Weekend

Saturday was all about the big Sister Cities Gala Evening Performance. We started in the morning with rehearsals in the beautiful Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, where the big Gala Evening would take place. Between the first and second rehearsal we had a few hours to kill, and went straight to our favourite shopping market, named "the Gucci hole" by Sebbe, our guitarist who didn't enjoy shopping bags as much as the rest of us did.

After the second rehearsal we dodged from the Memorial Hall and went to find some food on our own, without our lovely guide. We ended up in a small local restaurant, trying to get the lady who worked there to understand that we wanted plain rice with vegetables and chicken, without strange things as chicken feet, and that we wanted it "to go". This went so-so, until an English-speaking guy entered the restaurant and helped us out. The food tasted fantastic!

At 8 pm the Sister Cities Gala Evening started, broadcasted on TV in two Chinese provinces, which means at least 50 million viewers. We performed two songs. In the middle of the last song, “Sisters in arms”, about five kids came running up on stage, everyone with a bouquet of flowers that they gave us. We were extremely surprised and had to stop playing for a second to receive the flowers. Someone told us afterwards that this is how kids do in China to show you that they like what you are playing.
After the successful Concert we went back to the hotel to enjoy the banquette served to all the Artists and Representatives from each country.

Sunday was a busy day.
Morning: Press Conference with some Chinese magazines.
Noon: Radio interview.
At 3 pm: A gig at Tianhe Stadium, which was unfortunately cancelled in the last minute (which means the second before we were to get on stage all dressed up and ready to go) because of the bad weather.
Early evening: A short gig at Volvo.
Night: A gig at the nightclub, Rasputin.

We were kind of exhausted when we went to bed that night.