M o n t r e a l - This visit to Montreal was a beautiful spring day. The last time I played there it was so cold, that it hurt in my hands when I went outside for a cigarette. We played in a place called "Sala Rossa" that reminded me in a curious way of the place we played in Berlin which was called "Roter Salon" - also meaning "The Red Salon". Its overseas twin venue in Montreal is, naturally, also dominated by the colour red and has a theatre-like stage with drapes on the side - perfect for "The Singer" material. However "Sala Rossa" didn't have a picture of Lenin in the merch booth! They serve wonderful Spanish tapas downstairs! We played a lot of Faroese songs which was fun. My friend Tina Dico has also joined us for these three shows in Canada. She did a solo set after Helgi. The audience were wonderful. They stood up from their chairs and danced when we played "Catherine the Waitress."


Q u e b e c C i t y - Crazy story: Once upon a time, not long ago, a girl from Quebec City named Marie travelled to Iceland. There she met a Faroese skipper, who hired her to work on his boat - He took her to the Faroe Islands and payed her to sing in the caves for his scooner tourists. The country and her new life on the sea made a strong impression on her and she felt forever grateful. She took lots of pictures on the Faroes. Yesterday she showed me all those pictures in her home. I saw a young Mikael Blak (now a Teitur band-member) playing stand-up bass together with father Kristian and a 17 year old singer named Eivør - who is since then became Faroe Islands queen of song. It's funny how it all comes back. Marie returned the favour in Quebec City. She brewed us a strong tea and lent us her house to shower in. She had Faroese music in her home. She also had a recording studio in her basement. Her partner David was the sound engineer at the venue where we played and so we all exchanged music. The venue was packed and very sweaty!


T o r o n t o - What a venue! What a crowd! ("The Courthouse" is an old courthouse like the name suggests). The ceiling was very high and the sound was perfect! I love it when someone has the vision to turn a place like that into a music venue. I was told that KD Lang had just done a show there with a pianist - I would have loved to have heard her voice in such a place. Thank you to everyone who was there - it was a night to remember. My friend Alex moved back to Toronto two years ago. He is the guy who wrote the letter from New York that I turned into a song on "The Singer" - the song is called "Letter From Alex" written four years after his father died. I had been looking forward so much to playing it for him, but at the show Alex asked me not to play it - It's too depressing, he said. (I think he likes it much better in Toronto). Instead, I ended up playing this silly song that I wrote just before soundcheck. It's more of a lyric rant than a song. More like "Alice's Restaurant" (One of the funniest songs ever - by Arlo Guthrie - check it out). The song was about a cab-driver of Armenian decent who drives around Toronto and it goes into how his family got a Martin guitar in a Batman soft-case, a canon-camera, an iPod with hi-fi headphones, credit-cards and how his buddies in the cab-community now have four international cell phones with John Mayer's old telephone number. It's a true story. That's what happened last time I was in Toronto in November! I left all my things in a cab outside of the Drake Hotel while talking to a journalist about Christopher Walken and the "More Cowbell" sketch. I went into the Danish consulate the next morning without nothing but my smily face and my name. Strangely, I got back to Copenhagen two days later.