Another weekend in Sweden

Hello folks, as promised here it is...
Germana aka Bending Rules on the keyboard ;)

So... I had planned to go to both the gigs in Västerås and Åre, but as you all know the one in Västerås was moved to march 4th and I will be right on the other side of the world by then! Things were already arranged, but I changed my plans and spent two beautiful days in Stockholm instead. I left on thursday afternoon (never again leaving the same day of a gig after what happened last month!) and the journey didn't start really good... I only had 35 minutes to get my connecting flight in Munich, and when I arrived in Malpensa I saw the flight out of Milan already was announced with half an hour delay... "great" I thought and was resigned to miss the connection and get on the next flight, but luckily everything went smooth and I arrived in Munich just as they were boarding the flight to Stockholm :)

Stockholm... beauty on water... gotta love that city! I went wandering for the remainings of the afternoon, went to the Stampen at night and enjoyed a nice band playing swing there. Another day wandering on friday, then I met up with a friend for the night and we had so much fun in an irish pub... and also scored a few free drinks from guys trying to hit on us! haha... you never say no to free drinks now, do you??

Saturday was the day to fly out to Östersund and then get to Åre, and I met the band while boarding the plane.
Upon arrival in Östersund... another little nightmare... the bus to Åre took something like 30 minutes before finally leaving, and then once in Åre it went to all of the hotels first to drop other people, and then finally dropped me at the right one, which was the same place where the gig was.

On to the show... now *this* was a real nightmare!!! It began around midnight, when everyone but me in the house was totally drunk, and the venue was full of girls who were trying to grab him all the time... that made me really really really angry but I tried to stay cool anyway... until one of them did something she REALLY shouldn't have done, and my self-control was gone! she got a good elbow in the ribs from me, but I guess she didn't even notice because she was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too drunk. And she was really lucky it was only an elbow!!! Never try to harm him in my presence, because I'd become a killer to defend Andreas...
I never had to suffer so much pushing and shoving... not even front stage at U2 concerts!
But still the show was good, and the guys were having fun on stage. The setlist was the same of Alingsås, but I think the show itself was better. The crowd went BANANAS during Glorious, and they also kept singing it when the show was over!
Well done to everybody and especially to the new guitarist! (sorry didn't get your name)
A special message for Monika and Jarmo: please take care of yourselves and of your beautiful voices, but please please please keep the safety distance from Andreas when you're sick :p

Now... as per a very very special request... the funny story of the night :)

You may not know that our beloved poet has troubles remembering the lyrics to "What If"... so I had prepared this sheet as a reminder for him and took it out of my pocket and unfolded it in front of him right before the song started... haha... It took a few seconds for him to realize what it was, but when he did he bursted out laughing, took the sheet and showed it to the audience saying something in swedish (translation please?) and started singing reading from it. Then I took it and held it for him (at least tried to, damn shaking hands...) and he sang the whole song reading from there and smiling :D
"TACK"... that's one of the few swedish words I can understand even when just mouthed :)
Andreas... don't think I didn't notice you screwed up the lyrics to "The games we play" too, right there at "my" verse...
the games we play
the rules we bend
with lovers lust
we will defend.........
Next time I'm gonna bring the whole songbook!

The journey back started at 8am on sunday morning... Östersund, Arlanda, Dusseldorf, Milan, and I finally made it home at 10.30pm.

And now my friends, I'm off to New Zealand first and then Australia so you won't hear much from me in this next month! Take care!!

Germana - Bending Rules