Since we last spoke Brakes have mostly been taking a breather. Alex and Tom took the time to promote themselves across the atlantic with ESP at the South by South West festival in Austin and also with a few shows on the west coast. Eamon and myself went on holiday, seperately of course, and once we were all back in the UK we re-grouped for a small tour of Scandinavia.
Unfortunately the first show of four was cancelled due to poor ticket sales. It was a shame because we'd played in Malmo before with Editors back in Feb 06, we hadn't gone down too well then and we wanted the chance to go back and try again but it wasn't to be. One plus side was that instead of a 2:45am bus call and a 7am flight we got an extra day in Brighton and flew straight to Stockholm.
Stockholm is a beautiful city. It was my third time there and second time playing the Debaser club. Named after the Pixie's song the club also has an extensive cocktail list also named in the same way as well as some killer pinball machines. It was chillier in Sweden than id expected so between sound-check and show we mainly stayed indoors, plus we'd still gotten up pretty early that morning and it was best to conserve what energy we had for the show. Support act Torpedo were really nice guys and we chatted to them about studios, how much they cost and what its like generally to be in a band in Stockholm. It's always worth knowing these things for future reference. With my dreams of european emigration continuing we took to the stage.
It was a sparse turnout, there were a couple of drunk Anglophiles bouncing around near the front but generally it was a relaxed affair, to be expected for a wednesday night. We played pretty well for our first show in about a month and came off stage happy. The guys from Pet Sounds records came back to say hi afterwards. Their shop is possibly one of the best record stores i've ever been to and they even own their own bar down the road from the shop. They took the rest of the guys out afterwards, I however decided, quite uncharacteristically, to head for the hotel and get some shut eye. It had been a long day.
Judging by everyones wobbliness the next morning i reckon they had a good time. It was another early one and we set off for the airport to fly to Oslo. There was still a scattering of snow down on the hills as we flew the 50 minutes to our destination but surprisingly Oslo was quite warm when we got there. It was still early in the day when we got to our hotel so while everyone else headed to bed Joe and I took to the streets for a bit of a wander. After a whistle-stop tour of some of the sights we met my friend Vegard who is extremely tall and works in the recently modernised old dock area of the city.
Somehow he managed to convince a bar to open so we could have a drink there. It was the only bar in the area that had any shade outside. I needed to get out of the sun as my genetically inferior skin was starting to burn. We had a beer and said our goodbyes before heading back to the hotel and then onto sound-check at the Garage club.
At sound-check our old pal from Brighton Mikey came down with his wife. He used to be involved in the band scene down there when we were all growing up until he moved to Oslo 4 years ago. We were planning the usual trip to the bowling alley but he had different plans. They took us to the Vigelandsparken, a huge park adorned with the wonderful bronze and granite sculptures of Gustav Vigeland.
The sun was just setting and the light was perfect for viewing these numerous, impressive and slightly frightening structures. We drank beer and had a smoke before getting the tram back into town once the sun had eventually set. It was a welcome change to have got so much fresh air before a show and i think it did us good.
The gig that night was great fun, not a massive crowd but you can always trust an Oslo audience to give it their all. Afterwards we had a drink upstairs with various friends. I had an interesting conversation with Vegard's friend Roar who works for the website of Norway's biggest paper. He told me the Sun newspaper had sent some representatives over to Norway to see how to do a newspaper website properly. In a country of 4 million people the paper has a subscription of 1 million to its website. Thats damn good compared to the Sun's 60'000 which is just under 1% of the population of the UK. When you consider that the government in Norway provides broadband to the entire country, its no wonder their figures out-do ours, but then i guess if people stopped buying the physical copy of the sun then chippies would go out of business.
After a while the exhaustion kicked in and two long days in a row were taking there toll on us so we headed back to our hotel. We had another long day ahead of us including another early flight and the biggest show of the 3. As we came round the corner to the front of the hotel I saw a figure I recognised having a cigarette out the front. At first my brain just casually thought "oh, there's Keith", Keith being our ex merchandise man and my flat mate in Glasgow. Then it sank in that we were in Oslo and bemusement set in. He's been doing merch for Irish rockers The Answer for the last year or so and even though i knew we were both out in europe at the same time the chances of bumping into one another were slim. As much as I would have liked to have celebrated this surreal rendezvous it was late and the hours before it was time to get up again were disappearing fast. So after a few beers and a few laughs we wished Keith all the best and took to our rooms.
