Árstíðir

Mega Man II

On a 14 hour train ride between Petrozavodsk and Moscow, Hallgrímur and Karl passed the time by playing the old 8-bit video game Mega Man 2 on Karl’s laptop. With time to kill Karl transcribed the theme song for the level Dr. Wily’s Castle, and arranged it for a string quintet on the spot.

 

 

 
A few days later, while we were performing with the string players from iamthemorning in St. Petersburg, the string players decided to perform the piece at the beginning of our second set.

Intense Petrozavodsk

After riding on a train for 14 hours, we finally arrived in Petrozavodsk, where we had managed to sell out the Philharmonia.

Our arrival had attracted a lot of local media buzz, and during our sound check we were interviewed by three different television networks.

Reunited with our dear friends from iamthemorning, we performed part of our show with a string quintet, receiving standing ovations and flowers from the spectators, including the famous singer Leo Sevets.

 

In Voronezh

We arrived by train to Voronezh, a city close to the Ukrainian border some 500 km south of Moscow. The weather was nice and warm and we spent the day walking around the city center admiring the leafy parks and impressive monuments from Soviet times.

On tour one tends to live minute-to-minute, following the itinerary that our manager gives us which tells us when and where to eat, sleep, travel etc. That afternoon, after a CD signing in a local music shop, our itinerary said “sound check.”

The tickets for our concert had been sold out for many days, and when the bells rang at eight o’clock, the auditorium at “The House of Actors” was filled to the brim with anticipating spectators. The show was a delightful one, and like the night before in Moscow, we received standing ovations.

After the show we signed autographs and chatted with the locals until we had to run off to catch the night train back to Moscow.