal that men find it hard to express
emotions and isn’t it all biological anyway? The guy who
yelled 'fuck yeah' came up after with his arm around his
male friend and said 'that song is about me and him'.
Off to Örebro, this town where I hadn't played for 14 years,
just passed on the train on my way somewhere else. We were
on a country road somewhere when we turned on the radio and
it reported about something that had happened in Stockholm.
A truck. Some fire in a mall. People lying dead and wounded
on the street. At Drottninggatan. That very street where we
had been strolling down just a few days ago, stopped to have
a coffee at an outdoor cafe, one of those first spring days
when you could actually do that. I couldn't take my eyes off
the news that whole day. We did the show which was great, a
kid dancing on a table in the back. I dedicated the last
song to Stockholm, and people looked confused. It's an odd
thing, to dedicate songs to Stockholm.
We returned to Gothenburg. I don't know how to explain the
feeling of playing in my hometown. The closer you get to
home, the weirder it feels. Maybe because a show is still
acting, a play that everyone accepts until you meet a crowd
that knows who's behind the mask. I kept reading about the
Stockholm attack all day and when I went on stage a strange
thing happened, I felt terrified. Quickly, I scanned the
venue to remember how to get out, just in case. All through
the show I thought about how vulnerable we were in there. I
thought about Le Bataclan.
I had been reading articles all day where they told us to
not be scared, because that's what terrorists want. But I
don’t know how to ‘not be scared’.
I came to think of how I used to be scared of flying. I kept
telling myself "don't be stupid, it's statistically much
safer than driving or even eating a sandwich”. Still, I was
scared. So one day, as the airplane taxied down the runway I
just thought "ok, be scared then".
And then it felt better.
We played Postcard # 17 and it put it's finger on something
this night. I like when that song puts its finger on
something because it’s a vague story, not much of a story in
itself at all. I wrote it in one day back in 2015 when I had
just started therapy and I felt like I was trying to put my
finger on something but I wasn’t sure what it was.
Oslo was sunny. A wonderful spring day spent walking around.
I haven't mentioned our opening band, The Dove and the
Wolf, who had been with us for weeks by now, both in
the US and Europe, always delivering their beautiful set
with both grace and humour. This was their last show with us
and I sat behind the stage door and listened.
In the half hour between our sets I became hesitant, maybe I
should change the setlist, it's been the same for a while
now. I quickly switched it around and then started the
evening with Our First Fight. A string broke halfway through
the song. That fucking string, it was the death of the show,
it set off a chain reaction of nervosity and frustration. I
made it through but I was a mess after the show. Not even
talking to people by the merch table could get my spirits
up. I could see it in their faces I thought, I had failed
them.
The next day I got up at 6am to take a bus back to
Gothenburg, to get there early so I could have one therapy
session after weeks of no sessions. I talked to her about
the nights when I had struggled and felt insufficient, like
I had failed people, the frustration that things didn't go
as planned. She said "well, you're a sensitive person". Then
she said "have you never thought about how maybe sensitivity
could be an asset?". I had never thought about it that way,
that maybe the same thing that frustrated me could also be
the reason why I'm here in the first place, the reason why
music once touched me so deeply and made me long to explore
it.
I took the tram over to Pustervik and did our second
hometown show. I felt proud that I had sold out two nights
in my hometown. Maybe I wasn't a prophet, I’ll never play at
Ullevi Stadium, but at least I was someone who could sell
out Pustervik twice. That’s not too bad.
After five days off we took the ferry over to Denmark again
and drove to Aarhus. I can't remember what it was about it
but I loved that show. The crowd wasn't big but they were
into it and the venue is wonderful. Walking to the hotel
afterwards it struck me that I've never experienced the town
even though I've been there many times. What a beautiful
city. A ‘Venice of the North’.
Hamburg was great too except I got some permanent hearing
damage from the screaming fans up front. Haha. But what can
you do. I’m looking forward to explaining that to my future
audiologists ;)
Berlin was perfect. Just perfect.
