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.

Friday November 23

After enjoying the fantastic hotel breakfast we started our day with some shopping. Eva took us to a market where we could find nice bags and shoes. A few hours later we left the market with empty wallets and too many bags, shoes and belts. Not all of them good bargains!
From the market we went straight to Pazhou Exhibition Center, and straight up on stage. There wasn’t much time for sound check, the audience gathered as soon as we got there, and the radio show, we were to participate in, started almost immediately. We played one song on the stage, went into the radio “cage” and did and interview, went out on the stage again and played two more songs, and then back into the cage to finish up the interview. Everything went smooth and nice, and we had done our first interview on Chinese radio.

That evening it was time for the big opening ceremony at Tianhe Stadium. Before the show we were invited to a Welcoming Reception, by the Guangdong Government, together with all the other participants of the Tourism and Culture Festival.
This was our second experience of traditional Chinese food, and we did our best to appreciate the chicken feet and sea cucumber-soup.

China

After 24 hours of traveling we reached Guangzhou in Southerna China on Wednesday November 21. Due to the time difference it was allready night when we arrived, and we went straight to bed.
The first day we spent with our guide, Eva, visiting an anciant temple, a papercut factory and a porslain factory. We ate our first traditional Chinese lunch. Eva had ordered a bunch of Chinese dishes, that was put on the rotating cirkle in the middle of the table, for everyone to try. It was a new experience for us to be served cow stomack and kidey! But this turned out to be just the first one of our many food experiences in China...

Gotland

We are visiting Gotland this weekend. It's a beautiful island off the Swedish east coast, and it's the first time we are here. We are told however that it's much more beautiful and vivid in the summer, so we have decided to go here this summer again.
Anyway we don't see much of the island, because we are busy working in the studio with our latest project. Today we are recording guitar, bass and violin. Tomorrow song.

Ett av Calaisas största fans och stöttepelare har gått bort.

Han var en fantastisk inspirationskälla, vän och pappa, och han lämnar efter sig ett stort tomrum och en enorm saknad.
Under alla år har han engagerat sig mycket i Calaisa och hjälpt oss med allt man kan tänka sig, och vi sörjer honom av hela vårt hjärta.
På grund av vår plötsliga förlust har vi under en period varit tvungna att ställa in några av våra åtaganden, och det är vi ledsna för, men vi fortsätter att spela och skapa musik med glädje och till minnet av vår älskade Leif Törnquist.

Thank You!

Thank you everyone who have made our Swedish Summer Tour such a success! Without your support we wouldn't have enoyed it half as much. We now know that every corned of Sweden is filled with beautiful singing-along Calaisa fans. How great!

We thank you and bow low to you!

Mölle 1

As a good almost-end to our summer tour we played in Malmoe last Saturday. Tent number 1 at Mölleplatsen was crowded with expectant Calaisa fans, and the feeling of walking up on the stage was incredible. This must be kind of what we have been dreaming of for so long, a venue filled with people who are there only to see us, and they sing along with the lyrics!

Playing infront of tens of thousands of people in England, supporting Simply Red was of course a great experience too, but having your own fans is far better!

And thanks to the fabulous support from everyone at the Malmoe festival Concert, we probably did one of our best gigs ever!

The Summer tour is comming to an end and we will play our last gig in Umeå Wednesday August 29. Feels a bit sad! Not to play in Umeå, but that it's our last gig for some time.