KaninKanon V

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Was amazing! We were pretty tired and Martin, Duncan and Nick kept trying to sleep on the floor or on each other. Ditte was brilliant, not only did she sing with us later than night, but she found us a nice cafe where we drank the smoothies and ate cakes to wake ourselves up.

The lineup was superb, I'd met Rebecca and Chris from a smile and a ribbon before and it was great seeing them again. I'd made electronic contact with Anders from Soda Fountain Rag so it was good to finally meet and have a chat. I'd also met Mads and Louise from De Agtige (and Scaredy cat) last year. There were so many people I chatted to that I completely forgot how tired I was.

I managed to get stuck in the backstage room with Allesandro and Ombretta from Le man avec les lunettes for Tiergarten so we listened from the back , had some cous cous and I learnt to speak some italian :) Tiergarten were excellent even from the back room.

I was back out with the band when De Agtige came onstage and they were amazing. All tiredness melted away in the face of rapid-fire synth pop - punk songs. A smile and a ribbon sounded brilliant and Rebecca looked superb in a bright blue wig. I was kept busy between bands lending out equipment, the Rough Bunnies borrowed Nick's guitar and sounded great onstage. Le man avec les Lunettes borrowed our synth and really blew me away with their songs. Definitely a band to make the effort to see if they play round your way.

We were on next and managed to borrow a shoelace from Mads so we could get a strap on the acoustic guitar. The set went brilliantly, it was amazing looking out from the stage and seeing all those people dancing and even singing along to our tunes! We had a little dance contest which Duncan judged. Emil managed to win, but it wasn't anything to do with us already being friends, his moves were amazing ;) It was lovely having Ditte onstage and when Mikkel ran onstage and started playing drums on our last song, we all knew we'd just had the most fun we'd ever had as a band. Definitely our best gig!

Soda Fountain rag were excellent, the mix sounded great and everyone in audience was clearly having a great time.

The after gig DJing was superb. All sorts of classics from indiepop to punk. We danced and talked until we exhausted and then caught a cab back to Morten's.

Thanks to everyone involved in organising KaninKanon for making it so much fun.

Preparing for KaninKanon V

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I've managed to get the euro-trip entries out of chronological order and forgot to mention KaninKanon itself

KaninKanon was the day after we saw Irene play at Debaser in Malmo. We got back to Morten's at 5 in the morning and had to get to the venue for KaninKanon around 3ish.

The morning was pretty rough but Nick managed to wake Martin by licking his face :) We decided we needed a practice as I'd changed the key of one of the songs but Nick hadn't had time to change the guitar parts to fit.

Morten took us to the practice rooms they use for Ampel and some other local bands. Running through the songs did seem to wake us up a bit but we had to get back to Morten's and then on the bus to the venue, Global. The nice bus driver lady even let us ride for free!

Gothenburg reunions

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The drive from Uppsala to Gothenburg took ages. The scenery was great particularly the views of the lake Vattern (?). The road passes really near the lake and I freely admit there were moments where I wasn't really concentrating on the road at all.

The weather turned as we got near Gothenburg and it was pouring down when we arrived. We met up with Martin from the electric pop group and on our honeymoon, our hoss for the gig.

Myself and Martin went to drop the car off at the hostel whilst Duncan and Nick found themselves a nice warm, and most importantly dry, bar. We met up an hour or so later and Nick and duncan were in a merry mood. After grabbing a bite to eat we ended up at Klara, where i met up with with quite a few indiepoppers last year. I got to meet a lot of great folk there again, Oskar, Rickard, Malin, Anna and Joachim and lots of great new folk too.

Unsurprisingly we were in a state by the time the pub closed. Martin and Duncan got separated from us and ended up exploring Gothenburg in a vain attempt to find our hostel. We all met up by complete coincidence at jarnstorget. I'd already bought a falafel for Nick but he was in a queue at Burger King and was in no state to account for his actions. The evening was wonderful, the next morning couldn't have been more different. Suffice it to say, we all suffered.

An afternoon in the archipelagos

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Uppsala is a lovely little town so we spent the morning looking around. After spending some time in the cathedral we decided to head out to the coast and see the islands. We got ourselves a little picnic on the way and spent an afternoon playing around on rocks and freezing water.

We drove back and spent the early evening at the swimming pool. The adventure pool was a lot of fun, water slides, and lots of other amusements.

I went off to see some friends from Napoleon later, it turned out to be at the same pizza/bar that we'd been to last night with Jesper. Pizzas were eaten, bad jokes were exchanged and hangovers were prepared.

Stockholm sindrome

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Hmm, so Stockholm is one of the most beautiful cities in europe and it's a joy to walk around in the sunshine. I woke up early and went for a wander with my camera. I then made the mistake of assuming that if I drove out of town I'd find some free parking, I didn't and ended up parking quite close to where I'd left the car overnight. The others were up at this point so we did the tourist and music fan thing and wandered around museums and record shops.

I'd pre-booked some beds in a hostel in Uppsala so headed up there in the evening and met up with my friend Jesper who is in a number of bands including Speedmarket avenue and Birds on holiday. It was lucky that we did, I'd mistakenly only booked three beds for the night and Jesper generously offered me his spare bed. Phew!

Kalmar and a long rainy drive to Stockholm

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We picked the car up from Malmo and crossed back over to Denmark. Taking in the amazing Castle in Elsinore. We got there pretty late and I didn't have my camera but hopefully Nick will have a stash of cool photos from the visit.

We went back to Copenhagen to impose on Morten and Anna for another day so we could say goodbye to Mikkel properly. The next morning we set off for Sweden with a visit to Kalmar, some poppies in a field in Oland and then a very dark rainy drive to Stockholm. Where we slept in a dormitory in boat hostel.

Irene at debaser Malmo

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So we spent the evening seeing Irene in Malmo. They're all really nice guys and the new material is absolutely superb. We had a wonderful time dancing and drinking expensive raspberry drinks.