Being a musician my whole life has taken me to places that some folks only dream about. But the place I just came from, Norway, was never even a tickle of a thought from the wish-center of my brain. It should have been.
Norway is one of the cleanest countries I’ve ever visited, right up there with Switzerland. Not only was the airport clean when we landed in Trondheim, but the streets were clean, the air was clean, and even the light seemed clean. One affect that surprised even a big time world traveler like me (yawn) was the absence of any and all allergy symptoms I eternally suffer in Tennessee. Not a sniffle. No coughing. No congestion. No sinus headache. No nothing.
None of us had ever been to a country that stayed light all the time until August. I had no warning of this occurrence, and neither did anyone else in our group, so everyone was projecting how it was going to affect our body-clocks. Would we be able to sleep? Would we even get tired? Would we know when to wake up? Would we indeed wake up. The conversation on the bus was humming. Well, the excitement was almost too much. I fell asleep.
After our flight into Trondheim we were herded onto that bus going north to Sandennjuen. That’s where the two day festival was taking place. It was a 6 hour ride, which turned into an almost 10 hour ride because the driver had to stop every 45 minutes, according to the laws of commercial transport in Norway. Talk about a slow lifestyle. Norway makes our good-ole-boy southern ways look outright New Yorkish.
I didn’t mind the drive too much, even if it was a bit long. The bus was a big one and there were only 10 of us on it, so there was plenty of room. The windows were huge, the scenery was new and exciting, and I had my camera at the ready for most of the ride. The road was winding along the coast and the bus pitched back and forth as we sped along our route. Oncoming trucks loomed large as they approached us from the distance. I could swear we were going to head-on one of these giants, but we barely missed each other each time and we merrily wended on our way, white knuckles and all.
Our driver, Mort, was a great guy who, as I found out later, is a really good singer. He pointed out points of interest as we rode, there was lots of beer in the cooler…some kind of Norwegian beer which had an interesting flavor unlike any other brews I’ve had before. There was soda and water, too. It’s a good thing we stopped every 45 minutes because that beer went through me like a hot poker through a kleenex. But when we did stop there was such a crowd to get into the bathroom that I wound up going into the woods every time. I never saw a Norwegian bathroom until we hit the hotel in Sandnessjuen.
Traveling with musicians can be a sticky situation. I’ve been on trips where I just wanted to hide my head somewhere until it was all over because of the actions of a few immature individuals, and/or AH’s. But everyone involved here was a professional, had extensive travel chops, and knew how to get along with the group and the locals without pissing anyone off. I was grateful for that. It had a profound affect on my enjoyment of this whirlwind trip.
If you read my previous blog on my lost bags you’ll know that I had no clean clothes to get into by the time we got to Sandennjuen. The hotel assured me that this sort of thing happens on a regular basis and that I’d have my bag by tomorrow morning. Wrong. It was more like around noon when I got it. But, I GOT IT. That’s what’s important. Not only to me but to everyone around me. Back to the shower and into some clean clothes. Ahhh! YES!
We had a mini-concert to do in the middle of town that Friday afternoon; sort of a primer for the big festival that night. They had a large stage set up with PA, amps, drums, keyboards, etc. and we started playing around 1:00PM. We did 5 tunes, everyone else did their schtick, and we had the rest of the day to explore, eat, rest, and whatever we wanted.
Sandennjuen is right on the North Sea so there were lots of boats and gulls and all kinds of marine activity going on. I’ve always loved the ocean and boats and I couldn’t stop taking pix of anything that looked even remotely interesting to me. There were also lots of students backpacking their way across Europe with some of the biggest backpacks I’ve ever seen. One girl looked like she was bringing her Steinway along. The pack was literally larger than she was. Ferries dropped off people and cars, picked them up and took them away, and the cycle went on throughout the day.
In this remote (at least to me) part of the world the last thing I expected to see was a large American car. Then I saw it. The Mustang looked out of place amongst all the smaller European sedans and wagons. But the real winner in this race was the 1962 Cadillac convertible. What a boat, in pristine shape. I don’t know who had it but they must have been very wealthy.
