den 26 juni 2009

Kobetasonik festival, Bilbao

Travelday Thursday:
I took a cab from our rehearsal place, with all the guitars and stuff, and met the others at the Central Station in Stockholm at 5.30 in the morning. Everybody (not me) were more or less a mess, after staying out all night partying (and some fights as well) with Hardcore Superstar who played the night before, and had a aftershow party at Harry B James. We flew to Barcelona, where we had to wait for a couple of hours for the next flight to Bilbao. We spent the day eating extremely discusting sandwishes and salads that the airport could offer.
Don't try this at home!!! Uäääh!

My legs in the sky
Nicki is bored....
Ida's fantastic burger....

When we finally arrived in Bilbao, we were greeted by Roberto, who had the pleasant mission to look after us during this little road trip. (on the picture above! The guy below has nothing to do with Roberto!!)(as far as we know!!!)Then we went out for a drink and was entertained by a spanish accordeon player. The other girls wanted me to play as well but I wasn't drunk enough so I didn't want to. Then we spent the rest of the evening writing a nasty short story together and having some more drinks, and we went back to the hotel around 11 in the evening, pretty exhausted. Me and Nickis' room. The view sucked but the room was good!

GIG DAY FRIDAY
Next day we went for a radio interview in the morning, before going to the festival.
We arrived at the festival around 12. I just love the festivals, it reminds me of a stable when it looks like this, but instead of horses every box has a rockband in it! :-) The first thing we saw was that Hot Leg was our neighbours, and a bit to the right we had Machine Head, among others. Pretty cool!

We even got name on our wine.. a whole fridge with good stuff.. dangerous when you have a early gig.. and there was also a free bar... even more dangerous! -but we love it!!! :-)After making ourselves a home in the dressing room, it was time for a quick sound check. Unfortunately the weather wasn't that good, it even rained, but it wasn't cold at least. The sound check went pretty quick and we all had a great sound. I was really happy with my 4 (!!) monitors, just perfect!
On the way to the gig: Klara, Nicki and Champagne
Before the gig..

..the gig!
View from the festival

Hot Leg (almost) caught in action
eeeh.. Ida is trying out Justin Hawkins crutch during their gig.. don't tell anyone!

Ida and the singer of Cradle of Filth are posing backstage at the Hot Leg gig.
After the gig we had lots of interviews, here is Nicki and some journalists in the press tent.
Later in the afternoon we had a crowded signing/photo session.
A guy with good taste just bought our brand new t-shirt.

THE DISSY PART OF THE NIGHT starts here..

After all the interviews were done, the gig and the signing session was done, -what to do!? Explore the free bar, and enjoy the fine company consisting of all the bands playing at the festival! At the bar, I found the Cradle of Filth guys, and I think I convinced them that I should be their new tour manager. I really don't know exactly why we came to this bright conclusion, but it had something to do with my plan to fill up a whole container with beer and put on their tourbus as they were leaving for Hell Fest in France one hour later.


Here is a picture of the singer in Cradle of Filth, taking a picture of a mountain that looked like a pyramid in a beautiful sunset.
When I abandoned my new job and went back to the backstage area I -OH MY-found Klara in full action reading the dirty short story from the day before, for a very interested Hot Leg band and everyone interested. Then all of a sudden a crew guy passed us, probably on the way to his tour bus. I am glad I don't know which band this fitness ball belongs to. But I'm impressed of who ever they might be, serious dudes!Later in the night, Machine Head was leaving the festival, and I took the opportunity to ask Rob Flynn for a picture. God damn couldn't anyone have told me I had lipstick on my chin..!? But anyway it's good that I washed away the mustasch pretty quick, it was only on for half an hour or something (I'm not sure though)
Then we went out in the crowd to watch Marylin Manson.
Flying water bottles..
A dude I met during the MM gig....
Backline/stage boss Tomt'n and booking agent/care keeper Roberto.
As I was too drunk to get any new rockstar friends at this late hour, I was still capable of taking pictures. And of course I had to save the moment when Nicki had a talk with the drummer of Marylin Manson. Sweet!
Around 2 we drove back to the hotel, together with Hot Leg. Then of course we all went straight to bed.

There are some rumours -spread over the whole festival next day- that some of the Crucified Barbaras had been running around naked in the hotel, but of course we deny everything, it must have been some other swedish girls.


Sound engineer Mattias -always smiling. Nicki Wicked - have seen better days.
Don't bring your favourite boots to a festival... (Nickis') Then we had to spend 7 hours at one airport before we could get on the plane back home to Stockholm. We read books, slept on the hard couches and ate discusting stuff served in a shitty restaurant where I think the owner wanted to see all his customers/guests dead if it wouldn't be his way of making a living.
When we arrived to Stockholm, we were picked up by the same driver who drove us to the airport 2 days ago. He was laughing at us and said we looked tired. I could only agree...

Big thanks to Kobetasonik for making a great festival, everything run very smooth, people were very nice and we had a fantastic day. Hope to come back again soon!
Cheers'n'Beers
/ Mia & the barbs

den 8 juni 2009

Some pictures from Sweden Rock Festival and GråHalle in Denmark. The story will be added soon!
















CB is watching ZZ top..



















































































den 3 juni 2009

Sweden Rock + Motörhead!

