Back from where it all started in Europe for us!

Hey,

I hope you’re doing well. I’m currently on the plane heading back to Montreal from Frankfurt. Alex and I are on our way back after spending a whole week in Hamburg, Germany, attending the Reeperbahn Music Festival! It’s been such an incredible week mixed with music industry meetings, incredible concerts, and of course some memorable moments we’re both so blessed to live, share, and now build upon! 

Our flight was at 6am this morning, after what has been a succession of coming home at 4am, so needless to say, I’m a little tired! I just woke up and decided I would share with you parts of my last few days in one of the best cities in the world, where it all started for so many bands, for our own selves, and of course, The Beatles! 

Here’s what came to my mind in the last few days!!!

🎧 What I’m listening to

I had the very huge privilege to see countless new bands performing at the Reeperbahn Festival. Having the opportunity to see artists at a very early stage of their career truly is something I enjoy, as I know what’s going on in their hearts and minds, having been there myself so many times in the early days of Your Favorite Enemies as we performed at the Canadian Music Week in Toronto a few times, at the SXSW in Austin, Texas & the CMJ in New York, at The Great Escape in Brighton, England, at the Big Sound Festival in Brisbane, Australia, and at the MIDEM in Cannes, France,  without forgetting the Reeperbahn Festival, where I am right now in Hamburg, Germany, under Alex Henry Foster & The Long Shadows back in 2019. 

Here’s a list of bands I really liked: 
• Just Mustard 
• Dry Cleaning 
• Freak Slug 
• Delivery 
• Natalie Bergman

📖 Reading highlight I’m pondering

Every Saturday at Reeperbahn for the past few years, I have a little tradition where I’m meeting with a few music industry friends and we share lunch at a Chinese restaurant where we all share about life, music, the festival and artists we truly enjoyed watching. 

This year was quite incredible since one of my friends hosted an event in a venue called The Betty, which was previously called Headcrash, and following an amazing conversation about all of the incredible bands who played that night, this friend shared about why they changed the name of the venue, and that truly and quickly became such a rich conversation about courage and world changers in an era where this is more than needed. 

Significance / Why She Matters

Betty Heine is remembered not only as the mother of Heinrich Heine but also as a cultural figure in her own right:

Her life illustrates the role of Jewish women in the early 19th century who, while often working behind the scenes, shaped intellectual, philosophical, and social developments through education, family, and philanthropy.

The hospital founded in her name was groundbreaking in its era for providing medical care regardless of religion, an important symbol of interfaith compassion and social welfare in 19th-century Germany. 

Streets and halls bearing her name help keep alive aspects of Hamburg’s Jewish heritage, particularly at a time when so many of those physical and social markers were destroyed or severely disrupted in the 20th century.

🎬 Film I Watched on the Plane

When we left Montreal last Monday on our way to Hamburg, I wasn’t able to sleep on the plane for some reason...! Maybe the 90 minutes spent at the Air Canada lounge were too intensive for me since Alex truly was on fire, as he always normally is in those circumstances, but this time was a little more than usual, which was so cool! We talked with a big family who all came from the city I was born in, and they were all leaving for a cruise celebrating the 80th anniversary of their father. Everyone in the lounge was severely throwing really mad looks at us as we were laughing so hard and toasting to life all together! Simply incredible…!

So, on my seat a few minutes later, still digesting those wonderful poutines I had the chance to enjoy between laughter and conversations with strangers who quickly became friends, I decided to check out which movies were on, as I was a little too full to read or to listen to a podcast…! Sometimes the easy way is the highway!

The movie Maria got my attention. Was it because of Angelina Jolie? Maybe. Probably! Ha! 

I honestly didn’t know anything about that American Greek soprano and I really was stoked between the sadness of her last days while she was in Paris and the beauty of her desire and incredible will to simply sing again even if her health couldn’t allow her to perform as she used to in her early days. I’m not into opera singing at all, but I really enjoyed the movie. 

A true mix of tragedy, fame, insane talent, beauty, love, myth, and this deep quest toward personal freedom regardless of the environment we grew up in, our family, the historical context, and how those elements follow us every day of our existence. This movie kept me awake and thinking a lot. Truly recommend it. 

📸 My Picture Of The Week 

Every time Alex and I are stepping foot in any cities around the world, we’re always trying to find what would become our place for future endeavors! This is something we both really like to do, as sometimes it happens quite quickly, while some other times it can take a few times before hitting the mark! 

It was back in 2018 when, I think, it was the first time for Alex to come to the Reeperbahn festival with me, and we rented this amazing Airbnb in the St. Pauli area for the week. The owner of the flat was asking us if we had favorite places around the city, and she strongly suggested we stop at the Strand Pauli Beach Club, since the vibe on a sunny day was an absolute wonder. And she was right! This place became Alex's and my spot every time we visited Hamburg afterwards. This is also where we did our meet & greet a few years ago and where we brought the Long Shadows as we had a day off following two concerts back in 2019! We played at 11am that morning and at 12am later that same night! Epic!!! 

Last Saturday afternoon, after what has been a succession of 4am nights, Alex and I decided to take a quick pause from the festival, trying to stop the time under what was almost a perfect day. During the YFE days, we’ve been traveling the world, but we never stopped anywhere, as we always were working and running around every city for meetings of all kinds. It’s only been a few years since we decided to enjoy for at least a few hours all the hard work we put in every aspect of what we do, that it was all right to stop, breathe, enjoy the view, and simply let our minds slip into the uniqueness some cities have to offer, such as Hamburg! 

To me, stopping into those places of ours always brings some kind of a checkpoint on where we’re at in our lives and in our projects, and that moment gave birth to such a great conversation regarding how amazing our lives are at this precise point in time, which is something we truly have been struggling and working so hard to see happening...! Life is so rich! 

💬 Shared in the Long Shadows Chat this week 

I had the chance to meet some of you all week long in different concerts I was attending, and this is always such a wonderful surprise to me. I really like the fact that people are traveling around music! To me, this is what gives me faith in humanity every time I encounter some of you in those events, since usually, people will mainly travel or attend concerts around artists they already know. But for me, up-and-coming bands are something so precious and necessary, especially as our world is heading in a direction where it definitely needs more artists and more music, where more will express and expose a different view of it all. 

There’s always a sense of community in those festivals where we all together decide to celebrate what music can mean to us all and what its potential can be or become. I’ve encountered unforgettable moments in a room with a few people where the artist performing brought us to travel and share emotions in a way where you leave the room differently than how you came in. 

Music elevates, music heals, music gathers, music is community, music is the people in the room, music is about who we are, what we believe, what we want to see, who we want to be, and so on. So for me, to see and meet some of you traveling alone or with friends, this is always something I like to share with everyone in the Long Shadows, as this truly inspires me, this moves me, and this gives me the necessary courage and will to keep going, working, hoping and believing how together we can make something great of this world. 

This brought an incredible conversation about how living life online, alone, is a plague and live music is the cure to it all. By supporting our local scenes and young artists, we’re supporting the community, and through community we’re injecting life all around, starting within our own selves! We’re so blessed to be surrounded by such an incredible community and group of people such as this one! Thank you so much! 

We’re now back at the Drummondville HQ for a 5-week stretch of studio work as we’re about to finalize a new album or project… Alex will obviously share more about it in the upcoming days! So excited and thrilled to bring all of my last week’s experiences into new music!

Let’s be great to one another! 

Your chief operator and friend, 
Jeff 

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