Pulling the Finger of the Almighty
I woke up this morning in Dublin with very little recollection of how I got here. I do realize that there was air travel involved, but as it ended up being a 12 hour journey from Oslo, I think that I've erased the less picturesque moments from my short-term memory.
2 days ago I was in Kristiansand, Norway for the Quart festival, which is generally one of my favorite summer festivals. If I were Norwegian, or any sort of Northern European I would definitely make the trek out there for it. It's a pretty wild place, even just geographically speaking.
In the past I have seen Turbonegro play their first show back after breaking up for 5 years, The Melvins play a show at 3AM in a bar and Mogwai come out of the ocean covered in leaches (maybe I just heard about that, but it bears mentioning all the same). This year it was a little rainy and overcast, but we still had a dressing room on the water, and some of the more daring folk decided that swimming was a good idea, again in spite of the leaches.
I was up in the rafters for another daylight show. To be fair, all shows in Norway are daylight shows unless they begin around 1AM. At least I got the backdrop up, which is a pretty cool line of trees that look great on a big stage. Unfortunately they've looked like a group of small shrubs or maybe tumbleweeds the last few shows.
It was a pretty low energy day. Depeche Mode were on after us and I was pretty excited to see the because I used to think that they were a pretty cool band, sort of dark and yet poppy, and British. I didn't think that they were so good. There's something about 45-year-old men wearing eyeliner. Unless you are Keith Richards, who looks like pirate from the future, it just doesn't fly in my book. I wished that I was working at the metal stage.
Norweigans love their black metal.
They also love their cured meat. This was at the airport in Oslo yesterday, where you can buy all manner of animal in varying stages of decay. I'm not even sure what part of what beast most of this is, but it looks strangely appetizing. Oh, and I did say that this was at the airport. A bit of perspective: there is a T.G.I. Fridays at Laguardia.
They also love their chewing tobacco. There is more skoal consumed in Norway than the entire Nascar loving Southern states combined. This may or may not be true. My fact checkers have yet to get back to me about this latest hyperbole. Here's a chewing tobacco humidor, of sorts. Also in the airport.
Ice Cream. They are also really into ice cream.
This reminded me of the Fugazi movie 'Instrument.' There's a scene where Ian McKaye calls out some guy who is roughing up the kids in front of the stage and tells him that he saw him earlier, outside the club, with an ice cream cone. There is something humanizing about ice cream. It makes a middle-aged man in a business suit look like a toddler on the loose in an airport in Oslo. 'Ice cream eating motherfucker.'
I couldn't find the scene, but here's some fugazi stuff from Instrument just the same.
So, as I was saying earlier, I'm in Dublin.
Last night when I arrived I went out with some friends. It was Friday night in Dublin, which generally means that you can't walk a block without getting someone's blood or vomit on you. It was early, and already the tourists were getting restless.
I detest this city's "puke 'til you puke" mentality and usually have a miserable time here because of it. This is not to be confused with the popular "Party 'til you puke" board game.
Or the annual "Uke 'til you Puke" festival.
Last night was alright. We found a conveyor belt sushi place.
It was not so good.
Which is why, I suppose, we ended up at some sort of Johnny Rockets-type American burger place establishment afterwards.
It was back to the hotel and a room service pint of Guinness for me.
I'm off to the Oxygen festival today. James Brown is playing tonight. This should prove to be interesting, if nothing else.
2 days ago I was in Kristiansand, Norway for the Quart festival, which is generally one of my favorite summer festivals. If I were Norwegian, or any sort of Northern European I would definitely make the trek out there for it. It's a pretty wild place, even just geographically speaking.
In the past I have seen Turbonegro play their first show back after breaking up for 5 years, The Melvins play a show at 3AM in a bar and Mogwai come out of the ocean covered in leaches (maybe I just heard about that, but it bears mentioning all the same). This year it was a little rainy and overcast, but we still had a dressing room on the water, and some of the more daring folk decided that swimming was a good idea, again in spite of the leaches.
I was up in the rafters for another daylight show. To be fair, all shows in Norway are daylight shows unless they begin around 1AM. At least I got the backdrop up, which is a pretty cool line of trees that look great on a big stage. Unfortunately they've looked like a group of small shrubs or maybe tumbleweeds the last few shows.
It was a pretty low energy day. Depeche Mode were on after us and I was pretty excited to see the because I used to think that they were a pretty cool band, sort of dark and yet poppy, and British. I didn't think that they were so good. There's something about 45-year-old men wearing eyeliner. Unless you are Keith Richards, who looks like pirate from the future, it just doesn't fly in my book. I wished that I was working at the metal stage.
Norweigans love their black metal.
They also love their cured meat. This was at the airport in Oslo yesterday, where you can buy all manner of animal in varying stages of decay. I'm not even sure what part of what beast most of this is, but it looks strangely appetizing. Oh, and I did say that this was at the airport. A bit of perspective: there is a T.G.I. Fridays at Laguardia.
They also love their chewing tobacco. There is more skoal consumed in Norway than the entire Nascar loving Southern states combined. This may or may not be true. My fact checkers have yet to get back to me about this latest hyperbole. Here's a chewing tobacco humidor, of sorts. Also in the airport.
Ice Cream. They are also really into ice cream.
This reminded me of the Fugazi movie 'Instrument.' There's a scene where Ian McKaye calls out some guy who is roughing up the kids in front of the stage and tells him that he saw him earlier, outside the club, with an ice cream cone. There is something humanizing about ice cream. It makes a middle-aged man in a business suit look like a toddler on the loose in an airport in Oslo. 'Ice cream eating motherfucker.'
I couldn't find the scene, but here's some fugazi stuff from Instrument just the same.
So, as I was saying earlier, I'm in Dublin.
Last night when I arrived I went out with some friends. It was Friday night in Dublin, which generally means that you can't walk a block without getting someone's blood or vomit on you. It was early, and already the tourists were getting restless.
I detest this city's "puke 'til you puke" mentality and usually have a miserable time here because of it. This is not to be confused with the popular "Party 'til you puke" board game.
Or the annual "Uke 'til you Puke" festival.
Last night was alright. We found a conveyor belt sushi place.
It was not so good.
Which is why, I suppose, we ended up at some sort of Johnny Rockets-type American burger place establishment afterwards.
It was back to the hotel and a room service pint of Guinness for me.
I'm off to the Oxygen festival today. James Brown is playing tonight. This should prove to be interesting, if nothing else.
posted by L at Saturday, July 08, 2006
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