More than a bootleg… a revealing story…a touching music flow.

Right after the Bla BLa Bla of last weekend, I jumped on my computer to download my own version of the Bootleg filmed in Kyoto as I, just like you, was about to see the images for the first time! I know it sounds special that even if I’m in the band I didn’t even see the bootleg before it’s release!lol

Thinking back, I remember what happened that day, what I felt and the sharing I had with our Japanese family who joined us in the temple as the rain was persistently veiling the sky and surrounding the music with it’s chant, but as I started to watch the bootleg, I had the precious chance to have another perspective, to live it in a fresh way, to give to it a new place in my heart and allow myself to grasp it’s numerous gifts.

AN INVITATION AS SIMPLE AS A MOUSE-CLICK

Hi sweet friends:)

Most of you are thinking of summer vacation and maybe even going more than 10 meters away from the computer screen for more than 2 hours… That’s scary!!!lol

Technology and communication is such a big part of our life that we can’t imagine a whole day without the internet, our cellphone, our ipad or AT LEAST our ipod (preferably including wi-fi to connect to the internet…lol). Yet, in an era of extra accessible communication, loneliness and human disconnection is still so critical, painful and insidious. Every hour we connect to internet…but who’s there to connect our heart to… clicking through the lives of others, can some pictures and videos help us to reach the level of communion we once believed in or heard about? I do believe it because when I open myself to you, when I share and I hear your stories, your life that you share generously with us, then when I look at your pictures I do feel the connection, I feel I relate to you, I feel that happiness to see you smile… Isn’t it weird that sometimes we still are the ones who fear to connect with anyone?

GIFTS WE TAKE CARE WITH OPEN HANDS

My dear family, the one I chose, the one I’ve been chosen, the one I believe in, the one that believes in me…

It’s easy to think that we are separated because our reality is different, because our daily lives don’t look alike, because we can’t talk or spend time together as much as we would love to. Of course our brothers and sisters living in other countries can feel this way, but I can tell you that it’s also how we can feel sometimes even here at the YFE HQ within our house, the close crew, the ones sharing the same roof, the same table. As we are back in studio recording right now mostly keyboards, lead guitars and vocals (oh… and we also have a section called “Chaos”!lol…), we are again quite isolated in the cocoon of the Studio. The five guys and I, Big Byrd and Sean are spending all day in that one room, letting the music we carry inside of us flow freely, trying every idea, encouraging each other to take part in what we believe is our destiny. We get out of the studio only to grab a coffee, a tea (for our English producer Sean), to go pee and we take a short break for lunch and dinner giving us the chance to see if it’s raining or sunny as we walk the 30 meters between the studio/church and our house. This little time away from the mics and instruments is also our occasion to talk and share with the rest of the YFE crew who are working so hard in their office based in the YFE house… Do we feel separated sometimes?… I do. But I know how to break that feeling and first it’s by believing we are united by the love we decided to build, by the trust we have, and that we care for each other, by every little note, hug, short conversation, the inside jokes, and also by knowing we are all walking for a common dream to touch the world with our common vision, our common heart.

THE YFE CHINA-JAPAN TOUR

My dear family,

Even though I got to write a bit every day while on tour about what we were living and witnessing in my little notebook, I feel like writing to you is different and I missed it… sharing with you every week encourages me to take a look within myself and you give me the grace to be a witness and a supporter of what could bloom from that personal journey. I don’t always understand how that connection we have empowers me and how your life can also be inspired by these simple typed words of mine, but I am thankful it is all possible and happening. When I meet you and you tell me that this blog is a part of your life, I’m always so moved and I think to myself “This is so much more powerful than me or anything I write… this is how you, my friends, are alive and are changing your own life with determination and using everything you can find…not because what I write is so good but because your will is strong and you decide to give your all to live more and more free”.