Posts Tagged ‘YFE’

Who’s there to connect with my heart?

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?

Family, Studio time, Music creation, Dreams…

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.

Coming back from more than a dream…

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”.

Mirror Mirror tell me…

BLA BLA BLA: THE “LIFE” SHOW

I’m trying to look back at what happened last weekend…trying to grasp what I can learn from what I see, what I have experienced.
It’s one challenge to live for real the moment and another to keep going without forgetting what we could have gained or learned from that moment.  So many times we are running endlessly from one experience to another pursuing a bigger thrill, a more intense feeling, a diversion in a linear journey… forgetting each time what this experience revealed about ourselves, about where we are heading and about what we need to change in order to live more freely and more happy too.  I’ve been told that it’s foolish to act that way and that a wiser way to live is to always look at experiences like we would look in a mirror, wanting to see our true reflection and remember what we saw as we move on.

Learning to live? Sounds funny isn’t it…

THE ONE SUBJECT WE SHOULD ALL BE EXCITED TO REVIEW OVER AND OVER AGAIN!

My dear friends,

Do you feel sometimes the world swirls around at such a high speed or in such an unpredictable movement that it’s hard to grasp what is really going on?
Do you at times look around you and take the time to realize that all these nameless faces have a life of their own, millions of stories, miracles and faithless dreams out of a multitude of motivations but born of our common human heart… Do you ask yourself the question: “Why is it that we know immediately how to breathe but we have to fight to learn how to LIVE?”

To a place we’ve never been…

TO TOUCH PEOPLE LIKE WE’VE ALWAYS DESIRED

As we were starting to build a web community 5 years ago, we could only dream about visiting our growing family from China. But as we received the invitation to play in the biggest Asian festivals, it was clear for us that the dream wasn’t about big crowds, it was all about reaching out to our Chinese friends on a personal level, getting to touch their hearts, letting them teach us and impact us, sharing with them an experience that will be an anchor point in each of our lives… So we made sure to tell the promoter that we wanted to play in venues where that personal sharing would be possible, contact that might be challenging to create when we’ll be in front of 80 000 people…lol.

The quietest whisper of hope can be enough

THE HOPE PROJECT

Someone asked me on Facebook a very interesting question: ” How we can create a family for our band?”.

Many thoughts came through my mind… from “that’s great that people see and can feel how we do live everything as a family not only among the musicians but with all the music lovers that follow Your Favorite Enemies” to “How in the world am I supposed to explain that?  There’s no obvious instruction manual for building a family from a music group!” to “Wow… it is humbling and an honor to be inspiring someone to want to build his own family.”

Expect the Unexpected

CMW 2011

Every year in March, it became a tradition to gather the YFE family in Toronto during the Canadian Music Week. As much as we prepare for the concerts, rehearsing the songs and preparing what we desire to breathe through the shows, we know for sure what we will live on stage can’t be rehearsed or set up… In fact we absolutely don’t want to plan the emotions and experiences as we want them to be real, spontaneous and a true sharing with those coming and so determined to let the music open their eyes and heart. It’s special, because even if the chords and the lyrics are the same from one concert to another, each show takes a fresh direction, moving alongside the emotions each person in the room carries and also how Alex leads all of us with his invitations to let go, his screams to feel alive, his call out to take a stand for freedom and hope.