Árstíðir

Colours of Ostrava, day 1

On our first show at the Colours of Ostrava festival we were joined on stage by violinist Viktor Orri Árnason from the band Hjaltalín. Viktor is an amazing musician and we are very happy every time we get a chance to play with him.

At this point on the tour we’ve played six gigs in the Czech Republic and we start noticing that more and more faces in the crowd are becoming familiar. We also see notice the same people showing up waving the icelandic flag, which is fun!

Due to our tight travel, and sound-check schedule we could’t see some of the amazing acts who were playing at the festival, and missed out on Bobby McFerrin, Rufus Wainwright, Animal Collective and the Kronos Quartet. I remember that during sound-check we heard Antony and the Johnsons play in the distance. But after the show we found a few hours to wander round and caught The Flaming Lips when they put on a spectacular show.

A night in Hungary

In Hungary we played at the Csipero Festival in the city of Kecskemet. The festival takes place amidst the beautiful old buildings in the city centre. Just after nightfal we played by the main square, with our backs to an old church with torches burning all around.

Before coming to Hungary we knew very little about the country, but our generous local promoter Bela Pap told us the essential things while treating us to rounds of the traditional hungarian fruit liqour called Palinka.

Magic Slovakia

After driving through the endless Sunflower-fields of Slovakia we came to the to the town of Levice where we played a gig in an amazing synagogue. We’ve been blessed with exciting venues on this tour and we like to make use of their natural acoustics by playing with no amplification or microphones.

 

After the show we were invited to an old wine cellar called Vino Svetik, situated in one of the citys many dungeons. These dungeons are said to be between 4 and 500 years old and are connected with tunnels that run under the city. In older times people would hide in them from turkish invaders. Today the dungeons provide the perfect place for brewing delicious white wine, with its chill temperature and immense humidity.

 

The old algae covered walls provided an fairy-tale like backdrop as the proud wine maker opened the large wooden barrels and let us taste more than twenty different wines.