Back to Stockholm

Well, we have four shows under our belt and have just arrived back in Stockholm for a couple of days rest. The shows have been to very interesting crowds due mainly to, in my opinion, inappropriate venues but we've gotten fairly good responses. In the past week since I've been here I've made many observations about Sweden and Swedes in general:

-95% of Swedish hotel rooms have only a single bed-no double, no queen, and certainly not a king.
-95% of Swedes wear jeans. All the time. So, I, of course, fit right in.
-Sweden is the one place I don't look ridiculous carrying around my sunglasses at midnight. People that know me well know that I usually find myself stuck with my sunglasses late at night for one reason or another but in Sweden, I actually need them until usually around 10:30pm due to the extremely late sunsets.
-Swedes don't understand the whole Hurricane Katrina disaster. They understand that we could have done nothing to stop the storm, but what is puzzling is the loss of life. It seems that in Europe's eyes, America really has it together and to lapse in a time of need is unbelievable. When I asked the entertainment producer of Scandinavia's largest theme park what he meant by this, he replied "Well, hell, America sent a man to the moon! Anything is possible!"
-Swedes say "thank you" all the time. Constantly. I hear "tack tack" 1,000 times a day.
-The Swedish countryside looks very much like Mississippi: rolling pastoral lands full of very down to earth people.
-Swedes (and Europeans in general) have an extreme affinity for small cars. It's easy to see why with the high gas prices here. Something I've found interesting is the appealing American brand European-only available vehicles. I imagine that as gas prices continue to rise in the US, some of these tiny Fords, Hondas, Hyundais, etc. will make their way into the American market. It would be absurd for US automakers not to bring them stateside.
-Finally, Europe loves large, counterproductive digital FOH boards. The Digidesign Show is the worst live board I've ever seen unless it is a touring board. The time it takes to set up a new artist is extremely prohibitive and the fact that I have to select each channel to set EQ and pan (controlled a full 2 feet away) is alienating. Great recording board, great board for a touring band, but horrible in a venue.

We've played two festivals so far and it's been awesome to be able to run such large systems (albeit on terribly expensive, terribly limiting digital boards) though the set-up, sound check, and load out times are getting smaller and smaller it seems for festivals. This is certainly a drawback when you have a set-up that has to be disconnected completely and moved in sections because Theresa prefers not to be on a riser. Oh well.

On a lighter note, here is the van we're traveling in:



And here's a view of Goteburg (which really looks like Munich, where Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was filmed):