Korsoer Open Air, Korsoer, Denmark Saturday the 25th of May 2013

……….Know what I mean?........

How excited were we, when Safri Duo finally kicked off their 2013 25th Anniversary Summer Tour, not having been at a “real” Safri show since 2009 (not counting the Aqua dance Project , Morten´s club gig with Parsberg and a classical rendezvous in Tivoli).
So we were psyched and ready to go!!!
The Garmin is one of our best investments so no more detours and wrong turns for us! Well at least not on this trip…!
We arrived in Korsoer just in time to see Danish rock legends Pretty Maids, who gave us a rockin´, headbangin´, eyelinin´ show! Kick-ass!!!

Safri fans Winnie and Sonja had arrived at the festival at 3pm, but they had set up camp waaaay in the back, because they were not about to rock. To which we did not salute them. (Got the reference? Man, we are all about the rock ´n´roll..  )
We had a talk before we went on to our appointment with Safri Duo at 8 pm. We were escorted backstage by Safri Duo´s new, extremely pleasant, and kind tour manager Camilla. We had brought a collection of fan questions and also some pictures and posters for Uffe and Morten to sign. It was great seeing the guys again, and also saying a short hello to DJ Andreas Kongsted and singer Andy Roda. -Both joining Safri Duo on tour. It´s fun and a bit odd, that when we heard Clark´s voice on the radio for the very first time, we actually thought it was Andy Roda singing, and now, eventually he DID end up singing with Safri Duo.

After the meeting we got settled in the front row and at 9.45 pm the show began.
Morten had on classic black jeans and a black shirt and Uffe had on a daring mix of a dark blue blazer and green suede shoes.

They opened with the intro on the marimba, and continued with “Samb-Adagio” and a “Fallin´ High” mix, which lead to “Mad World” with Andy on the vocal. And on crutches, poor thing. Then Uffe and Morten showed off on the drums, playing really, really fast, and continued with “Rise”, Crazy Benny”-mix and “Baya-Baya” which Morten continues to introduce as “The Beer Song. He knows his festival lingo.
After “Ritmo…” it was time for “Sweet Freedom”, and for Andy to win over The Safri Zone…….
The Safri Zone has to admit that he has proven his worth after giving us a fairly decent amount of “freeedoooms” at the end of the song. And how we love those “freeedoooms”……

Then Andreas Kongsted, who is a part of the entire show, did a solo dj-style, and got the crowd going with his enthusiasm and energy. Safri joined in at the end of his performance and then it was time for “Played a-live” which is still very popular after 13 years.

As an encore Safri played “All the People” and “Prelude”

We look very much forward to the next show on the 31st, and hope it will be just as fabulous as this had been. Well, we guess we have to…ehm…..”Knock on Wood?” ……..Nudge-nudge….;-)

Tivoli Friheden, Saturday the 31st of May, 2013
“This is not our first rodeo”

Today it was time to take it overseas, to Jutland, more specific Aarhus. Safri were to go on stage at 8 pm and since we had plans for the next day in Copenhagen, we had to drive home from Jutland after the show. Which did not please our parents because….and we quote: “Are you sure that´s a good idea?...driving all night?....what if you fall asleep…you are both a lot older than on the last tour, you know!.”
What are we? Eighty?
We did prepare, thought….travelling some of the way by ferry, and getting a good night’s sleep two days in advance…😉

And then we arrived in Aarhus. Like the story of Abraham in Genesis 22:2, we are sure Aarhus is Safri Duo´s  way of testing our devotion, because that city is trying to kill us! Even with a GPS the city won´t let us in, and it won´t let us out!!! It almost took us longer to find Tivoli Friheden, than it took us to get from our hometown to Aarhus!
Finally we found Friheden, and then it did not open for the next 2 hours (we had actually wondered why the entire parking lot was empty)…..so we drove back to the centre of Aarhus and had some late lunch at Salling.
When we returned to Tivoli Friheden the rest of Aarhus had taken up the parking lot. Or so it seemed 🙂, so we got in line, sweaty a bit tired, but still pretty 😙
In our book it was still a bit too early to take up positions in the front row, so we went for a walk in the amusement park and Bente tried “The Cobra”, which proved to be 20 minutes in a queue, 25 seconds of fun and 60 kr out of the pocket. The normal price is 50kr but the ticket machine apparently took tips without asking!!!!
At 6.30 pm we met up with Winnie and Sonja and our friend Lars, who wanted to witness a Safri show.

Half an hour before Safri were to go on stage the trio Camilo Grande was the opening act. Which was….well…they were happy to be up there, and Sonja got more than she had paid for…😀! That show also called for the First Beer in Safri Zone History. (Well, there was that time in Gram….but that wasn´t beer! And Nickie´s cousin was buying, so that doesn´t count!)

At 8.15 the main attraction arrived, and kicked off their show. Morten was wearing black pants and a black shirt and Uffe had on black pants and a white shirt.

