Hello friends,

Well, I'm in the hotel lobby at the Malmaison (my favourite hotel chain, by the way)... with my kid, which is nice, and on my final trip of the year, hurrah!

Sorry this blog is late... we've been very busy! But more are coming from all the summer gigs and this one from Norway is ripe for reading :)

Yes, we did fly Ryan Air and it's amazing how much you can miss EasyJet, but since I don't relish a cease and desist order, I'll stop there :)

Be well,
Tre


Oh, and here's Mark Prentice, captain of the bass with his Norway report:

Day 1: Wednesday

After a very early start (1.30 am) we (Mary, Steve, Jonny, Tim and Emily [Tim's fiancee] and I) made it to the airport for our 4am check in time, managed to check in all of our (heavy) equipment and boarded the 6am flight to Norway!

Once safely in Norway, we had a 3 hour drive to a small island off the south coast where Seaside Festival takes place. This beautiful island is about half a mile across and is only connected to the mainland by a bridge.
The weather was wonderful - about 30 degrees with clear blue skies. Perfect conditions for swimming and sunbathing! But there was no time for any of that yet. Our first gig was due to start at 9pm, sound check at 4pm and no sleep since 1.30am! So I decided to make the most of the spare time we had to take a quick nap.

During our 5 days at the festival we had 2 gigs. The first was in the big top and the second was on the main stage 2 days later. Onehundredhours is only just starting to make a name for itself in Norway so it was important for us to give this first gig in the big top everything we could. We met up with Tre & Tori in the big top for sound check - they'd also had a very early start having to fly from Belfast via London to Norway! Sound check went well but we were going to have to rock pretty hard to get people to come into the tent for the gig.

9pm came around pretty quickly. I was feeling a bit jet lagged but the adrenaline started to kick in right on cue - the Gig begins with I can't see myself - A big start to any concert that blows away the cobwebs. From this point on the crowd (which had started quite small) grew and grew until the tent was full well back beyond the sound desk. The Norwegian crowd seemed to be loving the music but also loving the message that onehundredhours preaches wherever we go - it's all about God!

By the time we finished the final song 'Safe in Your hands' the audience just wanted more and more. What a great response! We'd been told that the Norwegians knew how to rock but thanks to such a great response we too were all able to enjoy every moment of the gig. We decided to hold off on the encore and encouraged everyone to support us During our main stage slot 2 days later. Post gig, I found out that once again Steve had managed to slice open his hand in the first song covering his guitar in blood! Very Rock 'n' Roll although Steve said seeing the blood made him feel very light headed for most of the gig.

Finally we were able to go to bed - it had been a very long but very worthwhile first day.

Day 2: Thursday

Thursday was a day off. A chance to explore the island a bit more - do some swimming and sun bathing. Before we had a chance to do any of that Philip (our manager) had arranged for us all to be taken out on a boat trip. 'Boat Trip' can mean many things. Fortunately for us Boat Trip meant a trip around the local coastline in a speed boat. I've not been in many speed boats before but this boat seemed to be pretty fast. This was great in the calm waters around the Island but it wasn't long before we hit the slight choppier waters of the Norwegian seas. This boat started getting air - at least thats what it felt like. I was one of the luckier people that got to sit towards the front of the boat. This basically meant that we got more air and much wetter. Many thanks to Leif for taking us out in his awesome boat!

The rest of the day was spent sun bathing and swimming. Oh, and an impromptu 2-song set at Soldier Camp - a makeshift stage, built by some forward thinking campers, in the middle of the campsite! Genius!


Day 3: Friday

We had a midday sound check for our mainstage gig slot. Mainstage gigs are a lot of fun but due to the number of bands that perform at these festivals you don't get very long to soundcheck and once your soundcheck is finished you have to clear the stage. You then have about ten minutes to set everything up again before your gig slot. These gigs can be 'flying by the seat of your pants' moments. Fortunately for us our soundcheck went very well and once everything was set up again for our slot things were surprisingly calm. We had 30 minutes to play which meant a shortened set - we hit them with all the loud songs before bringing it back down for 'Make me okay'. Once again, we finished with Safe in your hands, with another death-defying stunt from Tim... hmm. Another great set in Norway and again the audience were fantastic making us feel really welcome. A very successful gig. For the rest of the day we were able to sit back and enjoy some of the other fantastic bands on that night: Humming People, Dream Pilots and Jars of Clay.

Days 4 and 5: Saturday and Sunday

Once both of our gigs were out of the way we could relax a bit more and really take in the atmosphere of the festival. During Saturday we were able to hang out with some great People and bands. It was wonderful spending time with Sarah Kelly and her band, and hanging out with Bloodgood was a musical education.

And so for the journey home (which involved a fair deal of packing & repacking due to certain weight restrictions!).

Farewell to Norway - a truly beautiful place. Special thanks to Kjersti Olsen for such tremendous hospitality, and Philip for all that you do...