The Journey Itself Is Home

A certain pilot took piano lessons from me before the tour started. I invited him to our concert in Madison Square Garden last Monday. He repaid me the favour by giving me a royal treatment on the way home tonight. I was allowed into the cockpit, and not only that - I stayed there the whole time.

It was unbelievable. The weather in New York was excellent and the takeoff was indescripable. It was simply fantastic to see the entire New York area from the cockpit as the plane rose higher and higher.

The moment when we passed over Greenland was also stunning. Beholding infinity across the misty horizon, with Venus extraordinarily bright in the sky above, the Aurora Borealis all over and the gargantuan icebergs far below was something I will never forget.

To top it all I had three incredibly hot stewardesses wait on me.

I was ill yesterday, my sinuses were painful so I decided not to go to the costume party. Instead I stayed in bed and watched Conan O’Brian.

I must say it was disappointing. First of all I don’t like the TV version of Wanderlust. It is way too short, there is no buildup. As a consequence the frantic element in the song doesn’t come through. The wanderlust is definitely there, but it doesn’t take you anywhere.

Second, the mix was odd, Björk’s voice was too low and on the TV I had it sounded slightly hollow.

I think all of us looked (and sounded) a bit out of place. The only thing I liked was the new look of Wonderbrass. They relly looked spectacular behind Björk.

Well, you can’t win everytime. In any case, I feel better today. And tonight most of us go to Iceland for a holiday. I sure look forward to it.

I was ecstatic after our show in Madison Square Garden last night. Everyone seemed on form, and even though it was an immensely large audience, I didn’t really feel nervous.

Min Xiao-Fen played the Pipa on “I See Who You Are” and Antony Hegarty joined Björk on stage for “Dull Flame Of Desire”. They were both brilliant.

Björk and me perfomed Cover Me. It was fun!

Desired Constellation with Damian on the ReacTable sounded gorgeous, and in general, Björk was really powerful.

I have a couple of family members visiting me here in New York and I’m just taking it easy. I’m very tired, but I did go to a costume shop today with Númi and his brother. Apparently there is a costume party after Conan O’Brian, but I don’t know the details yet. Hopefully I will be able to post a few pictures from the party later!

For now here is one that I took on stage yesterday:

We had a great show yesterday in Montreal. The brass girls had wireless microphones, which meant they could move much more around than usual. This was especially effective during Declare Your Independence, where the girls formed a half-circle around Björk and danced like fire! It was stunning.

As we were going on stage I remarked to Ragga how far we have come since our first concert in Laugardalshöllin in April. The visual aspect of the show has gradually been transformed by flags, pyrotechnics, lasers, costumes, choreography, etc. And we have gotten a lot better musically. It would be a shame if we didn’t give the people of Iceland a chance to see and hear the difference.

On this leg of the tour I have occasionally experimented with doing yoga. When I have done that, I have felt much calmer on stage. Yesterday I met a yoga teacher who radiated health and wholeness. She does yoga every day. Maybe I should start doing yoga regularly.

We are now almost in New York. Ahead is the last show at present, in Madison Square Garden on Monday and a performance on the Conan O’Brien Show on Thursday. Then: Vacation in Iceland!

We had a good show last Monday at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. After partying a little with the very nice members of our supporting group, Santogold, we headed back to the bus and drove all night. We were going to Montreal for a concert tomorrow, but stopped on the way in Front Royal, more precisely in Shenandoah National Park.

I didn’t sleep too well on the bus to Front Royal and spent the day resting in my room in Skyland Resort, enjoying the absence of a TV, the internet and traffic noises. I saw a deer nosing around, but it ran away when it saw me, and I was told that there were bears in the woods.

It was wonderful to be out in the country for a change!

I came across a cultural oddity while in Front Royal. At the diner in Skyland Resort we watched a spectacle I have never witnessed before. It was a group of women dancing and I shot a videoclip of it. It is entitled Mark Bell enjoying the show of the Shenandoah Valley Cloggers. I think the group is also known as the Banjo Girls, at least two of them had that name printed on their shirts.

