Magical...

Hello everybody,

As I write this, I am slowly descending back to earth after a magical past week!
My washing machine is doing its little dance across the floor and I just got back from the grocery store: welcome to reality...

On Wednesday I performed at Kink FM radio. The show was called '2 meter de Lucht in' and its host Jan Douwe Kroeske is well known for his good taste in music and his acoustic live sessions. Niels Geusebroek, who also sings on Pure Air, joined me during my three-song set. It went really well. Both Jan Douwe and Niels are such positive spirits, so I felt at ease immediately. This was the first time Niels and I played together outside the studio and my goodness; he is steady! It took him about one minute to figure out an extra guitar part for 'Beautiful One'. I've added a sound clip below.

Thursday was the first night of the two special acoustic shows in celebration of the release of Pure Air. We have been preparing these gigs for weeks and it felt like a grand opening with me being nervous and very excited all at the same time.
Me and Rob drove together with our crew and met Jacques and Joris at the venue in Amsterdam. All of our guests arrived early enough to do a little sound check, so it all went 'ominously' smooth...

Everybody seemed really excited to be a part of this production, which made me feel proud already. We all had to share 1 big dressing room which was quickly filled with chatter & laughter and us girls (Marike, Sharon and me) were doing our make-up-thingie together, which always makes me a happy lady, since I am mostly surrounded by men in this business. We should form a 'girl band' for the make-up fun only! :-) I never met Colin (Kyteman) before, but he turned out to be a real sweetheart. A slim, shyish 21-year-old blessed with talent only gods bestow.

The show went really well. I was able to remain very focussed the whole time. The difficult thing about an acoustic performance is that there's no 'wall of sound' to conceal little errors, but to my relief, there were very few mishaps. Niels, Marike, Sharon and Kyteman were absolutely wonderful and well-loved by our audience.

The Groningen show, the next day, was equally good. After two days, it already kinda felt like we've been on the road for weeks together. I really enjoyed the way we all connected to one another so quickly. I can't wait to see all of them again.

That night Joris and I stayed at a hotel in Zwolle, since we had to do a radioshow the next day. When I opened my laptop in the quietness of my hotel room and saw all the comments, pictures and videos, I felt so blessed. Thank you all for making these shows so wonderful.

Next day Joris and I did the Tros Muziekcafé radioshow. In this live music show any style of music goes, so we played to a very mixed audience, consisting of both die-hard fans and show-music-loving aunties that didn't have a clue who I was, but kept smiling at me lovingly during my whole three-song set.

Sunday we rehearsed for the upcoming Greek shows. It felt surprisingly good to turn up the amps again after the acoustic shows. We all were kinda tired, but had a good rehearsal. The heating was broken down, so we all came down to earth like babies at birth.

And here I am, back to tumble-dry-duties, but not for long! This Thursday we're off to Greece. I'm a bit bumped that the weather in beautiful Hellas isn't that good. We are counting on the people attending our gigs to warm our hearts I guess!

With love,

Anneke X

ps. Pure Air kept it's #42 spot in the Dutch Top 100 album chart! How cool is that?

@ 2 Meter session

@ 'Cold as Ice'-rehearsal session

'2 meter de lucht in', Beautiful One: