Back from Saffle in Sweden, where Fosca have played the indiepop festival ‘Rip It Up’. I leave my home at 4.30am Saturday, not managing to sleep before that, and get back at about 6.30pm on the Sunday. Hardly seems any time at all, but by the time I fall onto my own bed again, I feel the most tired I’ve been in my life, down to too little sleep and much wandering around carrying heavy bags and instruments on and off trains and buses and planes and taxis.
It goes like this:
4AM Eagle Cabs taxi to a packed Stansted slightly marred by driver who gets our addresses wrong and nearly picks up Baxendale and Taylor Parkes instead, hours of interminable standing in the cattle-like queues getting through the various airport security hoops, 7AM plane to Gothenburg (a two hour flight marred by restless toddlers who either climb over the seats and run amok, or scream their heads off to unholy volumes during take off and landing), unforeseen taxi to the rail station instead of the bus due to our chasing up Ryan Air’s luggage folly (of which more later), kill three hours at Gothenburg station thinking we could go for a walk through the city if we didn’t have the heavy bags and instruments, take a two-hour train journey to Saffle (marred by two giggling twelve-year-old blond girls guzzling sweets and fizzy drinks endlessly, punctuated by them stomping about the aisle for no apparent reason, much like the airplane toddler), meet the refreshingly boyish and gentle promoters at Saffle station, get driven to our bedrooms (empty flats in town, in fact) rest (thank god), get driven to the festival at about 5PM, loaf around the festival enjoying the company of cute young Swedish indie fans, sit around drinking and eating but feeling a little at the mercy of the language barrier, see a few of the other bands, meet a few old friends (Hullo Kasper), gingerly greet boozy old indie legends (hullo Dan Treacy, good to see you’re still about, glad you’re out of prison, but do mind the saliva on my suit, sir), play the gig, wait till we can be driven back to the flats, get some sleep (thank god again!), up at 8.30AM, get driven to the station for a 9AM train, enjoy things getting a bit smoother on the way back, have to kill an hour and a half at Gothenburg airport, which has a bar but doesn’t accept pounds and we’re out of Swedish Crowns, enjoy browsing its moose-related gift shop, but am hypocritically appalled to see it also sells real hunks of moose meat to take home, along with steaks of elk and reindeer; take the flight back to Stansted (another baby screaming its very life out on the bumpy take-off and landing), am reminded it’s a Sunday in England and so the Stansted Express train is delayed due to engineering works, take the tube from Liverpool Street to Highgate, also infrequent due to it being a Sunday.
Was it all worth it, for 45 minutes onstage, for expenses only, as the festival is run by fans and they have to spend a fortune on said travel and accommodation as it is? Yes. Just. The getting there, the nuts and bolts, I can do without. The gig itself is always worth it, singing one’s own words, playing one’s own music, making strangers dance and be happy. I Google the gig, and find some Swedish bloggers writing that they loved us, hadn’t been aware of us before, and who had immediately gone on iTunes and bought our albums as a result. So yes, it was worth it.
Here’s some video clips from David Hill, Rachel’s partner, who was frequently forced to take the tour manager role throughout the trip, and who did so without a word of complaint. Having someone with the band who’s not IN the band is so important to one’s physical and mental well-being, particularly for a group of fragile and sleep-deprived English people with very different lives outside the music we make together. And he helped to carry our instruments. We owe him. Thank you, David:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fosca+rip+it+up&search=