In Köln I struggled with the setlist all night. You need to
shake it up once in a while, otherwise it becomes Groundhog
Day eventually. At the same time it's hard to keep more than
15-20 songs in shape which doesn't give you much room to mix
it up too much. I tend to have 2-3 opening songs to choose
from, a few spots in the set where you can insert a quiet
song or a forgotten gem, and then leave space at the end for
spontaneous solosongs depending on the mood and place. This
night I kept going back and forth between wether I should do
Evening Prayer or Our First Fight. I settled on Evening
Prayer and after the show I talked to some people who said
they had been moved because they had gone through similar
experiences, dealing with illness themselves or being close
to someone who was ill. That's probably the most rewarding
part about writing songs and stories, hearing from people
who can relate to it, knowing that the songs are doing their
work. It’s also one of the trickiest parts of being a
songwriter, when you’re having these quite serious and
heartfelt conversations while being in a noisy crowded bar.
On one side you have the person who's been close to death,
on the other side the person who wants you to record a video
message for their friend Stevie who couldn't be there
because he's drunk and passed out on the pavement outside.
I thought about this in Utrecht too while I was practising
some organ parts with Emelie. Emelie is a funeral organist,
she's used to the responsibility that comes with setting
music to the darker parts of life. We talked about this, how
interesting it was that I do weddings and she does funerals,
that inbetween us we can cover both of those aspects of
life. It feels like an important asset when you're a touring
band, playing this kind of music. I'm glad I have Emelie
with me.
Paris is Paris. What can I say. It was two days before the
election and the atmosphere was tense. Police cars were
racing through the narrow streets and it didn’t make things
better when some guy started wielding a knife at Gare Du
Nord. Still, Paris was Paris. People were smoking cigars and
frowning at our vegetarian diets and everything was just
like it should be - absolutely wonderful.
We spent the night in Dijon, famous for it’s mustard. Drove
through other little french towns famous for their cheeses,
wines and condiments. Into Switzerland and Zürich where we
played an amazing show at the tiniest stage we’d played so
far. So tiny I was constantly worried Hanna was going to
poke an eye out on my guitar if she turned her head towards
me. The band had become really tight and it was that
wonderful peak when you've made it up the hill and everyone
knows the songs so well but are still so excited about
playing every night. Especially Julia who had become the
burning engine of the band, even those nights when we hadn't
slept for days and were so tired, she was still excited to
get up behind her drums and play a show. I don't think I've
ever met someone who loves playing drums as much as her,
inbetween our tours she would book other shows, you'd turn
on the TV and she'd be behind the drums, playing with some
rapper or upcoming popsinger. Zürich is a beautiful place,
but it was nothing compared to the Disneyland fantasy of
Lucerne where we played the next day for about 20 people
including my own crew. I did that show solo since we knew
there wouldn’t be many people and there’s nothing more
embarrasing than when there's more people on stage than in
the crowd. Now it became a nice intimate thing. I sold one
CD after the show and I was happy with that.
We got to Italy and Bologna. For some reason it feels like
my first album was the hit record there. In many other
places it’s Night Falls that people want to hear, but in
Italy it’s all about When I Said... I played You Are The
Light because a girl at the front kept requesting it and
when she said it was her birthday I couldn't say no anymore.
I got some mosquito bites later in the warm italian night.
It felt like summer already. The venue in Rome was amazing,
an old church with acoustics that made every drumbeat last
for an eternity. And it was so close to everything worth
seeing, we put on our best tourist pants and cameras and
walked out to enjoy the city.
The day after my band drove to Munich through the alps while
I did a TV show. I got an in-ear translator to help me with
the questions. I got nervous behind the stage, as you know I
tend to mess up when it’s important and live. I was doing
vocal exercises when the in-ear translator said “are you
nervous?”. I said “yeah”. He said “don’t worry, I’m with you
all the way, I’ll be here in your ear and I’ll tell you what
to do”. It was the most comforting words I’d ever heard in
my life. I felt like Phillip
Seymour Hoffman in Synechdoche, NY. I wanted to take
this in-ear translator voice with me, into my life. I didn’t
know where he was sitting or who he was. It didn’t matter. I
wanted him to stay in my ear for the rest of my life and
tell me how to live it.
