HELSINKI, 9/9
Sort of a dreadful day from an REM perspective. Not only did a torrential downpour scare away a lot of potential public for this outdoor show, but at the end of the night, Peter Buck's cherished Rickenbacker guitar, part of every REM show since 1982, was apparently stolen--right off the stage. Read more
here. Contact REM via their website
www.remhq.com should you have information about this iconic instrument.
For the Disciplines, however, it was a pretty damn good day. We started the day with a fun interview on
Radio Helsinki . Our show was magnificent, and for some strange reason, despite the slick stage, I never fell down. I did *crawl* on the wet ground tho. But by choice! When we went on at just before 6p.m., there was hardly anyone in the whole place. Just a big, soggy, empty stadium. Rain was coming down in absolute torrents. But, the REM fan club folks, and let's say 1000 hardcore people were there, most down in front, a bunch in the way back under a roofed section of the venue, and about 8 people in the stands. I saw a video of us playing 'I Got Tired' that shows all the people in the front are jumping with me, prob. the most people getting that into it at any show we played. Hats off to the Finns, again!
During REM's set I had to get dinner and do the meet n' greet for a bit (and change into dry clothes), and I was walking out of our dressing room when George, the band assistant, came running up and said: "Strings! Get on stage!". I hustled up there and joined the band for 'Rockville', singing and playing piano. I knew the chords and played Beethoven-style, since the monitors by the piano were off, monitor engineer (also named George) didn't know I was there on the other end of the stage for a bit!
For the encore I did "At My Most Beautiful" on the guitar and singing, and then all--me, the Editors and REM played "Orange Crush" and "It's the End of the World" together, and I stayed up for the finale, 'Man on the Moon'.
After the show, the mood quickly went dark when it was determined Peter's guitar was missing, and this unfortunate event quickly overshadowed the show itself, which is really too bad. It made the goodbye weird BUT I had a good chat with each REM member and said my goodbyes to as much of the crew as I could locate (the search for the guitar was on, it was hoped that it was merely misplaced). Goodbyes and thank yous.
All had great things to say, about the band, but also, many things were said that clarified some things that had never been clarified--specifically, that it was purely for the fact that they wanted to do a stripped down tour, not some faux pas of mine, that had resulted in me not being a part of the band this time around. Oddly, it was never clearly stated before, and this helped me a great deal to hear.
What more can I say about this REM tour, than thank you? Both for the invitation of the Disciplines, and the fact that, hey...I have a band of my own, which I love, and which would have been impossible to maintain had the REM tour swept me away for the spring summer and fall.
I also said bye bye to all the guys flying home from Helsinki--Claus and Fredrik (our tech) left for the airport at 3am when the bus started to make its way back to Oslo, and Bjorn and Christophe (our sound engineer) went after the show to stay with Lasse, of Lemonator/Radio Helsinki fame, a great guy I've known since the Posies played their first show in Finland in 1996, with his band supporting. These two flew home in the afternoon.
Dom, myself plus Baard and Gunder (our other tech) went back in the bus. We boarded the ferry in Turku early the next morning, and drove on from Stockholm, actually getting to Oslo much earlier than we thought we would, about 3am, 24 hours after leaving Helsinki.
Thursday I picked up more CDs from our label to sell at our shows, having sold tons of SMOKiNG KiLLS to REM fans, and more copies of my Covers EP.
Friday Dom and I headed to the airport, met up with Claus and Baard, and said bye bye to Dom--Dom who took over the merch and guest list duties and just was amazing during the tour. She too gets a massive thank you.
The rest of flew to Haugesund.
HAUGESUND, 9/12
Our show was highly anticipated after our great show at Rockfest in June. We had a huge article in the local paper previewing our show, and we went on the local radio that afternoon.
Haugesund was shining in the late summer sun, absolutely sparkling. This was a huge contrast with the gloom that had been in effect since Stockholm, including our day off in Oslo the day before. So, our moods were upbeat.
Now, a bit of funny business. Originally, this show was to be held at Byscenen, a legendary venue that the Briskeby guys all rated very highly. Our promoter, Helge, used to work there, and was co-promoting the show with his former employers. Evidently they are c*nts, tho, and didn't want to see someone else to succeed in this small town , so they pretty much f***ed him every which way but loose. They claimed to have the date double booked, with us as the second comer, so we had to find a new venue for the show (more on that later) and then proceeded to book the record release show for Haugesund's most popular artist, Helge Toft. And THEN gave away like 100 free tickets. Just to be c*nts. They could have just have easily booked him on Saturday.