Hello all you cool people!
In a few hours we're on the roads again, we're headin for Sweden Rock Festival where we will headline the Zeppelin Stage on Friday (20.30). It's gonna be loads of fun, we have been looking forward to this for a long time now!!! Ida and Nicki has already arrived to the festival, so tomorrow morning it's me, Klara, sound engineer Mattias, backline tech Tomt'n and our friend Laura who take all the backline in a van and drive all the way down to Sölvesborg. Since we were so few in the bus, Klara looked up some people on the net who needed a ride down to the festival from Stockholm. We added coffee and cinamon rolls to the price so it's a very good deal! :-) Now I have spent too many hours baking so I need to take a walk or something... But the result is tasting good!

On Saturday we're out again, then we drive to Denmark and open up for Motörhead in Christiania. It's gonna be a blast and we are so looking forward to see them again, and meet all the nice people that work with them as well.

So... this weekend is looking good so far. I'll be back with a report later :-)

Cheers'n'Beers
Mia and the Barbs



PS - If you've never been to Christiania in Denmark, you MUST go there when you get the chance!!! Trust me!!

den 1 juni 2009

SHOCKING NEWS!!!

Scary news that you might not did know about Crucified Barbara....

WITCHES!!! READ IT ALL HERE.....

den 12 maj 2009

Usine, Istres, 9th of May

Another trip with the train and then we got a ride by car to the venue. When we arrived for the sound check there were no double kick or pedals so they drove us back to the hotel instead while they were looking for all the stuff we needed for the stage. Got some nice rest at the hotel by the pool together with Quireboys in the sun, and one hour of sleep before we could go back to the venue. It was a great place, big and nice stage. After a fantastic dinner we got a ride back to the hotel to change and rest some more, and then back again. It’s a lot of travelling back and forward all the time! This night Koritni opened up the gig, and after Quireboys it was time for us to play. By then the stage was steaming hot and the sweat started dripping already after the first song.. and we did 16..! I have never experienced a hot gig like this, it was unbelievable. I had some moments when I almost thought I should faint or fall down, but we made it, and the audience was really supportive this night as well. Afterwards I took a shower together with my stage clothes, they were just as soaking wet as myself, and then I just sat down felt like a hurricane had blowned through my whole body, empty and exhausted. But after 30 minutes I was ok enough to go out and say hi to the nice people waiting outside.. .I’m not really looking forward to see the pictures from that night though, no make up and just a red tired face.. but I don’t really care, we had a good night and a good gig. Signing lots of cd's for a contest...
Then we got back to the hotel and had some beers together with our new friends in Quireboys, and Koritni. At 3 in the morning I started to feel sick ‘cause I was so exhausted, so I went straight to bed. 4 hours later it was time to wake up again and drive to the airport, to take us back home to Stockholm again, -if you don’t like to get up early in the mornings I don’t recommend you to become a musician!!

Monaco, Le Moods, 8th of May

We were picked up very early in the morning, 8.30 and drove to the Orly airport. Unfortunately the flight to nice were very delayed but lucky enough they had massage chairs so we could re-charge our tired bodies a bit. In Nice a bus drove us to Monaco, through a fantastic landscape. The hotel was incredible, never seen anything like it, extremely luxury. The receptionists looked at us as we were dirt under a shoe, and asked our Dominique in French what he had dragged in. He explained that we were supposed to play at the club next door .
Our booking agent and tour manager Dominique da Man!
In the hotel
Then when they spoke directly to us they were extremely friendly. –oh make suuuure you try out our new pool and relax area on top floor and ohh you have breakfast between blabla and ask us if you have questions.. Well the rooms were incredible and the beds were out of this world. Right before sound check we had to check out their new pool as well of course…
The view from my hotelroom...
Klara and Nicki on topfloorThese cool rockers showed up early in the day!StageDressing room
The gig was awesome, great sound and nice venue!! It was pretty strange to have a audience sitting down eating shrimps and drinking champagne and headbanging, but it worked out really well. And we had a lot of cool rockers there as well, 3 guys had been waiting for us for many hours. It turned out to be a really great gig and night! Pictures with the rockersOur friend Lea is taking a pictureWall artOutside the hotel later in the night....Ugly but probably very expensive dress..
Afterwards we went back to our nice hotel for some drinks at my balcony, and since Tomten, our backline tech had to stay at another not so good hotel, I offered him my room instead and I went to share bed with Nicki, just to let him enjoy the nice view as well.
Me and Tomt'n
Tired rock-mumie with clothes on
Me and Nicki in the kingsize bed
We fell asleep around 3 in the morning, and 4 hours later we had to wake up again. It was a pretty nice wake up anyway, with the sun in the face and the awesome view from the balcony.

Sunrise....

Paris, La Trabendo, 7th of May

We were lucky this morning, got to sleep until 10! Then we took the train back to Paris. We had been whining before, that it was such a pain to go by train, carrying all the stuff and the big risk to loose something with so many stops.. But even though I lost one bag and one cap it was anyway worth it, ‘cause we saved many hours compared going in a van.

We arrived to La Trabendo and got amazed by the great venue, it was just perfect! After the sound check we said hello to the Quireboys who just arrived, then we went out to take some pictures for the biker festival we will play in September. For dinner we went to a nice place outside the hotel and ate some ribs and stuff, then back again to the venue to warm up and check out Dollhouse and the Quireboys. The gig was fantastic, we all had lots of fun and I think it was one of our best gigs in a very long time. Mostly because the audience was fantastic, it made us play good and feel great! So many people singing along, cheering, headbanging and even crowd surfing… And it was pretty packed. It was a totally awesome night for us. After we hanged out backstage for a while and then all of a sudden it was time to leave and after one good night beer it was time to go to bed, after a good, long day.

Morning view from the hotel as we had breakfast. AND there was hair in the food.. didn't eat much this morning..

Cheers. Mia and the Barbs