Whose is the little dog?

Our tenor Jakob is not only a good singer, he's also good with animals. He brought his own pet on the tour...or wait, is it really his?!

Late night at the hotel

Hey,
just got to our nice hotel in right outside Vellmar. Vellmar...what a nice place! Thank you so much for having us again and for making this time around just as good as the last one!

Now I look forward to some sleep. We've slept maximum 4 or 5 hours the last couple of nights due to early starts in the morning, so we're all a bit tired. I share rooms with Josefine and it's brilliant! It's so nice to have some girl talk right before you go to bed and laugh at all the funny things that has happened during the day. Cause believe me, when you're on tour with Praise Unit you're having a blast!

Sleep tight and God bless,
Felicia

Hello from a winter wonderland!

Hi!

Today it's really snowy here in Stockholm and that really gets me in the mood for Christmas! Only one month to go - crazy!

I've got no grand thought or epiphany to share with you, but I just want to say hello and let you know that I still think about the Germany tour every other day and I miss being out on the road! We've got some really exciting things coming up next year so hopefully there'll be plenty of opportunities to meet you all soon enough!

Having fun in Düsseldorf

It's such a blessing to be on tour with Praise Unit! We get to meet so many interesting people, see beautiful cities and towns, try new food, have tons of fun together and we get to introduce God to people. I am truly thankful that I get to be a part of it all! On this tour we had a short stop in Düsseldorf, during which almost all of us went into a music store. The store turned into a playground for young adults and everywhere you looked there was a PU-member singing or trying out an instrument. I can only guess what the rest of the costumers must have thought, but I think that you can tell from this little video how much we all love music. And hopefully we didn't disturb anyone...!

How we made time pass in the bus

Here's a video shot in the bus on our way to Lübeck. This little melody gives you the opportunity to sing whatever lyric you want to sing. It all started with "telefonkatalogen" ("the phone book") and ended with all kinds of tongue twisters. Or wait, it never ended; we kept on singing this melody for the rest of the tour, even in our dreams! What we're singing in the video? "Praise Unit är på turné i Tyskland!" ("Praise Unit is on tour in Germany!")

Auf wiedersehen

We're still in the tour bus driving homewards and we probably won't reach Örebro until approximately  1.30 tonight so it's gonna be a long evening... We've all got some funny photos and videos on our cameras and iphones and we'll try to post some of that material on the blog as soon as we've had a few hours sleep!

Thanks to all of you who have come to our concerts, cooked food for us, organised our accommodation, etc etc!

Jesus wants everyone

As I'm writing this I'm watching the news on the television and in one of the features they report about a woman who is fighting for her right to recieve sickness benefit from the Swedish government. She used to work as an economist but after being involved in some kind of accident she's no longer able to work. However, she hopes to one day regain her ability to work but she's unsure about in what field that could possibly be. The last thing that was said in the feature was said by the woman herself and her words were, "But who would want me? Not even I want myself."

O. My heart broke, and I could help but saying the one thing on my mind out loud: Jesus!

Jesus wants her. Jesus wants me and he wants you too. It doens't matter what you look like, what you've done, what you're thinking and whether you call yourself a Christian or not. Let us remind each other, and ourselves, that Jesus wants everyone.

Our boys singing

Check out or boys singing in the concert hall in Örebro.
A pretty nice bunch of men, uh? =)

Click here to see the video!

Tack Norge!

Takk Norge - thank you Norway!
We had a good trip to Oslo yesterday, though very long. For us living in Stockholm it took about 7 hours each way, for the ppl in Örebro a few hours less and for Johannes driving alone from Jönköping you have to add another hour to the 7 hours from Stockholm... But it was worth it, although we're pretty nacked today after a long night in the cars...!
It was great fun to do our thing and also see what the other choirs/artists (safari, isaac carree, oslo soul teens) did and we were really impressed by them all! We also got to sing a song together with Swedish gospel legend Per-Erik Hallin which we all really enjoyed! But most of all, it felt like a truly blessed night, which we are so happy to have been a part of.

Joakim and Ragnhild Hiis-Ånestad, leader of Oslo soul children/teens.

Some of the Praise Unit singers weren't able to come along due to other assignments, but we were fortunate to bring some other friends to join us on stage... Emma was one of them.

Magdalena was another one who we brought along!


Hanging out backstage.