If you live in Haugesund, I can't ask you to ban the place, but I can sure make you think twice before giving your money to people who definitely don't care about the music community, or the music listener.
So, our man Helge had to scramble to find a venue, and he did a marvelous job. The Tonnefabriken, a biker club on the docks. Sounds scary? You'd be hard pressed to find a friendlier place (well, if the competition is Byscenen, it's not gonna happen). The Pirayas and Blondinos (biker dudes and biker chix, respectively) run the place up on the third floor as their private club, but it has this huge back room, and with a few adjustments (like building a super scary fire escape out of scaffolding) the fire department gave it the OK and a public show with alcohol was permitted. The music room looked like the ultimate punk gig or the super ultimate rehearsal place. Raw concrete floors, and this black fabric hanging everywhere. Like I said that night, this was the punkest gig we've ever played. Helge's mom made smorgas sandwiches with fresh shrimp and perfect roast beef AND she ran the door. The biker crew did the construction and brought in extra beer taps on a cherry picker through a loading door that...well, had no door, just a straight drop 3 stories (this was in a part not open to the public!).
And then the peeps--we had over 220 kids at our show (despite aforementioned obstacles) and especially the hardcores in the front, the kids who saw us at Rockfest and their friends, were so there for us, singing every word! It was just full on. so much fun! We played every song we had, including playing 'Oslo' *twice*! It was nuts. What can I say? Highlights included a VERY long version of 'I Got Tired' during which I left the show room to go into the bar and do a pole dance. No lie.
STAVANGER, 9/13
This show was one of those things where the club is a popular Saturday night disco, and we play before. Except the disco plays indie rock, so, we could have easily played as the first part of the disco. You see, it's too expensive for kids to drink in bars so they stay home until way late, drinking at home. Meaning: we play at 11, and the people show up at 12. Why not put us on at 12? I think the audience would have loved us. However, not to complain--we did have a good crowd, but man, when I walked in and Jim Protector was playing at 9.30, there were like 20 people there. So we waited until 11, but by the time we were *done* the place was packed. Ah well. It was still a great show, and we had some great hardcores up front singing with every word again! But, sort of hard to beat Haugesund, that was pure magic. But then again, we probably played even *better* in Stavanger to rise to the challenge. And we had some hot dancers, male and female. So, good night!
I joined Jim Protector on 'Shields Down'...haha, Alex messed up the song big time in the second chorus, I think I knew it better than he did!!
We payed a nice visit to the SHIT boutique and did some shopping...look for a Disciplines deck soon.
After the show, I rolled the merch home (a big wheeled duffel bag) to the hotel, and saw Stavanger on a Saturday night. The harbor which intersects the town and is lined with bars and restaurants was filled with catastophically drunk Norwegians. I saw girls sobbing uncontrollably, guys passing out cold in the middle of the street (quickly scooped up by the local police). This kind of thing. The elevators in our hotel stopped working from overuse, potted plants were smashed in the stairs, it was, to put it in simple terms, Hell on Earth.
But, we headed to
Tango, the hip new bar and eatery near the club, where my friend Johan was DJing (Johan is co owner of SHIT and has two lovely little twin bambinos I got to hold that afternoon). We saw the JP guys out on the street, they were too drunk to get in here (evidently one of them pissed in a cowboy hat backstage at the club).
The restaurant at Tango is superb, we had dinner there before the show. All of a sudden the place was cloing, tho--I had taken like two sips of my champagne. So, we decamped next door to
Cementen, the door guy had us jump the queue (rock star parking). The bar was packed, and was just a beer waiting to spill on me, but Bjorn discovered the music room, where there was a full on 60's Soul/R&B dance party in progress...this being the ONLY kind of music I like to dance to, and it was AWESOME. Bjorn and I, and the very drunk Steinar and Alex from Jim Protector danced to the sweet soul music til 3am...the drunkards dropping out of the race early (Alex kept dropping absolutely full beers on the floor!). It was still going strong when my post-Disciplines show legs had had it, and I walked out, soaked in sweat, into the cool night. The most fun I'd had in a long time, and was sober and feeling great.
In the morning the sun was out again, and there wasn't a soul visible on the whole waterfront--I can see it all from my hotel window--that had been packed with inebriated humanity just a few hours before.
Love
KS
Stavanger NORWAY