The show went well, I didn’t mess up. Afterwards I got to
meet an italian news reporter who was really really really
really famous according to everyone I talked to but I had of
course never heard of him before. Such a strange thing, to
shake someones famous hand, see people in awe all around
him, and have no idea who he is.
Munich was snow falling, happy people and a fun show. And then this
happened. You can’t hear it well in the recording but
there was a rock show happening just below our stage,
sending massive bass up through the floor. But it was ok, we
made it through since we’re pro’s. We just had to play
inbetween the other band’s songs, haha. Thanks to Daniel
Borklund for the recording!
We ended our tour in Hannover. Hanna had celebrated her
birthday the day before and had an offical “Hangover in
Hannover”. I had been joking about this for weeks. I thought
it was so funny. No one else thought it was that funny. We
ended with one of those “we don’t care if there’s not that
many people here, we’re gonna do the best show ever” kind of
shows. Playing for ourselves but also for the few but
enthusiastic people there.
Then the summer festival season started. But I can’t write
about all those shows too, Jesus! What do you want from me?
Do you know how much other work I have to do? All the
bookkeeping! All the emails I haven’t replied to! Ok then,
but I’ll make it quick.
Huskvarna was a wonderful little festival in a wonderful
little park. The line-up included a lot of metal and rock
which meant I didn’t have a huge crowd but also meant I got
to see a fair amount of long haired metal dudes slowly
warming up to my tunes and moving around a little bit. I
love metal dudes, they’re always the nicest people.
Primavera was brilliant, they’ve really mastered that
festival, 10/10, so enjoyable. And that comes from someone
who generally doesn’t like big festivals.
Then I played at the 'Bergman Week' at Fårö, a little island
outside Sweden where Ingmar Bergman used to live. That was
worth it just to be allowed to stay in Bergman’s own house.
I realized when I came home after the show that I was
sharing it with Tomas Alfredsson, the director of Let The
Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy etc. He was just
sitting there, quietly editing his new movie on his laptop.
We talked for a while, then I went to bed and watched Scenes
From a Marriage which apparently was filmed in that very
house.
Bilbao - Magnificent town, wonderful festival, wonderful
crowd.
Ruisrock - I didn’t get to see much here since we had to
rush to our flight right after the show, but the show was
A+.
Then
I did this. And
this.
The next show was at Badesøen Festival just outside
Copenhagen and one of those shows I did just for the fun of
it. My friend Rasmus Stolberg had put together a not so
ordinary event, more art and happenings than just bands
after bands. I was scheduled for three pop up shows, where I
just walked out into the crowd and started playing for the
lucky (or unlucky) ones standing around. Then I did a very
interesting set where I played one song for one person at a
time. This was in part Rasmus own idea - he had seen me do
this thing I sometimes do where I take requests after shows
and sing the songs quietly in peoples ears, whispering so
that the song will only be for them. Rasmus helped me take
that idea and make it work in a festival setting, with a
little white picket fence fencing in two white chairs and a
white parasol.
Then it was off to Italy and Siren Festival where I arrived
just in time to plug in my guitar and start playing in yet
another amazing italian church.
Slussens Pensionat in Orust is known for giving artists and
musicians a nice holiday in exchange for music. You get
amazing food, a nice room and a bay to go swimming in and
sunny cliffs to lie on. For a workaholic it's great, it's
the ultimate workation. And you get to meet a new crowd as a
lot of tourists go there just for the place and get exposed
to your music. An older french couple came up at breakfast
the day after the show and with simple french and gestures I
think they said they really enjoyed the show. I don't know.
Maybe they were asking where the strawberry jam was. I
smiled and said 'merci'.