Simon, yet another friend who contributed on the Oslo show (But this one behind the drums!), and Jacob in the backseat of the car.

A good review

Another good review of The Mission Field... Yey!
For those of you who read Swedish: http://www.crossnet.se/portal/article.do?oid=275188

Please continue to keep us in your prayers!

Missing out on the gig

Tonight's gig night! I'm in London though so I'm missing out! This is the first show I miss since my Praise Unit debut in the spring of 2007 and it feels a bit sad. But I know the guys are gonna do an amazing job spreading the gospel tonight!

I hope you're enojying the new album and for those of you who still haven't got it - go to www.joakimarenius.com and get your copy!

Setlist talk

Here's a video shot just a few minutes before we got on stage at the relaeaseconcert.
Joakim is going through the setlist but everyone seems to be a bit in their own world (including me shooting the vid...?)

Thanks...

To all of you who came to the releaseconcert last week:
THANK YOU!
We had a great time and we hope you all enjoyed the new songs and the show! And thanks to all of you who couldn't make it to Stockholm, but whom we know supported us through your prayers and thoughts!

Make sure you get your own copy of the album at http://www.joakimarenius.com/

Preparations

Lately we've been working hard; to promote the releaseconcert, put a lot of energy into the coreographies, rehearsing the music, looking for clothes, shoes and accessories to wear, and it does feel important that we nail everything on Thursday. But it's so easy to lose yourself in all these preparations, and right now I think it's important for all of us to just remember the main cause for why we're doing it this in the first place. We'll be singing and playing our hearts out to proclaim the glory of God, and in the midst of all things one can worry about going wrong during a concert, we just have to rely on that God can work through anything. Even disasters. At least to me that is a big comfort. It won't make me try or work less hard to reach perfection, but it helps me realize that after all it's not all up to me if people will meet Jesus or not. It's up to God and he can even use my mistakes and turn them into something beautiful. Maybe my flaws will show somebody else, who feels unworthy of God's forgivness and grace, that it's not about being a christian and being perfect. It's about being human and loving God in all your imperfection.

To all of our friends, please pray for the release of the album and the concert. Pray that message will reach people's hears and God's will be done.

ps. Just to make things clear, I don't think it's gonna be a disaster... I think we're gonna rock Stockholm!

Singing in New York City

I was looking through my computer the other day, searching for something I have now forgotten, and came across this video. It's shot last summer in New York City after we we'd had a great dinner at "The View Lounge". Right outside the building of the resuaturant we found this place with a great acoustic so we started singing, everything from Swedish christmas charols to ABBA and our own song "Thy will be done". We even got ourselves a little audience!


/Felicia

Ps. For those of you who have missed that we're doing a couple of concerts together with the Swedish chamber orchestra in December, go to http://www.ticnet.se/, search for "Classical Gospel" and purchase your tickets there! Maybe this video gives a hint of what it will sound like...?

Our Top 3's

hello, hello, hello.
The realease is drawing nearer, and it's sooo exciting! The tracks are pretty much finished and to hear the result of all of our work is awesome! Everything turned out so much better than I ever hoped it could. God is great! Maybe I'm making your expectiations hit the roof with all this talking, but I'm just so greatful that we're able to release this CD!

Sometime around new years (this past new years) all of us in Praise Unit decided to put together some sort of presentation of all of us who are in the group. We all got the assignment to write three Top3's each. Now, almost 9 months later, they are ready to be published! (there have been alot of other things going on you know...)

Click here to get to the lists!

Have a blessed Wednesday!

Myspace

Friends,
make sure to visit our myspace and listen to our new song

"No better than you".

And leave us a comment letting us know what you think about it!

Photos

Check out some photos from the Frizon show here

A good Praise Unit week

Hi!

This week has been a great Praise Unit week! The choir, and some of the musicians, have gotten together three times and rehearsed, set some dancemoves, and many of the solos have been recorded in Tobias studio.

Here are a couple of photos from one of the rehearsals in Stockholm.

Jacob and Johannes chillin' before we get started

Lina and Julia

Rehearsals

Tonight we have the first of three rehearsals with the choir this week.
It'll be fun to meet each other again after people being scattered over the country and the world during some summer weeks! Our main focus will now be on our gig at Frizon the night between the 5th and 6th of August. We have a whole new show to put together!
Hopefully we'll be able to post some pics from tonight's session!
Hope you're all good!