It is great to be in Montreal. The city has good vibes. Yesterday I went out with Andrea, Númi, Ragga and a friend of hers; we ate tapas at a Spanish restaurant and then went to a Beastie Boy concert. It was interesting to be “on the other side of the fence” for a change, I sure had a good time.

I was going to include a video in this entry, but it is taking ages to upload to YouTube. Is that normal? The video is only about 30MB…

Hrmph…

At the moment (2.30ish AM) five of us are sitting in the front lounge of the bus.

Here are Damian and Chris:

And here are Ragga and Mark:

Sorry, no photo of Björk. She is already asleep!

I’m sitting in the bus right now; we have just left Jackson, Mississippi.

Some of the group went bowling today, but I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t sleep too well tonight, so I more or less stayed in bed. At one point I was thinking about taking a walk, the view from my hotel window was quite inviting. But then I began to get the feeling that something was wrong with what I was seeing. At first I didn’t get what it was. And then it dawned on me: There was no one on the streets. I did see a couple of cars, that was all.

Jackson on a Saturday is a ghostly place.

I did see someone in the hotel swimming pool though. But that wasn’t enough to drag me out.

Unfortunately I missed the major event of the day: Some of the Wonderbrass, as well as a couple of other women associated with the tour, caused a sensation by getting topless into the pool.

I’m told there were complaints from the more prudish of the hotel clientele.

I wish I had been there!

Damian just told me it is illegal to be topless in the state of Mississippi.

Criminals!

When we were exiting the stage after performing Pluto, on the City Limits Festival in Austin last night, two security guards came running towards us, yelling: “Get away, get away!”

It turned out that we had set one of the speakers on fire!

This didn’t deter us from playing the two encores, Oceania and Declare Your Independence. Björk announced to the audience what had happened, and then added: “But we don’t care, do we?!”

The audience screamed.

Maybe this means we are getting better and better. First the harpsichord went up in smokes, and now one of the speakers.

I think it was a great concert.

Here is a pretty nice review:

“BJöRK (Virgin Mobile Stage): That leaves us with Björk, whose set was so different in spirit and execution from the rest of the day that she might as well have touched down in a flying saucer. Neon flags that looked almost medieval hung above the stage divided almost entirely by gender, with the boys and their electronic toys — along with drummer Chris Corsano, who was sometimes barely audible amid the electronic barks — on one side and all-female brass band Wonderbrass in robes that matched the flags on the other. (Keyboardist Jónas Sen was marooned to the right of both.) The women danced and swayed, and the men stayed put (save for electronics whiz Damian Taylor, who jumped and raved like a madman), not that we needed more stimuli. From the flashpots, exploding confetti and lasers to the screens displaying the touch-activated samplers and the outrageously strange synthesizer the Reactable, whose block interface resembled a game of Magic: the Gathering, you certainly never ran out of things to look at.

“Of course, most of us spent the set transfixed by Björk herself, who really does have the stage presence (and the poofy dress) of a demented pixie reincarnated as an opera singer. On everything from a faithful version of “Army of Me” (augmented with stabs from the horns) to a reimagined “Hyperballad,” complete with full-on acid-house coda, the Icelandic diva gave as passionate a performance as a fan could hope. Compared to the live show, her titanic voice sounds impossibly small on record; you had to wonder sometimes whether she could have done it without a microphone. At one point in “Declare Independence,” as she shouted over the messy synths, the lasers drew designs on the trees and the crowd worked themselves into a frenzy, I honestly thought we were at an intergalactic pagan ritual and might be taken up at any moment. Then she cried “Thank you for tonight” in a theatrically clipped tone of voice, and was gone. Even an hour-long wait for overcrowded ferries back to the city couldn’t diminish the impact of the event, and no disrespect to the Day 2 lineup, but I suspect her set will be the only thing those of us who caught it will remember… unless she uses her alien technology to wipe our brains. Don’t laugh. After seeing this show, I’m firmly convinced anything could happen.”

Read the entire article here.