...until it was Saturday (22/11/03) and time to come back. Which we did, but not soon enough even though we tried, because the Strange Fruit people cheated and Action Biker went on stage a little earlier than 7 pm, thus causing me to miss ‘Heartbreak’! I was gutted by that fact and there are rumours that want me walking around afterwards, looking at the floor and mumbling things like ‘all the way from Greece’ and ‘my favourite song’ and ‘goodness knows when I’ll see her again’.
On retrospect, I would have been better off concentrating on more positive aspects of her performance. Its loveliness, for example, or its charm – with Sarah on her own on stage singing along to a recorded instrumental version of her songs, you’d think it would be boring, but it wasn’t. I’m not sure what made the difference, maybe the fact that the girl can sing, or the ease with which she danced on her own on the empty stage among all sorts of instruments belonging to Bearsuit as if no one was watching, but anyway – something must have done, because the songs you said sound silly the first one hundred times suddenly made sense and I fell for them. Especially the last one (‘Farrah’) with the line ‘somedays I wonder, what are you doing, what are you wearing, what would you say if I would meet you again, what would you do’. I have a thing for last songs, it seems.
Photo courtesy of Bob Stuart of Underexposed.org.uk
Bearsuit were yet another band that I thought I’d hate. And guess what? I fell in love with them. I wonder how I could ever have disliked them – they look so sweet, smile so brightly and most of all they’re loads of fun! They make the most charming songs out of all sorts of noise and nonsense and they seem to be enjoying themselves immensely in the process and soon I was caught up in it, finding every little thing they did perfect – the addition of a trumpet here, a bit of screaming there -, standing wide-eyed to the greatness of it all. I knew none of their songs, which only worked in their favour, as it prevented me of thinking ‘oh no’ whenever a new song started. Stand-outs would include ‘Tiny Barnes’ and ‘Rodent Disco’.
It all went a bit downhill after that – compared to Bearsuit, Airport Girl seemed like a ordinary, normally structured band with a guitarist, a bass player, a keyboard player and drummer, where people don’t scream their hearts out, don’t sing nonsense phrases and seem to prefer playing their instruments to using them to make curious noises. Now a lot of people would find that a damn good thing, but not me – I just found it fairly boring. This impression was reinforced by the fact that their sound is guitar-orientated, English, with longish, slowish songs, not my sort of thing at all.
That said, however, I discovered I have a hard time disliking music that has affected my life in some way or other, or, at least, indiepop that has affected my life in some way or other, and to make up for finding Airport Girl’s set boring, I had “Striking out on your own" on my mind for half of Monday morning.
Just as the Spearmint set started, I wandered off just to bump into a friend I haven’t seen for a year and a half... Naturally I have not much to say about them either. Except maybe that they seemed to make some people quite excited and happy. When they left the stage, I squeezed my way back to the front and waiting for Ballboy to come on and play something exciting.
Which, indeed, was what they did. They opened with a slightly too rock version of ‘Avant garde music’, followed by a slightly too rock but quite exciting nonetheless version of “Donald in the bushes with a bag of glue", and there isn’t much point in me going on, is there? Ballboy are just a bit too rock for my liking, but it was a good set, exciting and heart-warming; and there was a feeling in the air and on people’s faces as they gathered expectantly round the stage, that that was what everyone had been waiting for the whole time.
Photo courtesy of Bob Stuart of Underexposed.org.uk
And the last song - well, the last song was one of the best things I’ve seen in my life. It was past 11 pm, and we weren’t allowed to make any more noise but Ballboy wanted to play all night, so Paul Strange Fruit made a speech about this being their last gig, asking us to shout ‘tossers!’ three times and then to keep quiet, so we could all hear Gordon sing once he had he switched off the amps and mic. Then, Gordon walked to the front of the stage to sing an acoustic ‘Dumper truck racing’ to an audience that was holding its breath.
On the opposite side of the stage from me, the Strange Fruit People were crying. I stared in deep awe at both them and Gordon and I wanted to cry too because it was that sort of moment, that sort of a song. A song about being together, making your dreams come true and how the future will triumph over the past.
And one day everything will be all right, forever.
Love and London,
Dimitra Daisy
xxx
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You shouldn't be interested in this, but in case you are, here it goes - the namedropper's guide to who I met on my holidays: Rachel is Rachel Queen of the Friends of the Heroes. The Pipas Girl is Lupe Nunez-Fernandez, and I didn’t quite meet her, she just sat at the next table. The people from Sweden who I know from bands are mostly Free Loan Investments, especially Roger, but also Leo from the Fermats & Corduroy Utd.! The people from Scotland that I know from mailing lists are Ally and Lucy, even though Lucy typically isn't from Scotland at all. The same applies to Mandee and Stevie. The mailing list & the chatroom are Sinister and #Sinister. The boy from the Philipines is Jef Jacob (bless him). The restaurant is called Nando’s Chickenland and the dark and wet street's name is Uxbridge Road. Finally, you are Nick Paschalis and I am Dimitra Daisy... |
| This article was originally page two in the 58th issue of the Friends of the Heroes. Go to the current issue or the archive index |