The Journey Itself Is Home

We have just arrived in Poland. Some of us had a rough night because of the Polish roads, which are old and uneven, making for a very bumpy ride. But I slept like a baby. My feeling ill made me drowsy, I have a cold and my head feels like it is full of gas! Because of it I’m suffering from a mild hearing loss (no, it is not because I listened to Marilyn Manson - I had ear plugs then) and I really should stay in bed today.

Some of the others on the coach are also feeling under the weather. Lets hope it won’t mar our performance tomorrow.

PS: I visited the Memorial Church in Berlin yesterday. I have never witnessed a war and this felt like actually seeing what war really means. It was atrocious. Almost all the church was blown away in WW2, just the tower is left.

We are in Berlin now, but tonight we continue our journey to Polland. It was my first night on the Snoop Dogg coach (not counting the night from Glastonbury to London) and I slept quite well.

We performed on the Werchter festival last night, sandwiched between Marilyn Manson and Muse. As I’m first and foremost a classical musician (whatever that means!) I had never even heard of Muse, but I understand they are HUGE. However I immediately recognized the music Marilyn Manson chose to play before he appeared on the stage. It was the slow movement from Schubert’s Piano Trio op. 100.

That’s not exactly rock music.

However, Schubert’s Trio is played several times in the vampire cult film Hunger, and as Manson has declared himself a Satanist, maybe that’s the connection.

It was fairly obvious that not all of the audience came to hear Björk, so I didn’t experience the warmth from it I have grown accostumed to. Still, a lot of people seemed very enthusiastic.

I had kind of fantasized about partying afterwards with Marilyn Manson and I did listen to the beginning of his concert back stage… but when we ourselves had performed I felt mildly ill. So I just went back to the coach and took it easy.

Here is a great picture of us that I found in an Icelandic magazine, Nýtt lí­f. Looks like Coachella to me…

I have just arrived in Brussels, one of my favorite cities in the world. We left in the Snoop Dogg coach around noon today, but not the entire gang, as the brass-girls had gone a bit earlier and the crew always travels in a separate bus.

It was an uneventful ride, but we passed the time watching Ghosbusters. And we had a great meal in the ferry acroos the Channel.

Today was our last day in London. We had a recording session at the Olympic Studio where we recorded the concert versions of a few songs so they can be played on the radio. Among them was My Juvenile which we haven’t performed in public so far. Also Vertebrae By Vertebrae.

Tomorrow we leave for Brussels. I’m already looking forward to have some Belgian chocolate!

Here is another photo that I took from the stage in Glastonbury:

Since I have been posting a few photos I would like to draw your attention to the blogs of two brass girls, Brynja Guðmundsdóttir and Valdís Þorkelsdóttir. The blogs are in Icelandic but you can see plenty of photos there as well. I know that some of the other girls have blogs with pictures too (they are ALWAYS taking photos!) so if you are reading this, girls, post the links to your blogs here, please.

Here are two more photos:

I took this remarkable picture from the stage yesterday night. It was a difficult shot because Björk moved so much. I particularly like the lights around her…

Peter van der Velde, our ever charming production manager, told me just now that last night in Glastonbury we played in front of millions and millions of people. I had no idea! I thought our audience consisted “merely” of hundred or two hundred thousand people. But no, the TV was there and the show was webcast live.

Maybe it was good I didn’t know. I loved every minute of it! In fact, I loved it so much that typing on my computer now is a bit painful. My fingers are sore after playing Bachelorette somewhat forcefully - maybe I went slightly overboard there.

Anyway…

Last Wednesday Björk said she wanted to go to Glastonbury a day earlier than planned. As I have a soft spot for the Western Mystery Tradition and Glastonbury is strongly associated with the legend of the Holy Grail, I said I wanted to go with her.

So on Thursday I went with Björk and her little daughter, and our jolly tour manager, Shaun Martin (this time with the M included in his name). We stayed overnight in some castle (the name of which I have forgotten - maybe it will come later) in the vicinity of Bath, an absolutely wondrous place.

Unfortunately the opportunity to climb the Glastonbury Tor never presented itself - I’ll have to go later - but seeing the enormous crowd at the festival, plus the night at the castle, was a nice compensation. And all the mud was kind of fun!

After the show we had a little party in our new sleeping bus. The bus looks good and the last person to stay in it was… Snoop Dogg! I slept for a few hours in the bus, maybe in Snoop Dogg’s bed?

I’m sitting in front of a police station somewhere in London, using their free internet. Chaos rules!

I arrived in London yesterday, horribly sleep deprived but OK. In the early evening I had a nice practise session with Björk, Damian, Mark and Chris, but not Toumani as I had expected as he is just coming straight to Glastonbury. Hope, which is the song we are doing, will be more or less an improvisation on my part as I’m going to follow Toumani’s lead.

In my understanding my role in Hope is to be “the Lydian front” which will give Toumani the freedom to do what he wants. Björk’s music is usually in the Lydian mode (which is a normal major scale but with a sharp fourth note - for instance, a C major scale would have an F sharp, not F natural) and my improvisation is supposed to emphasise that characteristic.

Some of us are going to Glastonbury tonight. Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to walk on top of the Tor and see the healing well. Should be fun!

Concerning the Lydian mode:

“We hear the Lydian fourth (a raised fourth in the context of a major tonality) in the famous first phrase of Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Maria’ from West Side Story. We hear a Lydian fourth in the accompaniment of the opening song ‘Bonjour’ from Alan Menken’s score for the Walt Disney production of Beauty and the Beast. We hear Lydian formulations cascading through the lush orchestrations that accompany the closing credits in John Williams’ score for E.T. . There is a kind of false leading note built-in to the character of the Lydian fourth ” it aspires toward the dominant in just the same way that the traditional concept of a leading note aspires toward the tonic. The Lydian contains an element of aspiration, yearning almost, within its structure. It has come to be associated with innocence (Maria, Beauty and E.T.), coupled with fervent desire, as in the yearnings of children. To demonstrate this, takes any of the examples cited above, and play them on a keyboard with the Lydian fourths lowered, so that the scale resembles a traditional major scale. It will be sensed that the peculiar quality of innocence, yearning and naiveté that the Lydian fourth brings to the music will at once disappear.”

From http://www.patrickdailly.f9.co.uk/THEMES.htm