2nd concert this weekend - Terese Fredenwall in Halle

I just returned from Today's concert of Terese Fredenwall, Simon Petrén and Tobias Jonasson at "The Irish Fiddler" in Halle and I'm pretty exhausted. I guess so are the others that were actually working but they are currently on the road again to get to Jüterbog while Anja is already asleep and I'm sitting in the strange bed of the even stranger youth hostel and check the internet and apparently write this posting.

Before we left Leipzig we made some sight seeing until lunch time. The weather was beautiful like the whole weekend already and we made like hundreds of pictures of the very old buildings, were in the Thomaschurch where they were rehearsing for monday's concert. 

After that we went to Halle, which is pretty nice also, but the streets suck I can tell. We did even the sightseeing here today, a lot of other very old buildings followed.

In the evening Terese was playing. She did 3 sets of songs and the place was so crowded that you couldn't move. Anja and I had some exclusive seats and took again hundreds of pictures. Terese played almost all our favorites and a lot more. Also some great cover versions of well known songs.

In the breaks between the sets Anja and I sold her CDs and had a lot of fun promoting her. 

Pictures will come later. But I'm off for bed now, because it's soooo early already ;)

hugs

Terese Fredenwall in Leipzig and a day off

This week was pretty full of dates, monday I was at Roxette's concert in Berlin, which was pretty awesome, Tuesday I was so tired but worked long, Wednesday school and yesterday it was NRW time from 4:25 in the morning to 23:00 in the night. The good thing is that I was off today and will be off on monday as well. 

We went to Leipzig today in the afternoon. Even though I was off from work today it wasn't really my day. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong today, talking about how to get winter tires on my car and not having the right screws, being late almost the whole day (I hadn't even packed my suitcase 2 hours before the trip and was recharging cameras in a hurry), being in the never ending traffic jam that is happening in Berlin every day but especially on Fridays when the whole city is getting somewhere else. So we had a big delay of almost 1 hour when we arrived in Leipzig. The last I had eaten were 2 toast around lunch time so we were starving (I don't even know what Anja had for lunch). We arrived at the hostel 6:15 pm and the concert was to start in about 1:45 hour. We just got changed, prepared the room and off we went. We thought that we would find something to eat on the way there.... but nope. So we went around in Leipzig trying to find something to eat with the HUGE bag packs we have. But nothing. I wasn't able to carry on going or to think. 

So we went to that English Room Terese would play at. When we stepped in the lady at the counter told us in ENGLISH that we could leave our coats in another room and pay afterwords. I was looking at her and thought she thought we must be from abroad having so much stuff with us, while Terese is still pretty unknown here in Germany. So I told her that we do understand German and she was giving me a not understanding look. SO did Anja. When we went into the room where we would leave our jackets she told me if I wouldn't think that there is a connection between the ENGLISH ROOM and English speaking people. I was looking at Anja then, thinking about what she said. In the same moment we started laughing soooooo bad. This coincidence became the running gag of today's evening. 

The concert was cool and so was the location. It was like sitting in someone else's living room. Very familiar and intimate. 

We got to chat with someone from Australia, who was funny and interesting and had some good laughs  with Terese, Simon, Bengt and Tobias. 

Pictures are going to be uploaded very soon I guess. Tomorrow we will have some sight seeing and then we are going to Halle in the afternoon. Tomorrow is the second concert - this time in an Irish Pub - but now I'm prepared, no more German if another nationality is involved in the name of the location ;)

Sleep tight;)

Concert Terese Fredenwall in Oehna (Flugplatz)

Yesterday was the second concert of our little concert weekend. The gig took place in Oehna, in the middle of nowhere in Brandenburg. It was so hidden that even our GPS didn't find it.


When we arrived the band was already rehearsing and we were starving. The original plan was to get something to eat before the arrival. McDonald's was the word, which we didn't find in the nowhere we were :) So the little snackshop next to the hangars was ok, we would have eaten whatever actually.
When we had finished our french fries we didn't have to wait that long before we could enter the location. It was beautiful with all those small airplanes and hangars. I have never been so close to aircrafts on a field lol. Bengt and Simon arrived at the same time as we and Bengt showed us his plane and we talked about it and that it was pretty old. The engine is from the 50's and he is able to fix everything on his own. We looked into his plane and as much as I trust Bengt, I don't think I would ever get into this aircraft...


The concert was supposed to start at 4 p.m. but when only 5 people arrived 3:50 pm I was a bit worried that maybe no one would come to see the concert and this beautiful location. Even a small pre-act was there so I was hoping they would pull some people there since they seemed to be from the surrounding.
But then people came. It were about 50, which was unexpected. The concert started and was as nice as the day before but totally different with this unique location. Terese had asked me the night before if I would do the translation for the audience, so I did it. I rather sucked since I was standing between her and the speaker and didn't hear part of the things she said. I tried lipreading which worked well at the end :)) Anyway I had fun.


When the concert was over we learned that the group was going to Regensburg the same evening. What a ride. We took some pictures from the whole bunch in front of the WOP airplane. While they were still packing their stuff we had to leave to head home.


Thanks again to Terese Fredenwall, Simon Petrén, Elin Sydhage, Emil Sydhage, Marcus Johansson and Tobias Jonasson for those incredible memories and the great music. We already made plans to visit their next concerts in Leipzig and Halle at the end of October. Looking forward.

Concert Terese Fredenwall in Oranienburg

Friday I was going to a concert of my Swedish friend Terese Fredenwall, who was playing live in Oranienburg, north of Berlin. I did my apprentice in Oranienburg and was quite sure that I wouldn't go back to that town... if it wasn't for Terese and her Project "Wings of Protection".



Wings of Protection is a project founded by Swedish priest Bengt Fiske years ago and Terese Fredenwall who joined this project 1,5 year ago. Together they are raising money for children that don't have a save home or are living on the streets. Bengt was working many years with kids on the streets of Berlin and also Regensburg and also with prostitudes. They both have my full respect for what they are doing for those forgotten people.


Anja came from Hamburg and brought 2 of her friends and we had an incredible evening there. The concert was great. There are no words for how much I admire those people for what they are doing and how long they go just to play a concert for those people and to speak about Jesus and God and how everyone can make lonely people feel comfortable.

Anyway even if it was a serious pupose I had so much fun. Especially in the end when Anja, Simon and I started a photography war.


Oh and to make some advertisement for this great project I can recommend Terese's albums "Colours From My Heart" and "Not About The Songs".