From what some of the locals told me, Norway is really a very wealthy country. As in many European countries there is no tipping in bars and restaurants. The workers are paid a decent wage and they’re happy to do their jobs, it seems. A lot of their money goes into taxes which pays for social services, including national health care. But they don’t mind, according to some of the folks I spoke with. They can go to the doctor anytime for free, they have free education including university, and child care, etc. etc. I’m not saying this is the way for us here in America to go. But when someone tells me that this sort of thing doesn’t work I have to wonder just who it is they’re referring to. Yeah, it’s expensive. But what isn’t?
The festival on Friday night was a bust. There were only maybe 150 people there. We played, the rest of the troupe played, and we went back to town to a bar to have a beer or two. It was 2:00AM and still light. What a country.
The next day, after eating the delicious buffet the hotel set out every morning and evening, I walked the entire town, back and forth. There are maybe 7,000 people living there. It was a beautiful day, with time to look around, eat a little pizza (VERY good), have some espresso, and get ready for the evening shebang. That night we did two shows and the festival had picked up steam by then. There were probably 1,500 who showed up and had a great time. They loved the country music and were happy to buy our CD’s and get autographs. That was our last night in Sandennjuen. The next morning we would have to pack, get out of the hotel, and leave, via boat, to go to the next town 3 1/2 hours down the coast to play at a club the promoter had booked us in. It was sort of an add-on to the tour, but it also added some bucks to our wallets so we went along with it.
The boat ride was spectacular. The weather cooperated and I took a million pix. Even the food on the boat was great. Norway is big on buffets, and the boat’s buffet was just as good as our hotel buffet. By the time we docked I was ready for our clean-up rooms at the hotel, and a nap to prepare for the two sets we had to play that night.
The guy from the club greeted us at the dock and walked us to the club, which was a block off the wharf. We took our stuff up the stairs and checked out the small club’s sound system. No drums, yet. The owner informed us we would not have hotel clean-up rooms, but that his partner had made room in her basement apartment for us to shower and nap. Okay, I’ll buy that. Let’s get there. So we crammed into a Toyota cab, the same one he said was going to take us to Trondheim after the gig. We could hardly fit in the cab, even without Dave’s upright bass. No way will we go to Trondheim in this car.
So we showered and rested as best we could. They came to pick us up and take us to the club where “a meal fit for a king” was awaiting us. Well, a burger king. It was a hamburger large enough to wear as a hat, with fries and tomatoes on the side. They love tomatoes in Norway.
Asking the club owner if he’s expecting a crowd he shrugged his shoulders and said who knows? He told us he did radio advertising, newspaper, and flyers all over the town. But this will be the first time they ever had music on a Sunday in that club. Oh boy.
After we ate and got a small sound check it was time to play. “Open the doors,” I yelled in mock fanfare. But they had been open. It’s just that nobody was coming through them. By the time we had played about 20 minutes there was a total of 8 people in the club. By the time we were done with our second set two hours later there were maybe 12 people. The weird thing is that they all loved the band and most of them bought our CD. Who’da thunk it?
The club probably lost its proverbial shirt, but they liked us so much they asked us if we would come back next year. Actually, that may happen. The promoter of the festival has already extended us an invitation to return. But that’s a long way off.
No time after the gig for a shower. We had to pack up and jam ourselves and our stuff into the VW van that replaced the useless taxi for the 6 hour ride back to Trondheim so we could catch our plane to Oslo, then on to Philly, and home.
Mind you, we hadn’t showered since before the gig, then we got real sweaty playing, then packed up and rode 6 hours to the airport. Needless to say we were a bit ripe by the time we got on that flight. I was walking around the airport in big circles just trying to stay upwind from myself. By the time we got to Oslo and boarded that plane I could have been arrested for being a weapon of mass miasma. I felt sorry for the couple sitting next to me on that flight. By God’s grace I had a window seat. I was so tired I wrapped myself in a blanket, leaned up against the fuselage, and didn’t wake up until we were an hour from Philly. Thank you, lord.
By the time I got home even JJ, our trusty hound, had to circle me a few times before trying to lift his leg on me. Kiki, our cat, ran the other way. Connie should have taken me outside to hose me down, but she was her loving self, held her nose, and pointed in the direction of the shower. I don’t think I’ve ever loved a shower more than at that moment.
Thus ends the saga. An experience I won’t ever forget. And neither will the people in 17 A and B who were seated next to me. Sorry, guys.
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