News Page July 2003: News from the St. Thomas world, and updates to this page in July 2003. This page is not an official source of information, if in doubt of accuracy of info please get in touch with webmaster of this page or the info source.

July 11th 2003 - Last weekend St. Thomas played at Visefestivalen in Egersund and at the Quart Festival in Kristiansand. The first concert was performed solo in front of about one hundred people in a small pub in the basement of the Grand Hotel, while the second was performed the day after with Karim Sayed on drums in front of about two thousand people at the new stage at the Quart Festival. Both concerts were just as impressive.

To start with the first concert, it was a very special night for me as I had helped organize the concerts at the festival, since Egersund is my hometown. St. Thomas headlined the Friday evening with Ring opening for him and Cinnamoon playing afterwards, with Oddpop opening for them, at a small pub called Grand Kjelleren with a capacity of only about one hundred people. Very intimate, and luckily most people were very friendly and enthusiastic towards the artists on stage. Especially Thomas managed to create a magnificent report with the audience, bringing on Filip Ring to play drums, harmonica and sing background vocals on some songs, in addition to dancing on "Invitation."

Thomas decided to play a lot of new songs this evening, a cover of Neil Young's "Love Is A Rose" and the unreleased-yet-familiar "Sunny Day" marked the way for very impressive live debuts of "The Red Book," "Come My Way," "Let's Grow Together" and "The German Road." You have good reasons to look forward to the next St. Thomas album, which Thomas announced will be recorded as soon as August 10th.

The whole evening became even more special to me when Thomas dedicated the entire concert to me after the first song, which of course was a great honour to me. In-between the other songs he was too busy talking to the audience about my job, a newspaper article in the local paper about me that day and asking me which track number "Into The Forest" has on "I'm Coming Home" to announce that his mother and father were sitting in the back of the venue selling merchandise - obviously they did not sell a lot that night.

Former St. Thomas bassist Øyvind Thune was present in the audience at the concert. He quit the band towards the end of the last Norwegian tour, but luckily he and Thomas managed to patch things up and settle their differences and have a nice evening together.

The next day my girlfriend and I drove to Kristiansand together with Thomas and his parents. We stopped on the way to buy strawberries, and Thomas' dad drove way too fast through a police speed-check, but the police officers were having lunch at the time so he got away with it. The entire trip and our first hours in Kristiansand featured incredible weather, but it started raining in the afternoon. Things looked bleak as St. Thomas was scheduled to go on stage at half past six, but luckily the weather cleared up and showed its bright side before St. Thomas went on stage.

The backstage area at Odden, the stage where St. Thomas played, was spectacular. Everyone could relax on a boat out in the sea, and those who wanted could spend time smacking golf balls into the sea. Very rock cliché, but wasting money by smacking golf balls into the sea is fun no matter how you look at it!

The concert was magnificent, Thomas had total control of the two-thousand people who packed the area in front of the stage. Except for opening the show with "The Red Book," the rest of the set featured the oldies-but-goodies, with Filip Ring once again joining in on stage to play harmonica and various small instruments in addition to singing background vocals and dancing like a madman on "Invitation." Filip Ring was the first person to ever release a St. Thomas record, the "Songs" seven inch back in 1999, it was great to see the two dancing together on stage.

After the concert, Thomas' mom and dad were stormed at the merchandise table, selling everything they had brought along - which was not much, since they thought they would not sell very much! All the fifty copies of "Live In Europe," the ten copies of the limited edition "Hey Harmony" vinyl and thirty t-shirts shifted hands within a couple of stressful minutes. Thomas went to greet his audience, and spent a long time signing autographs and talking to anyone who was interested in a little chat.

July 2nd 2003 - I have been without proper Internet connection for the last couple of days, so when I wanted to put up a message saying I have a spare ticket for the Saturday of the Quart Festival where St. Thomas is playing for sale, I was unable to do so. Thomas himself was kind enough to help me out by posting a message in the guestbook. Including my mobile phone number. Which I appreciate a lot, of course. If my phone anxciety was not bad enough before, knowing the entire world can find my number should definitely do the trick!

But to be serious, I do have an extra ticket for the Saturday of the Quart Festival in Kristiansand, Norway for sale, and I would very much like to get rid of it. If you want to go to the festival and see St. Thomas, Daniel Johnston, Røyksopp and others, please feel very free to contact me by sending me an e-mail or, well, call me on that number listed in the guestbook if you have to. The ticket costs 415 NOK, the same as what I paid for it some weeks ago. I will give the person who buys the ticket from me a St. Thomas concert on CD-R as a bonus, because I really am desperate to get rid of the ticket.

In other news, St. Thomas is coming to my home-town Egersund to play at Egersund Visefestival on Friday night. We have a very nice Friday evening scheduled, with St. Thomas playing along with Ring, Oddpop and Cinnamoon at Grand Kjelleren. Ring is the project of Filip Ring, who was the first person to ever release a St. Thomas record, the seven inch "Songs," and it is very exciting to have them play together. Egersund is located just one hour south of Stavanger in Norway, if you are interested in visiting the festival feel free to check out their home page. By the way, Grand Kjelleren only has a capacity of around one hundred and twenty people, so this will be a very intimate festival performance! Definitely recommended.