So  The AGENTS OF MERCY  played their first gig ever _ at the Night Of The Prog LORELY festival in Germany ( a beautiful festival setting by the mighty Rhein river )
For those of you who were not there : Here are my impressions -
We first met up 4 days before that show and started to rehearse in a space that I can say with 100% certainty, is the smallest space I have ever rehearsed in .
It's funny cause the  volume level was quite OK and mini PA sounded  great -
the fairies of mercy must  have played a trick on us cause even the music didn't sound that bad  - not for a band that  never played a single note together in a room before .
The spirit was very  kind and we got along  very, very well - lot's of smiles and everybody was very helpful - nice long dinners and talks ( about music -what else) .
I'd imagine that 4 days wasn't enough to really get into the musical arrangements and find out all the right sounds,vocal harmonies  etc .  but we manage to make it sound pretty decent  with a very small  set of instrumentation.
Mainly drums,bass,guitar and piano ,with occasional synth  now and then - 4 days went  rapidly but we all enjoyed the ride - what else can you do in a lovely place like Lund .
(I'm in love with Lund - think I wanna move there ...)
So off to the Copenhagen airport on the morning of July 10th  - everything went very smooth and we got picked up in Frankfurt an hour or two later .
Off to the festival site - everything still very smooth - met up with a happy Winfried (promotor) and the gang at festival, everyone was really nice -
the food was great- we met some nice new people.

The tech staff were really helpful and everyone  still very good mood -
think we even managed to do a quick soundcheck .
  7 o'clock in the evening we were supposed to start -
guess what - we were all on time - still in good mood,
even when Nad's laptop with all mellotrons broke down
we all seemed fine and thought "let's play and forget about
technical issues" so we did .
Like soldiers ( or agents ?) we were on time - starting our set with the title track from our album -
not too much of nervous breakdowns yet - God smiles upon us .

The set we played had of course it's flaws and a few bum notes (from me  LOL )
but I'm impressed by how Nad, Lalle, Zoltan,Inger and Jonas  just
nailed pretty much everything and despite the substantial "holes" that the
 dying mellotron left in our sound we  were just Soldiers  - doing the set the best
 we could .

Audience first seemed a bit hesitant but after a few songs we had them
in our hand - played Walrus and Afterglow (without organ and tronchoir ....yes it's true).
I guess the somewhat sombre or soft vibe of many tunes was a bit too
delicate  after 1,5 hours of the UK bombast neorockers Arena.
I felt like we were a jazzgroup -  LOL -
or the bastard son's of Simon & Garfunkle but with a few breathtaking solos from Lalle and fluid playing from Zoltan and Jonas and a bit of  bluesy loud guitarsoloing I think we won them over.

All went just fine for a first gig and we even finished 10 minutes before our dealline.
Rest of evening was nice too - we meet our friends and fans from Europe,Japan and Sounth America - got wine and chocolate -  TFK fans are the best !!!
Thanks to everyone of you for coming,staying and supporting
our 1st gig .

After a good nights sleep - we got a chance to see some of the surroundings the following day - including the impressive castle of Prins Willhelm.

My hotelroom was at 11th floor up on the hill overlooking the Rhein river - a most spectacular
view.

Sunday morning and we were  about to get to the airport - had a nice breakfast and nice conversation with Lalle about music (what else ?)
and suddenly I hear a voice - " Roine ? "
looking up and Mr Steve Hackett present himself .
Hmmf -  can you imagine - here's a guy who have been a HUGE influence on me
for decades (not only as a guitarist but as a composer too) and  he comes up, recognizes ME and start talking to me !!!
Steve Hackett from GENESIS .....
What are the odds for that in a lifetime ???!!!

Anyway very,very  nice guy  -  I'm not surprised - I can hear it in his music too -
Then comes the driver and we all had to go to the airport -
as you can imagine I had rather stayed and talked with Steve over a cup of tea.
Another time  maybe - so a quick good bye to Nad who continued to explore German rivers and Bierhouses with his friend Anders by car  - bye - off to airport  and STILL everything  goes  extremely well -
except that Jonas can't bring his bass in the cabin - but no overweight -
what a relief !!
Short flight to Copenhagen and  after big hug to all the band   - I take my connecting flight to Stockholm .
Still -  everything went very well  and  here we are a week later and
look back on  a nice weekend and the premiere  AOM gig behind us - a festival is always ........a festival.

As said before - not a perfect gig but still OK and what is to me a VERY promising prospect for the gigs later this year - by then we'll have all the  sounds and xtra keyboard things sorted out  - basspedals in and will present the FAT version with Krister Jonson and Göran Edman added too .