Hasselt and Cork: Næsari!

We just got back from a wonderful trip to Hasselt in Belgium and Cork in Ireland. Ooooo, it was a nice one! But let us start from the beginning. Lets start in Belgium...

After a 13 hour trip to Hasselt, we went out for some sushi. With the sushi I decided to have a Duvel. For those of you who don't know what a Duvel is, it's a Belgium beer which contains a serious amount of alcohol. I think it's like 8,5% or something ridiculous. Well...after two of those you get into this very psychedelic state of drunkenness. And that happened to me on that wonderful Tuesday evening... Waking up the day after was hard but very well worth it...so here is a reminder to you all! Do not drink more than two Duvel at a time...

Sólrún and Hildur could not play the Hasselt show, so we got our very good friend of ours, called Sóley, to come and help us out. And man! She nailed it to the tree! She is hereby our supersub!...

And the show was fantastic. Well, in our opinion it was. And before us played the beautiful Susanne and the wonderful Silje Nes, both from Norway and kicking...Thank you very much Hasselt!

We flew from Brussels at way to early in the morning to Dublin the day after. With an aviation-company that we strongly recommend you do not fly with. The name of the company goes a little bit like this: Ry&$air. Our experience prior to the flight at the check-in and in the plane was terrible...but we survived and came to Cork at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, where our main man Luke greeted us with his nice big smile... We actually stayed in Cork in for 5 days. And did some good stuff there! We got some work done. We had some good food. We had some Guinnes, Murphys, Beamish and Baileys. We got to play the only full gamelan set in Ireland. We even managed to play two shows, one secret show at the Cypress Avenue and one in the Cork Opera House.

Both shows were great. The show in the opera house was intense. It was one of the few shows all six of us have played together this year, which added to the brilliance of the gig. And the crowd wasn't to bad either (and I very much appreciate that you could handle all my talking...)

A few people get a special mention after this trip: Laurent, Sóley and all the staff at the Cultuurcentrum and at the Cork Opera House. And miss Mary Hickson, Luke, Molly and Sammy, you get a very special mention for being there for us, always...

And now comes the end of the longest tourblog in the history of mankind!

Love from Maggi and the rest of the gang!

Is he coming or not? Part 1....the tale of amiina and the president of Iceland.

We (Maggi and Edda) are currently sitting in a aeroplane on our way back home from Frankfurt where we played a beautiful show last night for a wonderful audience at the Mousonturm. Absolutely beautiful! We even managed to add a new song to the set, a brand new song......but it was a very weird night though. First af all we got a visit from the Frankfurt bombsquad who looked for bombs in the building but found none. Then we got a visit from the Frankfurt police (or Polizei like they call them in Germany) who were there to secure the place while we were playing. And we also got a visit from the Frankfurt Special Forces who were placed on roofs all around the venue with snipers and everything! And ALL this security because of Icelands president who was supposed to come to the show but never came. He was on his way, then he was not on his way, then he was on his way, then he decided not to come. We think he is suffering from mild confusion disorder or something (noooo...just joking!). But the foreign minister showed up. That was nice of him. Anyway...this was just really funny. All that security because of a man we see in the supermarket on occasion. Probably just protocol. That´s just how it goes...

Like we said before (Maggi and Edda...we can´t really tell you how the others feel; we are not psychic or anything...) we had a wonderful time playing last night. The crowd was very welcoming and up for a laugh . Which is nice! Thank for being wonderful.

And also we very much like playing these days because finally Sólrún has joined us again after her break. That´s "top nice", like they say in Denmark. And we are also very happy because we managed to add a new song. So now we are going to go more often to the studio to write new material. But fist up is Airwaves!

Good times!

Love, Maggi and Edda

Boston...

For some reason, and I have no idea why, these tour-blogs are always written in airplanes, either on the way to some exotic place or on the way home to Iceland...Are airplanes the best place to write a tour-blog? I don´t know. Who knows?...

We are on our way to Keflavík airport from the beautiful city of Boston, MA, where we got to spend 5 days, do a wonderful show at the Middle East Downstairs and record some live sessions for a couple of college radio stations...

It was so nice to have a couple of days "off". We worked a lot, but usually when we travel we don´t get the chance to walk around, experience the city etc. Usually we show up the same day we perform, set up and do a soundcheck, eat, play the show, sleep, and 27 hours later we are on our way back home. So like I said (wrote...) before, it was nice to see and experience some of the beautiful things that Boston has to offer...

The show at the Middle East was fun! And it was packed! Which is always, as you can imagine, very satisfying for bands (like amiina...) that perform live. And the Middle East Downstairs is such a cool venue. And the people working there are wonderful. John and Brendan, many thanks for taking good care of us....Anyways. We enjoyed ourselves immensely performing for all the people that showed up. We really hope that you guys had as much fun as we had...