There was a really great wipe in the audience, which Uffe, Morten and Andy also commented on after the show. It was a wonderful evening, the weather was amazing, the audience was energetic and Safri Duo, Andreas and Andy were in a fantastic spirit……they were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. (God, we love our Thesaurus!)

We had a short talk with Safri and after saying goodbye to our companions we headed home and reached Stege at about 3.30am.
And why did it take over 4 and a half hours to get home you might ask? Well, because Aarhus had decided to close all the entry roads to the freeway! And instead of finding a new route for us, the GPS got all snappy and insisted that we went through the barrier! So we had to find a way out ourselves, which….let´s be honest…isn´t what we do best.
Therefore….4 and a half hours.

After 4 and a half hours of sleep, not so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we were ready to  attend another, but different kind of drum show at the 23rd, and our 13th, annual Powwow in Copenhagen.

Kloeften Festival, Haderslev, Saturday the 29th of June, 2013
“You can do anything, but……..”

For the first time in Safri tour history it was a walk in the park to be on the guest list. Don´t get us wrong, it is always an honour being on the guest list, but it´s often difficult to make it through the entrance! Normally no one believes us when we say we are guests, we get the wrong passes and once our names were registered under the name “Martin Andersen”, who we, to this date, still don´t know! (But thanks for the invite!😉)
But in Kloeften: Not a problem, probably also due to Safri´s new tour manager, who is very effective and sweet.

We were a bit sad to discover that, apparently, Haderslev had suffered heavy, heavy rain up to this event, and because we had sun on Sealand, we came wearing white sneakers…..so much for being prepared….

Only focused on staying on our feet we quickly walked to the outdoor stage suddenly realizing, that we were in the wrong place, because Winnie and Sonja were nowhere to be found (maybe the fact that Safri were to play on the “tent-stage” should have given it away, but let´s not quibble!!😋)

Dreaming about dry, green pastures, we once again marched through the mud and found the right location right next to the main entrance🤨.
About half an hour was left ´till the show began and Uffe and Morten were on stage checking their drums, which is always nostalgic. 

At this show Morten was wearing black pants and a black shirt and Uffe had on a white shirt, black jeans and his current favourite footwear: The green suede shoes.
Luckily Andy had recovered and was mobile, so he took the center stage. Nice to see him up and around!

There was a really nice vibe in the tent and everyone was very positive and anxious to see Safri. Of course the Bongo Song is still the big hit everyone wants to hear, but basically all the songs were well-received by the audience. Kongsted was very popular and had fans in the crowd. Especially “Chuck Norris” and his new mix of “Only Teardrops” got the crowd cooking. (And Morten, who apparently had on his dancing shoes this afternoon.
We like 🙂)

Safri joined Kongsted on stage and they made a great intro to “Sweet Freedom”!

After a wonderful concert, we said “see ya soon” to Winnie and Sonja and took on the mud once more towards the exit.
Half an hour later we were overtaken by Sonja (and Winnie, hanging on to dear life) apparently trying to break the sound barrier home to Bogense. She´s a speed devil, that one😲!

We were home quite early, since Safri had played at 4.30pm, so there was plenty of time to fall asleep on the couch before bed-time.

Vordingborg Festuge, Vordingborg, 11th of July, 2013
”A bad tiramisu makes an absent Chuck Norris”

Safri Duo was playing in our back yard! Well, not quite, but 30 km away IS quite close! About a week prior to the show one of Bente´s colleagues had sent her a text saying “Do you wanna go check out those Safri-boys, don´t you like them?” Being the understatement of the year, we simply had to bring Heidi with us to Vordingborg for her first Safri show.
After some dinner in a local café we went to the area of the concert taking up positions in the 2nd row on the right. Due to a bad tiramisu, we apparently couldn´t live without, we arrived a bit late. Also we were not in the company of Winnie and Sonja who had positioned themselves to the left of the stage.
This night Morten had on black jeans and a black shirt, and Uffe was wearing a white shirt and black jeans.
Andreas Kongsted was out of the country so a substitute DJ had been hired for this concert.

Then someone decided to knock over some sound equipment, and the concert was interrupted by, what someone was rash enough to call “a 3 minute break”. After 15 minutes the people right in front of us went for the beer tent, so we took over their spot in the front row. Another 15 minutes went by before Safri could continue their show. Lucky for us it was a calm Vordingborg this evening, because Vordingborg Festuge is well-known for intoxicated people with short fuses. Staying true to tradition we, of course, always situate ourselves in the neighborhood of the most drunk people of the concert crowd, but we have experienced worse.

Oh happy days, someone had cranked up the volume on Andy´s microphone, which was really neat, because sometimes we have a bit of trouble hearing him speak and sing, which is a shame, because he has a really great voice.
After this involuntary break, Safri and the boys really gave it all they had. We never get tired of watching Uffe and Morten, when they lose themselves in their music and become one with the drum.

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