Our Summer 2004 by Chixdiggit We'll start off with a couple of photos sent in by PJ Lavergne taken at the Black Swan in June.
We pretty much laid low for July. In August we were invited to play the Rock Against Football festival in Moss, Norway. We stopped off in historic London on the way to get us a little lurv...
We checked out Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the Thames, The London Eye, yadda yadda yadda. We even learned that Westminster Abbey wasn't a famous hooker but a church! Everything was beautiful except Buckingham Palace kinda looked like the Pentagon. Come to think of it, the Queen is starting to look a bit like the Pentagon... We then headed back to the ugliest airport in the world (Heathrow) to celebrate Mike's birthday. It was just like hanging out at the Ship and Anchor in Calgary on Saturday morning. Everyone was talking in English accents and stuff. The only difference being, all these people had been to England before.
We then flew to Oslo Airport (the most beautiful airport in the world) and were picked up by Bjorn and Shetil who drove us down to Moss where the show is gonna be. There we met some more norse-folks in Morten from the Yum Yums and his lovely girlfriend Vibeke. We spent the rest of the night drinking on the beach to celebrate Mike's birthday just that little bit more. First impressions of Norway: Like Canada, a lot cleaner and everybody is way more laid back. The next day we grabbed some hot dogs (they call 'em polsen) and took the train up into Oslo to check it out. Here's some photos...
It was a super hot, sunny day. Everyone told us that the weather was gonna be shitty. They were wrong, obviously. BTW, Oslo was beautiful.
That evening we hooked up with the Apers in their hotel room (same hotel as us) to help them drink their duty free. It's important to note that booze in Norway is taxed to the hilt leaving it nearly impossible for the average person to afford. We brought along a couple of bottles ourselves and two six-packs of Molson's Canadian that, much to our surprise, people actually liked! After getting warmed up, we got picked up by Morten for a BBQ in his backyard. There we met Vibeke Saugestad (not to be confused with Morten's girlfriend Vibeke) who's Morten's partner in the festival, and The Rebelettes who were playing later that night. Vibeke and Vibeke made us an awesome meal and we drank beer, ate and talked till the sun went down. Everyone was pretty warmed up at this point. We all headed down to the local cool spot "Sin City" for the festival kick off party. We ended up closing down the bar and even the all-night fallafel place after. After sleeping only a few hours and feeling quite a bit below average, some Apers and Chixdiggits went for a late morning swim at the beach by our hotel. The water was the perfect temperature and, I'm guessing it's because we're on a fjord, but there were no waves. It was just like swimming in a lake!
The show was in a park in downtown Moss surrounded by a(n actual) lake. It was pretty nice. The stage was a concrete amphitheatre hidden in some trees and the backstage was a short walk along a mountain path down to the lake. Beats CBGB's any day. We changed our strings and slept off our hangovers by the lake and listened to a band off in the distance scream their heads off. Nothing like a little "screamo" whilst taking in a beautiful sunset, I always say. Well, at least these Emo kids weren't burning down churches. That, as everyone knows, is another popular Norwegian passtime. The party kicked off with the Apers rocking everybodies asses off. They took the monitors off the stage and placed them on the ground, closer to the rock! The Yum Yums blew everybodies minds with their perfect pop songs. Check them out! Other highlights of the show included the Superfamily and the Squareheads. The festival had a cool mix of everything which made for a good time for all.
Afterwards, another all-nighter-morning-drinking-on-the-beach-fest followed by a couple of hours sleep. The next few days we did nothing but relax. We swam in the ocean, drank $100 beers and nauseated our hosts by constantly commenting on how great everything was. It was the perfect tour, one show and five days of drinking.
We sadly had to start heading home. We said good-bye to Morten and Vibeke and grabbed an all night bus from Norway to Sweden to visit the Bad Taste Records gang. At about 3 am we were awoken by the excited voices of our fellow bus-mates. We happened to be the first on scene to an single vehicle accident involving an overpass, a semi-trailer and its' cargo... 8000 chickens! The driver was ok, a little "in shock" but what a thoughtful guy! As out of it as he was, he was still trying to help out by clearing the road for us. He did this by booting, as hard as he could, the surviving chickens into the ditch! Needless to say, it upset a few people.
So, we had our own little chicken Vietnam. Crying ladies, chicken shit and feathers everywhere! Depending on what you're into, it was either amazing or not-so-good. When we finally broke through, we saw the full extent of the carnage. As much as a kilometer down the road, there were boxes of live chickens that had survived the flight. Spent a nice relaxing day in Lund and even had chicken for dinner. We visited for a bit then headed to Copenhagen the next morning to start heading to Toronto. On the way back we did a full circle over London and got a great view of the stuff we saw the other day. This time you could see how it all fits together. More good news! Buckingham Palace isn't so ugly when you get past the gates. Then we got to Moncton and slept for a few hours. Next stop: Fredericton! Fredericton was a small but fun show at the local legion. We were sad because we didn't get the time to make it to our favorite restaurant there The Diplomat. Next time I guess.
Halifax was great, good food at the club and the crowd was awesome. The club got so hot we had to take a break to cool down. Everyone was there to have a good time. Can't wait to come back! After the show we even got to see a bunch of gun toting criminal types get chased by police. Halifax has half the population of Calgary and we never get to see that kinda action here.
Watching police chases and eating "Halifax Style" donairs weren't our only reasons for coming out this way. Good friend PJ Dunphy from The Monoxides was getting hitched to his long time girl Tanya. We've known PJ since we met the Monoxides the first time in Cleveland a bunch of years back. They're a very cool couple and great friends of the band so we couldn't miss it. We were supposed to play at the actual wedding but whoever was setting that up got drunk and forgot to get the stuff for the show. That was cool with us. We drank all the wine we could steal from the other tables and got teary-eyed when the dads were speaking. It was beautiful.
Great show at the Manhattan after the reception. We had to limit our time due to some technical problems with the p.a. system but it ended up being cool. Can't wait to come back here as well. After we listened to PJ tell stories of how he could light a cigarette with his genitals and other gems. We stayed up all night then went to the airport, sleep and home. Thanks for reading. Till next time, KJ |
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