Facts: Tour schedule
1/7 Skellefteå
2/7 Kiruna
4 / 7–5 / 7 Fårösund
7/7 Töreboda
8/7 Oskarshamn
9/7 Gothenburg
14/7 Stockholm
15/7 Linköping
16/7 Borgholm
21/7 Docksta
22/7 Rättvik
23/7 Sundsvall
27/7 Halmstad
28/7 Helsingborg
29/7 Karlskrona
30/7 Östersund
3/8 Halmstad
4/8 Hamburgsund
5/8 Arvika
6/8 Furuvik
12/8 Stenungsund
13/8 City
19/8 Umeå
20/8 Örebro
26/8 Borås
2/9 Malmö
3/9 Huskvarna
– Tearing off “Calleth you, cometh I” for a euphoric Summer Sweden tracks most things, says Ola Salo and the rest of the band agrees.
The pandemic has put sticks in the wheels for all artists in recent years, but for The Ark, the break was extra inconvenient. 2020 was 20 years since the band’s debut album “We are The Ark” was released – and the idea was then that this would be celebrated with a tour.
Went crashing
When it went awry, they instead aimed to carry out the tour in 2021, which marked the 30th anniversary of the band’s founding – but those plans also went awry.
“I had a thought that what I have dedicated my life to can be snatched away from me in a millisecond,” drummer Sylvester Schlegel said in an interview with TT.
Now The Ark has finally started the tour for real. An acclaimed performance in “Allsång på Skansen” on Monday became a kind of genre rehearsal before the real premiere in Motala on June 29, which also received good reviews.
“Deliver epic rock music”
But so far, the band members are hardly tired of touring – it’s been 13 years since they last went on a summer tour.
– It is difficult to find bad things about touring in the summer, they state.
– In addition to finally meeting the audience and delivering epic rock music, it will be fun to watch movies on the bus.
“Local delicacies” are at the top of the band’s rides – the wish list that the local organizers hopefully make a reality of before and after the concerts. But sometimes it happens that reality does not really correspond to the dream, they jokingly state.
“Sickly noisy”
– It’s sickly noisy when you think it’s a regular soda in the lodge and then there’s such a zero variant that tastes of aspartame and makes the whole palate feel rough.
TT: What is your sickest tour memory?
– It was quite sick when there was an after-party in a Finnish hairdressing salon and it started to be cut and dried, to then turn into a regular fight so that spray bottles and curlers dizzy.
TT: Which place in Sweden do you like best to play in?
– Norrland is always special, but of course it becomes extra magical when you start approaching Småland… But this year we will play on Fårö for the first time, it can be something really special.