To finish this up, we would like to thank Hlynur for inviting us to Boston, for driving us around and for being an overall nice person. (And the Brennivín wasn´t to bad, either...).

That´s it for now!

Peace, Love and Understanding from the amiina gang!

Jetlagged again and loving it! Australia: day 4, 5, 6, and 7...

Hello! We, the amiina-three, are now back from our all too short trip to Australia. Well, the traveling itself took a long time but when you are having fun time seems to move faster. It´s kind of like somebody decided to press the fast-forward button and all of a sudden we are back home in Iceland...

Man, we had a good time down there! After the first couple of shows, we had a couple of days off, and those two days came in handy. We got to see and experience more of Perth, and we went down to Fremantle and we finally got some time at the beach. The beach was nice. And white. And me being a white person coming from the northern part of the world, I probably looked like a walking piece of beach sand. That´s how white the sand was.

After playing a couple of sold out shows in the Octagon Theatre in UWA, we flew down to Albany to do our last show and hang out. We did some sightseeing there (man! it´s beautiful there!) and we went to a even whiter beach...

We want to go back to Australia soon! And we promise we won´t just go to Perth and Albany. An all around Australia tour is coming up soon!

To end this, I would like to thank everyone at the Perth International Arts Festival, but especially Danni, Dan, Elizabeth "Liz" Ann Power, Rod and Elke for driving us around, helping us, making videos with us and for being all around good and wonderful human beings...You are all fantastic!

Peace, Love and Understanding from a very jetlagged young man!

Maggi

After the jetlag: Day 1., 2. and 3 in Australia

We three; María, Edda and me are having a whale of a time in Perth. It´s hard not to have fun here, especially because of the sun and heat because we don´t have a lot of that back home. The temperature is around 35 and it´s sunny all the time... Getting to Australia from Iceland was voted "The hardest and longest trip in the world!" by the amiina-three. We sat in a vehicle (a car or a plane...) or at some airport for 32 hours. Or was it 30 hours? But I am not complaining, because I love traveling and I love my job. We all do. But when you don´t sleep at all in two really long flights, you do get a bit tired and stressed out. Right? That´s why I was the happiest human being in the world when we finally walked out of the Perth International Airport...

The first three days have been superb. We have already played two shows; one at the Dolphin theatre for very nice and excited school kids, and then another one last night, supporting Wildbirds and Peacedrums (http://www.wildbirdsandpeacedrums.com/). Both the shows were really good. Big thanks to everyone working at the venues and the people who are organizing the Perth International Festival. Thanks for driving us around and for giving us all that good food...

One more thing! Last night ended with a Oscar-winning performance by Dan "the stage manager" and Liz "the helpful" in a short mocumentary about my life as a traveling rock star and how hard the rock star lifestyle can be. The mocumentary will be available on DVD and Blueray soon...

Ciao!

Maggi

To and from Leuven...in three days

Hey everyone! We played in Belgium, or Leuven in Belgium to be exact on Saturday the 19th of February. And for that reason I wanted to keep you guys updated on what happens while we travel. And we tend to end up in weird and complicated adventures while we travel together...

First of all, we like Belgium. A lot. I, in particular like Belgium beer. A lot. I had a lot of Belgium beer after our two shows in Leuven...but that is another story for another time. Right?

All in all this was a really good trip. Successful trip... But we did have our fair share of problems on our way to and from Leuven. First of all Sólrún could not make it because she is too pregnant to travel. Second of all me and Kippi did a show in Den Haag the day before (on Friday 18th...) with our good friend Eiki so we did not arrive in Leuven until at 15:00 in the afternoon. And to top that, Edda and Hildur had some exams on that Friday and they did not arrive until 17:00 that beautiful Saturday afternoon. So it was straight to soundcheck for them... Obviously, it was only the 5 of us playing the show (which happened in September last year as well, us playing 5 that is...) which caused a bit of "problems". We had to change our setup a bit. And I had to perform Hemipod on metallophone for the first time in my life. And Kippi had to pick up Sólrúns harp part in Mambó (and he did an exceptional job!). Well, all of us had to pick up new parts and play them that night... But it all went well in the end! We had so much fun playing. And after all that stress to finally play a couple of sold our shows to audiences that were phenomenal, well, that´s something. More than something; great, beautiful! And the people that took care of us were super nice! Many thanks to them, especially for the very sarcastic dancer joke...

I like Belgium!

Maggi

One flight and two train rides later...

