Sorry, No Clever Play on ‘Sweden’ for This Title. I Tried Using ‘Meatballs’, but it Just Wasn’t Working for Me.
 
While we weren’t watching videos, jamming, or wandering the streets, we caught glimpses of a woman unhealthily obsessed with examining herself in a mirror placed just outside of her front door in various states of undress. At first, I thought she might be checking out a new tattoo, but when Zhu Lei said that he’d seen her spend shifts of ten minutes at the mirror -- going from fully clothed and gloved slowly down to neked -- for the better part of the afternoon, I knew there was something rotten in Sandviken. Suffice it to say that Tommy (I hope that’s his name), who hitched a ride with us to Augustibuller, when asked of the strange woman said “Oh yes. I know about her,” and the silence that followed told us more than we needed to know.
 
Tommy hopped in our van at the crack of dawn today (I write from Lindesberg, the small town which hosts Augustibuller, which you will hear more about in the next missive from the front lines), Friday Aug 4 (which is, again, not the ‘today’ in which you are reading this). We got the heck outta Sandviken at 7.15 this very morning, which explains why, at 10.15pm, I’m struggling to keep my fingers going. That and the waterskiing, but that’s a story for another entry, and day.
On the Road With Subs
Friday, August 4, 2006
Moi moi to Finland, and Hej to Sweden it is... Thus far, Sweden is proving to be, er, interesting, I guess people would say the curse goes. Not one day after hitting these Swedish shores, we discover that our Aug 5 gig is cancelled and that the possible gigs for the 6 and 7 are not going to happen after all. As I type this, there is furious work going on in Goteborg to attempt to put on a show... umm... tomorrow. And here I thought it was only in Beijing that three days notice was enough for a gig. Alas, we await news and you will know somewhat soon after I do, what with the intermittent availability of internet connections and all...
 
The good news: Stockholm kicked pigu. A little joint called Kaffe 44 which, depending on who you ask, either is still the coolest, most activistic, fighting-the-power kinda place, or was until lately. A kafe, with kickin’ cinnamon rolls and many pamphlets and posters and whatnots. The kind of place where you might, if you were listening in on a conversation between a visitor and the owner, hear the boss say, in response to the former’s query about Stockholm, “This town is pretty fascist.”
 
But hidden just beyond the kafe is a small performance room. While we didn’t hit any saunas while in Finland (akin, I’m led to believe, to not seeing the Great Wall on a visit to China, but hey, this is rock and roll!), Kaffe  44 stepped up: A packed room made for a steamy night, and one in which your chronicler decided to try a new photo function: Nightvision (that’s the black/white-type stuff).
Big ups go to Stock-hommie Anton for showing us a good time in the big city. From there, it was on to Sandviken. The experience began on a sour note, with yours truly neglecting to realize that there are, in fact, two different directions one can take any given highway. A mere 50km in the wrong direction later, we were back on the (right) road. Our destination: Backbeatbolaget, a youth centre/venue in the heart of wee Sandviken, a pleasant town around three hours (don’t ask in what direction) from Stockholm.
You can’t sell out stadiums every night, and on this particular night, we had, well, one of those nights. We were told in advance that the crowd might be small, since Augustibuller -- the alt/punk festival that Subs was to play two days after the Sandviken show -- had opened up its camping grounds the night of the show. The show began with two high-energy local acts, who played their hearts out for an intimate audience (including a couple sets of musicians’ parents).
We counted 30-ish people at high tide, and although the photo below may appear to feature a crowd, believe me when I say the room was not half full, in all senses of the words.
Subs gave ‘er nonetheless, and you can be sure that the audience that night got their money’s worth. Big shouts out to the BBB krew, led by Gustav, who make a mean vegan chilli and vegan burgers and broiled ‘taters.
 
Thanks, likely, to the high-protein meal (and the leftovers, which lasted well into day two), there was enough energy left to spend the next day -- an day off in Sandviken -- honing chops (when we weren’t watching videos, that is: Indiana Jones I-III, The Big Lebowski, Mystery Men).