All through the summer I had been following a debate in the
outskirts of all the other debates, a debate about
Gothenburg's cultural politics and the rents that had
suddenly been raised drastically, at some instances up to
100%, for galleries, studios and rehearsal spaces in town. I
myself had to move out of my space earlier this year due to
the raised rent, a space I could barely afford as it was but
that now became way out of my pricerange. It was ok with me,
over the years the studios around it had started going from
music studios to advertisement agencies and studios
recording music for ads. They were all nice people there,
but I was longing more to be around people making music and
art for their own sake, and found a place just outside the
city. However, now I realized this was something affecting
not only me, but all musicians and artists around town, not
only were the rents going to go up, but they were also about
to demolish a whole bunch of rehearsal spaces in the centre
to build a skyscraper with luxury flats. It felt familiar
and it made me angry. I'd like to think that without the
musicians in Gothenburg, this town would be what it was 20
years ago when I was a teenager - a dead place associated
with seafood, a couple of factories and bingo. I can't tell
you how many emails I get from tourists visiting the city
because they've heard the music me and other Gothenburg
musicians have made. I feel like we've been advertising the
city to the world, and what do we get for that? I'm not
asking for much, just a decently priced space where I can
make music.
All this was in my head and came out as I walked on stage at
the big festival in Gothenburg - Way Out West, in itself
once a product of the local music scene and now an
advertisement for the city. It was a great show with some
guest appearances from my old horn players Frida and
Kristin. We did a greatest hits show. Rondo, I'm ready for
my krogshow now!
photo by Julia Ivansson
Back to Stockholm. This time however, I had decided to not
be nervous anymore. Instead I wanted to test a hypothesis,
that the crowd wasn't a bunch of music journalists about to
rip me apart, but rather a sweet gang of music lovers who
just needed a sign that they could relax and have a good
time. A typical thing in bigger cities. What would that sign
be? I thought to myself. Then I remembered "The Wall of
Love" that I tried in Chicago to a decent result. Why not, I
thought. This would be the ultimate anti-cool move that I
could pull off. It would pulverize any cynic if it was
executed right. So to repeat - it's basically a "Wall of
Death" but instead of a mosh pit the sides of the crowd
dance towards each other and gives each other a hug. Sooo
ridiculous and silly. I tried it and it was magic.
At the end, when we were playing Dandelion Seed, I came to
think of a dance that I had rehearsed with my friend Sofia
Calizaya for that song. I had never done it because once we
were on tour I realized the stages were too small, we had
too many cables and, honestly, I just didn't have the guts.
But I didn't care this night and did the dance, just for the
heck of it. It wasn't great, but I did it.
Then we did a nostalgic festival in Norrköping, with
Eggstone of all bands playing before us. What a dream.
I flew directly to Manchester, to do a replacement show for
the cancelled show earlier in the spring. Then to London
which turned out to be one of the best shows of the whole
year. Liverpool where I cursed myself for not planning
the show one week earlier so I could've been there for KLF's
magnificent return. And then the gorgeous little
hippie town of Hebden Bridge which surprised us with a
packed and excited room. I had met with Tracey Thorn in
London and she had tipped me off about going to Sylvia
Plath's grave in Hebden Bridge. So with some internet
digging we tracked it down to an overgrown cematary. It took
a while before we found it, people had planted pencils that
were sticking out of the soil and guitarpicks and coins were
scattered over the stone. The controversial addition of the
name Hughes after her own name, from Ted Hughes who she was
married to, was still there. Over the years many people had
tried to cross it out. I decided to read The Bell Jar after
this and was moved by the chapter in which she talks about sitting
under the fig tree. I remember coming across this
chapter as I thought about these things when I wrote the
last album, but I had never read it in context.
Finally we did End of The Road Festival and I finally found
the guts to actually do The End of The Road by
Boyz 2 Men at THE END OF THE ROAD. I had wanted to do
that both in 2007 and 2013 but chickened out. Now it's done.
It was great. I am happy.
When we got to Into The Great Wide Open Festival in Holland
the next day I realized I should've rehearsed that
song too!!! But it was too late. It didn't matter, it
was still a very memorable show.
We ended it all in Istanbul with two beautiful days and
nights that I got to spend with this band and crew that I
had come so close to. I couldn't think of a better place to
say goodbye. The rest of the shows this year will be solo
but I hope I can reunite them again at some point. If you
want to get in touch with any of the bandmembers or crew for
a job such as recording or touring, drop me a line and I'll
pass it on.
Finally, I want to say thank you to all of you who came out
to these shows. It just hit me now that I must've played for
at least 30.000 people this year. So that's 30.000 thank
you's.
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you....
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