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Fahrvergnügen

Summer Festivals 99, Part 2

Belfast

June 28

We played isolated shows here-and-there on days between festivals.

Ducking to Belfast gave me a chance to visit Ian again. We stayed at the Europa, “the most bombed hotel in the world,” but The Troubles had officially ended the year before, we were pretty sure we wouldn’t explode.

That night, the opening band cancelled for some reason, so our opening act became…me. I had a solo show in London coming up, seemed like a good idea to get some practice.

Three days before, we’d played for 100,000 people, but that was stage left on keyboard as part of a six piece. As singer with just guitar, had I ever even played to 100 people?

The BBC was recording us that night, they decided to record me too. I peeked into their truck parked outside, it looked like a NASA control room.

“Okay, we’re ready, let’s do it,” they said.

One of the guys from the BBC went onstage, introduced me as I came out. Holy shit, there were suddenly over 500 people cheering for me.

I opened my set playing Oh Susannah on accordion. Thinking about it now, this seems suicidal. Amazingly the crowd was into it. After that I switched to guitar, mostly, played five or six more songs, half originals, half covers.

Most of the audience stuck with me, but the noise from the bar grew in intensity. Mercury Rev was so insanely loud that people could chatter and clink bottles all they wanted, we would always drown them out. Playing on my own, bar noise was something I was about to have to get used to.

At some point, a girl in the audience called out, “Play My Lovely Horse!”

Having spent enough time watching the tele in the UK, I was able to call back that I loved Father Ted but, sadly, did not know the words to My Lovely Horse (season 2, episode 5, Ted and Dougal try out for the Eurovision Song Contest.)

We played a good show that night, really great audience.

Afterwards as I was ducking to the bus, a couple of people stopped to talk with me, including the girl who had called out the request. She took out a pen and wrote down the lyrics.

“There isn’t actually such a thing as a horse dentist,” she wanted me to know.

It was pretty common for me to get stopped by a few people after a show, but that night in Belfast, when I looked up, I realized I was suddenly surrounded by fifty people. That was a little weird.

“I’ll learn My Lovely Horse by the next time I play Ireland,” I promised the girl.

And I did.

—

Werchter Festival, Belgium

July 2

All European festivals have the feel of a medieval village when you first enter them, including the muck and mire. Werchter Festival was neat and organized from the get-go, with industrial rubber matting for the buses to park on, so you didn’t immediately sink up to your knees in mud.

Beautiful site with trees everywhere. I liked the backstage area immediately. Pressure-treated wooden decking, a sunny tent for a central gazebo, modular units for each band arranged like cottages, nice furniture in the dressing rooms though we spent most of our time outside.

No soundcheck per se, but we got to noodle on our instruments for a while. After the rest of the band went to get something to eat, I hung onstage and asked to be turned up in the mains just so I could hear what my keyboard sounded like in isolation when I played REALLY BIG.

For the heck of it, I took the mic to see what my voice would sound like REALLY BIG too. It was early, there weren’t any concert goers there yet. I made up some impressionistic poems and recited them to the trees.

I re-joined my bandmates in catering afterwards.

“I just tried out the PA system,” I said.

“Yeah, we heard.”

Other bands started arriving, including Pavement who we hadn’t really seen since we’d toured with them a few years back. The big new was that Bob the percussionist had bought a race horse, a large percentage of it, anyway. Malkmus went in on it too.

We played first, not too many people yet, so I could just relax, enjoy the beautiful day. Two Japanese people in the audience kept waving at me. Had I met them in Japan? I didn’t really recognize them. I waved back.

Later on I watched Blur play. They looked completely different than I imagined they did. Then I realized I’d been confusing them with Pulp. Another British band with four letters.

—

Roskilde Festival, Denmark

July 4

I’ve always loved Lego blocks, but there was something totalitarian about a full-scale village made of them, which is what the complex where we were staying felt like.

“What is this place?” I asked a woman, when I finally found another human being walking around besides me.

She explained we were in suburban Copenhagen and that this was a business area, which was why it was desolate over the weekend. I tried picturing it crowded during the workweek. With smiling Lego People.

Driving over to the festival, someone told me today was the day Nostradamus predicted would be the end of the world. I hoped it corresponded with the end of our show. That would be a good effect.

One of the wonderful things about Roskilde is it’s a family festival, people bring their kids here. They must’ve given out some sort of prizes or incentives to pick up recycling and trash, there were kids hustling everywhere with plastic garbage bags, the place was spotless.

This was the first time I cut an interview short, Blondie was playing and I needed to see them. One Way Or Another is one of my favorite songs ever. They played Call Me after that, which made me want to get that Armani suit I’d been dreaming about since 1980.

Sophie from V2 and I went to see Al Green, appropriately enough performing in the Green Tent. At the end of Take Me to the River, Reverend Al asked the entire audience if we accepted Jesus as our personal savior. Sophie and I both raised our hands.

“You can’t be afraid to be involved,” Sophie said.

Most of the rest of the audience raised their hands too. Maybe not all of them spoke English.

Later that day, I was sitting alone in the dressing room writing out set lists when in walks Ian McCulloch. He seemed to remember me from that night at Brixton Academy.

“Hello,” he said, shaking my hand. Then, “Do you happen to have any aspirin?”

Having become prone to decibel-induced migraines, I did happen to have some, and gladly gave him a few.

He and Will Sergeant and their manager took chairs and sat there with me while I continued writing set lists. Like, it had become completely normal to hang out with Echo and the Bunnymen?

Checking out of our hotel, I recognized Al Green’s band across the lobby. They seemed to be staring at me.

“Where you from?” the one guy finally asked me.

“New York,” I told him.

“We thought so,” he said, “we didn’t think you were part of all this Fahrvergnügen.”

Fahrvergnügen was being used in a Volkswagen campaign around that time. It was German for something like driving pleasure.

We weren’t actually in Germany, we were in Denmark.

But I knew what he meant.

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