The flight to Copenhagen was relatively bump free and quite comfortable. I think most of us were pretty out of it for the duration anyway. We'd been given an option regarding our accommodation for the night. Either a boutique hotel just round the corner from the venue or a cheaper option further away. If we chose the former it meant we had to share double beds, a sacrifice that often has to be made on tour. Seeing as the show was for Coca Cola and itunes we decided to milk them and go with the boutique place. The beds were pretty big anyway and there was minimal dipping in the middle so it was OK really. There were a good few hours before sound-check so we all just chilled out in our rooms for a while.
We'd played Vega before again with Editors, its one of the bigger, more plush venues we've played in europe. There's a kitchen/dining area where home cooked food seems to be in continuous supply and plenty of booze. We didn't really have the energy to do anything between sound-check and gig so we sat in our dressing room drinking and making strange noises.
Caught a bit of one of the earlier acts whose name i cant remember, they were quite amusing, all very skinny and fashionable but made an interesting racket. Main act The Fratellis weren't really around to be seen much, nor did they seem to hang about with each other. I was jealous of their huge bus outside, i could have so done with a kip.
Show time came around and the place was about half full. These corporate gigs are usually really badly advertised or full of people who've bee invited and are just there for the hell of it. We kicked in 'hi how are you' and right where the rest of the band comes in I saw Tom go flying into a heap on one side of the stage. "Gig over" I thought to myself. It looked like he'd snapped his spine for sure by the way his head had gone hurtling into Fratelli's guitar rack at about 40-mph. He was OK though and we carried on. Only outcome was that he tore the ass of his trousers much to the amusement of some English pricks down the front. One of them shouted "You can tell they're from Brighton can't you?" referring to his unfortunately located tailoring mishap. It was one of those gigs where we were all knackered and just trying our best to get through it. As usual the crowd warmed to us after a while and I think we did alright in the end. I had to puke after the gig from exhaustion, i was not feeling too smart at all. My legs weren't working properly and i was shaking all over. I took this as a sign that i should probably go and lie down so i went with all our equipment back to the hotel and had some quiet time.
Ironically our flight the next day wasn't until 9pm so we had a whole day to do whatever. I was glad because id never seen Copenhagen before other than the venue we'd played and the hotels. Joe, Eamon and myself made the most of the weather and took a really long walk around some of the greener areas of the city, stopping for a beer at every opportunity.
We went to see the Little Mermaid which was highly disappointing to be honest. I felt sorry for all the tourists who'd chosen to visit the attraction by boat. Their ferry came chugging up to the rocks and gave them about ten seconds to get a photo of the back of her head before chugging off again. We'd walked quite far and now realised that we had to walk back to meet the others and get the train to the airport. It was Saturday and hundreds and thousands of Danes were out drinking in the sunshine by the canals and in the squares. We all wanted to join them but our time was up and we had to go.
Getting the train to the station was relatively easy and before long we were back in Stanstead waiting for our ride home. The journey wasn't over for me however. For some reason id decided to get the 06:50-am plane back to Glasgow from Gatwick and had figured it wisest and easiest to sleep in the airport. I managed to get a bench which was lucky. You have to look out for number one in these situations so i wasn't giving up my bench. I sat dead in the middle with my bag on one side and my bass on another. People lurk when they cant find anywhere to sleep, i've done it myself. You find someone who looks like they might soon get up and steal their spot when they're gone. I had myself a lurker that night, he had his eye on me so i had some fun with him. Every now and then id wake up from some airport announcement or screaming child at which point id sit up straight giving him the impression i was about to leave only to return to my vertical position again. Its cruel I know but it kept me entertained. Eventually he fell asleep sat in a wheel chair.
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