Chris just handed me a long-lost John Lee Hooker album...there are fresh bills being burned on the fire and I'm surrounded by mess. This is the aftermath of returning from Wacken festival with the Circus of Horrors this morning and having to go to Albania with Tankus the Henge tomorrow morning.
After becoming accustomed to spending what seems like every weekend for two months in a tent, which is basically a human basting-bag, and emerging dripping with sweat AGAIN after a snatched four hour sleep, with booming bass from three different stages almost on top of your head, the prospect of actually staying in a hotel for our shows in Albania is a welcoming one.
I would write about every festival we've been to but they've all been smashed together by the rolling pin of rock. One that stands out in my memory is the accordion attacking me at the end of Asylum, at Larmer Tree. I ended up falling over backwards with a bleeding mouth, it all adds to the show. The stage invasion by redheaded girls at Latitude was pretty good, and the stage invasion by anyone and everyone at Secret Garden was fantastic. Smuggling about thirty bottles of beer into SGP in an empty guitar case, watching an airship get blown skyhigh and meeting some amazing, fascinating people will not be forgotten in a long time.
We have two more festivals to go, Beautiful Days in Devon (21st of August) and Bestival (11th September).
Before then, though, we're off to Albania again.
Wednesday 11th August - TIRANA (Rogner Hotel) 8pm
Thursday 12 August - SARANDA (8pm)
Friday 13 August - VLORES (8pm)
Saturday 14 August - DURRESI (8pm)
Sunday 15 August - KORCA (8pm)
If the last excursion to Albania is anything to go by, bearing in mind most people we met go ballistic at the sound of a polka, and don't pay to get their roads fixed, ever, it's going to be fun. Albania, we love you. And your roads.
Jaz
