Saturday, June 18, 2005

Show Day in Hultsfred, Sweden


Hultsfred Festival
Originally uploaded by bd58.
Sat up late last night on the bus ride. Eventually, it was just Mick Ridley and myself, splitting the occasional John Smith's Extra Smooth.

Amazing moon tonight. We're so far north that it just sits upon the horizon and is an incredible shade of bright orange. I tried to get a couple of pictures of it, but didn't like the way any of them turned out. Mick and I discussed the upcoming tour of the US. Even though he's British, he'll be coming over on a work visa to do the tour because he's handled the band's merch throughout Europe for 7 years now, so he's family.

Finally got to Bunkyland around 3am. Woke up just aroung 9am, about 50 clicks (kilometers) from the gig. Today, we're at the Hultsfred Festival in Hultsfred, Sweden. Sold out again today – 31,100 strong. The stage is set right beside the lake. The kids in the audience don't like to use the Porta-John's, they just piss in the lake. The guys do it all day, the girls wait until after dark (11:30 pm). There's no safety barrier or fence of any kind to keep them from walking right out into it from the audience area, so all day long it's swimmers and pissers. One of our audio guys (Florian) went swimming in the lake this morning – ugh! Later, Florian and Dave Coyle (another audio tech) took a tumble off the edge of the stage.

Not much room in the production office today, so I did settlement early, packed my stuff, and was hanging out on the bus by 5:00. Heard a familiar song, so I went to the stage to see who was playing it. There was some sort of Swedish All-Star band backing singers from other bands that had played the festival over the last couple of days. The song that got me up there was "Shake Some Action" by the Flamin' Groovies, which dates to the early 70's. Some drop dead gorgeous chick in a business suit and heels is standing in the wing on stage left, strumming a Strat. She's next up with the band and does a smokin' version of Nick Lowe's "Heart of the City". Talked to her later in the catering tent and found out she's one of the girls from Sahara Hot Nights, my fave all-girl rock band from Sweden. I saw them in Glasgow 4 years ago opening for The Donna's, who they completely smoked. Chilled out with the audio guys for awhile and then I watched our show for the first time this tour. Watched all 90 minutes from stage left. Took a bunch of photos – be sure to click on the Bobzilla's Photos link at the right near the top of the page to see some of them.

Sat up late again with Ridley. Finally crawling in around 2am. Want to get up early to get photos of the Oresund Bridge…

No comments: