June `12: CD Release Show

Hi There I promised to write a new blog a long time ago. Some of you might remember that I asked you on Facebook to tell me what the next blog should be all about. Thanks for all your answers, I’ll certainly pick some of them up at some point, but for this one, so much has happened in the last few weeks. As you might have read, our new album „Lost in Limbo“ was released on June 15th and is available in (online) stores. Every day I get a lot of good feedbacks, so I’m sure, the album will go it’s way. To celebrate the new album we organised a big concert at Einstein, Congress St-Gall. We set up a huge stage with three big LED screens and some weird lights. I will upload some videos on Youtube soon. We had a big load of fun on stage!

We didn’t have a chance to rehearse the show with the LED walls in advance. So we had to do this during the soundcheck. That also meant to get up early to drive all the equipment to the venue. The soundcheck was at around 3pm, Claudio and Reto improvised a new song; you’ll find it on Youtube „GSLP Insomnia“.  At 4pm Thomas, who was responsible for the LED walls durng the concert, arrived. We went through the videos again with him – thank god he is used to technical stuff. I would have been pretty overchallenged with it. We rehearsed until 5.30pm, had a fast dinner, at 7pm Eveline Battaglia-Sutter arrived for the soundcheck. I had the honour to sing the song „Keep on Fighting“ with her. When the doors opened at 7.30pm, I went backstage, drank a special tea (ginger, honey and cayenne) and read the Book „Lady Windermere’s Fan“, written by Oscar Wilde. I’ve never read Oscar Wilde before, but I started reading „The Importance of being Earnest“ right afterwards. Until last year I didn’t read a lot without the pressure of teachers and I don’t know what made me want to read more. There was a lot of coming and going backstage; Thomas was our messenger between the technicians and us, when I went to warm up my voice I was told that there was some kind of an accident in the back, but I still have no idea what has happened. I just found Thomas holding his hand and some women giving him ice. It’s always a good feeling when changing the clothes (some of you might have noticed that I’m not performing in a suit anymore. I prefer wearing a hoody these days.) and setting up the head mic. It’s always the time when I realise that we will be on stage soon. When we were waiting backstage, we heard the audience shouting and clapping as the lights were turned off. Then the intro that Claudio composed was played and the audience could see a slow clock and other dark footage on the screens. Then the synthesizer drums started and the band walked on stage. It was getting loud in the room. I was still waiting behind the door, did a few push ups before entering. I was overwhelmed by the audience and I became extremely enthusiastic, felt an energy inside that I haven’t felt for a long, long time. I felt so good that I forgot the 3rd and 4th verse of the first song… Fortunately it was a new song, so hardly no-one noticed it. We played three songs of our new album at the beginning, the 4th song was „Shadow Man“; it was great to see that so many people knew the lyrics – probably better than I do… One of the highlights was certainly my brother Reto’s drum solo. He used some crazy visuals to accentuate his piece. Hope to get a video of it soon. Originally, the drum solo was made just for giving me a little break to put on the mask for „Crucify the Earth“. But as it worked so well, it has become a part of the show.  After the explosion of Canyon the band left the stage and I played a brand new song – just me and my guitar. It was a very intimate moment for me and the song I played – „Weight of the World“ – might be one of my most emotional songs to sing. There are some songs that take a long time to write and to arrange, others take a few minutes. Weight of the World might have been around in my head for a long time, but I didn’t know it. One morning I was sitting next to a lake and wrote the lyrics, the same night I finished the whole song. Those who were standing in the front have probably seen that I nearly couldn’t start the 3rd verse as I became so emotional. But actually, this is what live music is all about and I saw that this song also touched a lot of people in the audience. After „Weight of the World“ and played the song „Where are you now?“. I think this is one of our fan’s favourite songs. Samuel, our new bass player, joined me on stage with an E-Violin. Since I wrote this song in 2009, I never changed it; but the E-Violin gives this song a new – and in my opinion - deeper dimension. We played the song „The Whole World“ as final encore, a song that I wrote in 2007, but still is up to date. The song is about finding a way through the complexity of life. When singing this song I always feel like coming home, coming back to my roots. This song is where it all started, 5 years ago. After this 2 hour show I walked off stage with a smile on my face and said to my band: „It was freaking awesome!!“ We had a really good time on stage and I’d like to thank everyone who was there that night! You were fantastic! And also, thanks to all the people who were there for us this day: Technicians, event manager, staff,... Setlist:1.  Intro / Down 2.  Mercy 3.  Lady in the Water 4.  Shadow Man 5.  A Soldier’s Dream I & II 6.  The Weeping Song 7.  Drum Solo 8.  Crucify the Earth 9.  A Window to the Sea 10. The Stranger 11. A Better Day 12. Healing of the Soul 13. Keep on Fighting 14. Living in the Sky 15. Red Moon 16. The Canyon 17. Weight of the World 18. Where are you now? 19. Tantalos 20. Man in the Middle / Shadow Man (Reprise) 21. The Whole World

Last weekend we had two shows, one at Begegnungstag St. Gallen, the other one at Openair Vögelipark, Flawil. Musically, both shows went pretty well. In St. Gallen we had a great audience and I always enjoy the atmosphere of this so-called „Begegnungstag“. It’s one day a year when nearly every culture has its own stall selling traditional food and drinks etc. On the left side I saw some Brazilian girls enthusiastically dancing and clapping. Unfortunately, our guitarist  Orlando had another appointment and couldn’t be on stage with us. But it was an interesting challenge to replace him without having another musician on stage. So I played more guitar than usually and Claudio did more solos. Now I’m getting ready for the shows coming up in Germany, England and Switzerland, just me and my guitar.

That was a pretty long blog… I wonder if some people are reading it to the end.

Hope you’re all fine!

Best, Gion x