Dearest Troublemakers,
We've just completed the final month of summer! Looking back, it was a truly great season for us. From the final weeks of our tour in the USA to a bunch of festivals and brilliant performances across Europe and the UK, 2025 will be a summer to remember. Our last message to you on Patreon was mid-August, where we had a short week long "break" (it ended up being quite a hands-on/stressful time because of some Visa issues that Bennet had in Germany). Since that time we had some of the most memorable performances of the year. Haguenau at the Fete du Houblon, was an absolute highlight in our beloved Alsace.
The Altstadtfest in Goerlitz was a pleasant surprise, with an extremely receptive audience over the two days of performances. We performed a "Silent" Concert in Berlin's Britzer Garten and then had an absolutely stompin' performance at Schotsweekend in Belgium. We then went over to the UK to perform with Just Like Clay before coming back to the Netherlands and having a highly anticipated Elfia performance.
Once again Elfia has lifted us up. It's shown us a path forward. The stage was again a big opportunity for Collaboration. We brough Merulsa on stage to sing one of her original songs, and had Compagna la Giostra from Sicily join us on "Sands of Time". This was an absolute hit! It's great that we have been working together with La Giostra on a European Cultural Funding application that will see us collaborate with 5 different groups from different countries. They are exactly in our spirit! And also included in the performance was a 20 minute fire show from "Steam Show" from Belarus. They were brilliant and we used it as an opportunity to try some new material! Then we were joined onstage by The Black Powder crew, who all dressed up as undead pirates and proceeded to start the Train throughout the audience. It was again a performance that had EVERYTHING: Vintage TTN energy, Collaborations with other musicians, Dance by Sophie and a full pyrotechnic show. One of the best shows we've ever done!
See A Highlight reel of the performance here
And while this performance was extremely important, it was the community and friends at the festival that was most important. Much like here on Patreon, our past 8 years of attending Elfia has allowed us to build a massive community of friends and Elves. We arrived at Elfia with a strange feeling, because we knew that many of those important members of our Elfian family would NOT be in attendance. But even with some extremely notable Absentees, there were hundreds of familiar faces who we saw throughout the weekend. Our "Bardeoke" Program has grown exponentially, with so many participants that we had to cut off the signups BEFORE we had even opened them. And our Improv Theater was a gorgeous, chaotic mess that will hopefully become a new mainstay in the Elfian program. It was a wonderful opportunity to collaborate and create a stage for others to join.
We left Elfia this weekend with an important mandate: Foster and Nurture this community and continue to expand on our Trouble mission. The timing of this is something that couldn't be better. We've started a series of workshops with friends in the NL who are helping consult us so that we can better scale everything we are doing and make some good choices about how to keep growing in a sustainable way over the next 3-5 years. That sense of community is exactly what we want to continue to foster, and this past weekend was a reminder of why it means so much to us.
This week we will spend some days in Heidelberg with Stefanie's family. There is so much to plan over the coming weeks as we turn our focus toward the Fall and planning for the next years. Having left Elfia filled with so many thoughts is a great place to be as we prepare for our future.
Expect to hear a lot more from us here on Patreon this fall now that our time is spent on updating our branding, building our new show, preparing for our next album and focusing on enhancing our community!