Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Lightly fried

And were we roasted? Not really. Lightly fried and seasoned maybe. Two thousand people watching the previous band had shrunk to two or three hundred by the time we took the stage but they were a pleasant enough bunch, soon supplemented by a further hundred. So there we were. In the middle of an empty field in southern Germany, playing songs no-one knew, as the sun shone down on a stifled yawn. But we and the few who listened had a good time.

Up next our mammoth drive to Hamburg. This was punctuated by a stop to see Alfred, Sabine, Mambo and family, Berndt and all in Dietkirchen for Andrei Arshavin’s next lesson. The subject tonight? Teach the country of Holland what real football is. A sea of orange nuggets were silenced again and again as Arshavin, Pavlyuchenko, Semshov, Zirkhov and Kolodin wove pass after pass, knife after knife through Holland’s lowland jelly. This is the most stylish team in world football at the moment but ‘cause it doesn't contain Van Nosedive or Ronaldwho, it's ignored by media, then public. So 3-1 and away we go! Alfred's brother Mambo who so graciously accepted all 8 of us into his house, stacks our van with booze and they wave us off.

5 hours later [at 4.30am] we arrive at Hotel Hof Tutsberg near the festival. After 4 hours vertical, Horst the German house fly wakes me. I chase him into the bathroom, shut the door and get another hour. The show is a similar affair to Saturday’s but earlier in the day. Three or four hundred stop by. We sing, they smile. I say who we are, they shrug. I say something in pigeon German, they smile and shrug. I say bye-bye, thankyou, they wave, we go. Later I speak to a very polite Guy Garvey and tell him what a great song 'A Friend Of Ours' is. He tells me it was written about a friend of his who died fairly recently. I immediately get to thinking which band member I could have killed to inspire such a beautifully haunting tune. I eye them up uneasily over catering, watching them unknowingly take a bite of their last ever meal, before deciding that, although I would like the 'subject matter' of their deaths, I already love them all too much to have them 'assasinated for song'.

Now, on the way home via Hamburg airport, you may be wondering why these blogs have been so football based. Well I suppose over a weekend when we've travelled almost a thousand miles in the mini-bus and roughly twice that by aeroplane, with no interviews, record company backing and a lack of interest generally, that football, with its 50,000 seaters and hysterical commentary, seems a shade more appealing. Alas though, David Villa can't roll up to his hotel at 4.30 in the morning, giggling through lack of sleep. And dear Michael Ballack doesn't have a Brian 'Freddy' Edwards to room with, bear noises and toilet humour to boot! Yes, our lot is good and days are fine, their sturdy abs, our cheap red wine.

Click here to read the next blog entry.
Click here to see a full list of Paul's blogs.