Greetings,

It's been a while since we've given you a proper update, and as it's time for a little spring cleaning, let us catch up.

We all know that the world turned upside down a few times already. We had only just come out of two-year-long pandemic crisis when we got straight into a war. Even though it's already been a month since Russia began the unfounded aggression on Ukraine, a free, democratic country, we still don't know how it will end and what the consequences will be.

When tragedy strikes, many get involved, but with time people get used to the new reality and go back to their own business. Let's make sure we keep remembering that the war in Ukraine is still going on, people are still dying and our help is still needed. And what we can do depends only on our creativity and resourcefulness.

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The recent two years were mainly all about our individual solo releases and projects. Mariusz released four albums, one of which as Lunatic Soul ("Through Shaded Woods"), and three as Mariusz Duda ("Lockdown Trilogy"). Michał and Maciej both debuted as solo artists ("Are You There" and "Zenith" respectively), and added electronic ("Sessions") and acoustic ("Zenith Acoustic") versions to further develop and complete their albums. And Piotr got involved in organising United Arts Festival, at the first edition of which we played one of our "Riverside 20" concerts (by the way, the second edition of UAF begins on August 12th, 2022).

Of course, we had more than our solo releases for you. Let us remind you that, as a band, we released a concert box "Wasteland Tour 2018-2020", "Acoustic Live" (both available through our fan club), and a digital compilation "Riverside 20", which included a new single, "Story of My Dream", illustrated by quite an exuberant videoclip.

You might ask, "But what about a new Riverside release? Have you already started working on it?"

The short answer is - yes

But before we let you know more about the new album, let's stop for a moment longer at our 20th anniversary. There was the above mentioned compilation with the new single, but we didn't really get to celebrate it with live shows. For obvious reasons we played only a handful of concerts in 2021, all of them in Poland. So, in 2022, we decided to extend our anniversary celebrations and visit the US, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Brazil and... Europe with the "Riverside 20" tour.

We didn't have the best start - for reasons beyond our control, we had to cancel half of the American tour. But we promise to visit the places where the dates have been cancelled as soon as possible, and that the remaining concerts will happen as planned. We always feel at home in the US and Canada, and we can't wait to play there. We also look forward to meeting you during the new edition of Cruise to the Edge!

Mexico, Chile, Brazil - please forgive us for the two-year delay. We were supposed to come in 2020, we're coming two years later. But this time, we are not anticipating any problems. Speaking of Chile, we are truly grateful for such a big interest in our show that we had to upgrade to a larger and more prestigious venue (we'll be playing in Teatro Caupolican).

And as for Europe, well, we do want to go back to the places where we had to cancel our concerts in March 2020, so it gives us a lot of joy to announce that in September 2022 we will do exactly that! We'll also go farther West, and we will more than likely play the final show in Poland. We'll give you all the details about the final, European leg of "Riverside 20" tour in a few days.

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For the last two years, we were forced to slow down. But we must admit it helped us regenerate a bit, and most of all, concentrate on our solo projects. But enough is enough. We're coming back. 2022 will be all about working on the new album, which we will tell you more about soon, and about the final anniversary concerts. We'll see you there, right?

More details will follow soon.

Take care of yourselves in these uncertain times, and watch this space (this Thursday!) for new concert dates for this year!

Your Riverside

photo by Radek Zawadzki