We ( me, Sólrún and Siggi) just arrived in Vicenza, Italy. After a 24 hour trip. That's a long time, isn't it? The trip was tough, from Antwerp to Vicenza... but we made it in the end! But anyway, let's start from where we last left you. The Antwerp show was sold out! Veiheiii! Which was quite stressful, since it was only the five of us because Hildur had to go home after the London-show (and by the way, Hildur is fine!). But the Antwerp-show was great, terrific in fact! We enjoyed it immensely and I think the crowd liked it as well. They looked like they were having fun...A big "Shout out!" to Thomas and Stefan and Thomas' mother for taking such good care of us...

But then we got separated! Ahhhhh!

4 of us took the flight to Milano the morning after the show, while me, Sólrún and Siggi took the train to Paris and then the train from Paris to Vicenza. The night train actually. Or "The Train of the Night" like our crazy van-driver called it on the way to the Paris Bercy train station...

The night train (which will be referred to as "The Train of the Night" here after...) is definetly not as cozy as one might think. I thought it would be all lit up in starlight and moonshine. But my dream was crushed by the man in the cabin next to ours, who snored so loudly that he kept me awake for 2 hours (from 01:00 to 03:00...). But in the end we made it! And I got a bit of sleep. Sólrún and Siggi are superb travel companions, so it wasn't all bad...in fact, they are GREAT travel companions...

That's about it! If I am forgetting something, I will keep you posted.

Over and Out!

Maggi

A couple of short stories...

As you may know, we, the amiina-gang, are touring Europe. We have already played all of our shows in the U.K. and Ireland and we are on our way to Belgium as we speak, sitting in one of those Eurostar-trains (and man!, they go fast...). Anyways...

The tour officially kicked off in Dublin at the great Fringe Festival, after a couple of flights and a bit of arguing with the Aer Lingus staff. (Seriously, what is Aer Lingus´s problem?)...But! After a really good sushi-meal and a really good vegan-meal we stepped on stage. The show was great and the crowd was just fantastic! Many thanks to everyone that showed...

The morning after we took the early flight to London and then drove all the way up to Manchester. Kind of weird to fly past Manchester and the have to drive all the way back...But it all worked out quite nicely!  The crowd wasn´t big but very supportive and nice. And, although we almost skipped the encore, we ended the show on playing "Kolapot" because some of the people in the crowd were just to anxious (or something like that...) to hear some more. Which was nice!

On we went to Birmingham. Why did I not know that Birmingham is the second largest city in Englan??? Well, now I know. And now I know that people in Birmingham are supersilent at gigs (which is a good thing). And now I know that comedy-clubs are just as good for gigs, as they are for comedy-shows. Everyone at the Glee Club: Thanks!

And then there was the London show...And man!, it was hot at that club we were playing at (The XOYO club). It was probably around 40 Celsius the whole time and we sweated like there would be no tomorrow. Which made the experience, at least my experience of the show a bit more "rock n´roll" or something like that. Nevertheless, the gig was great and the crowd was wonderful! And at 00:00 it was Marías birthday!

And it´s still Marías birthday! We are celebrating that today, while we sit on the train.

That´s about it for now. Until next time; Peace, Love and Understanding!

amiina

From Reykjavík to Copenhagen to Berlin to Krakow to Warsaw to London to Reykjavík (in 5 days)

Hey everyone We just got back from a very adventurous trip to Krakow, via Berlin. We spent around 23 hours at the airport or in the plane over the period of 5. days, which is kind of weird. Well, not all of us. Edda lost her passport at one of the airports or in one of the airplanes on the way so she had to take the train from Berlin to Krakow, which means 10 hours of sitting, reading and enjoying the beautiful surroundings on the way...

Anyhow! Berlin was great as always. We played an awesome show at the Berlin Festival. And we met some friends of ours who were kind enough to let us sleep at their place for one night and gave us good food and good wine...thanks to Freyja and Guðný for having us! And we saw Macaulay Culkin at the festival. He was really drunk. So drunk, in fact, that our friends Guðný and Freyja had to carry him down some stairs somewhere (we didn´t see it happen...).

After a cozy friday night in Berlin we headed straight over to Krakow to take part in the so called "Árshátíð" held by our friends in Múm. "Árshátíð" actually means "annual celebration" in Icelandic, but it was a concert held by Múm in Krakow. And it was held in a HUGE steelfactory. Seriously, it was HUGE!

 Anyways. We joined Múm on stage in one song called "Marmalade Fires", which was good fun! (Exept for Maggi; he joined the Múm-gang for a few more songs...). But the whole concert actually featured a few more of our friends, including Mugison, Sindri from Seabear and Jóhann Jóhansson, just to name a few. The whole show was just wonderful! Many thanks to everyone who took part in this production. To wrap things up, FM Belfast played in the afterparty. As you can imagine, the afterparty was crazy fun!

Well...all in all the trip was great. Good music, good friends and a whole lot of airplanes!

Until next time, over and out!

Love from Maggi and Edda