Viking surfers, dream women and "The Furry crash Helmets"

Oliver organises things just after the very last minute. It takes me until then to remember my name at festivals and so we get along just fine. He has a truly incredible beard and I have heard several people asking each other what they think he actually looks like underneath it. I was chatting to the German guy next door about it (who looks like a 1970s porn star) and we came to the conclusion that it might not be a beard at all but a furry crash helmet that he puts on in the morning. We also decided that “The Furry Crash Helmets” would be a great name for a band. We also decided to start a rumour that a new band called The Furry Crash Helmets would be playing on the last night of the festival and would then make some story up that they couldn’t make it because of some rock and roll story or other. Here is Oliver anyway, so you can truly appreciate his follicles:

Steve cooked pasta and stuff in jars that we found, sun dried tomatoes and a bean of some description. It tasted all the nicer because we hadn’t eaten anything else and we tottered the forty metres or so down to the bar where the gig was. Obviously we were two hours early so settled in to a table at the back and drank beer. As various festival goers that knew us showed up (Although I had no idea who they were, as usual) they said to us “You guys always have your table” and the suchlike – not bad going seeing as we had only first achieved this the night before but they got the gist of our modus operendi spectacularly well. We do always have a table.

I didn’t catch the name of the first band but later discovered they were called The Vomit Tongues and at first I wasn’t over keen on them. Their sound check had been atrocious but once they got going they were really cool. Young guys rocking out like they were about to start a revolution in 1968. There were a few more Sardinians at the gig (It being Friday night) and they stood out like sore thumbs in Kappa and Reeboks and tried to muscle the PPBowls crowd about a bit but to no avail. When they all backed down we seemed to make a point of talking to their women, which was childish but very funny, particularly as their women wanted to talk to the PPBowls crowd because they were not their Sardinian men.

Then the second band started.

I’d heard that there were some crazy Danes who had driven down in a van but I didn’t expect their driver to be English and to introduce them. He just swanned on stage and said “We’ve got a treat for you now ladies and gentlemen, all the way from Copenhagen – this is (And then he said something utterly unpronounceable to all concerned that went something along the lines of yurrahayyehurllller). They were completely nuts, totally different from the first band and played a choppy, disjointed form of 100mph punk rock that makes no sense whatsoever but is utterly brilliant. I went and found the English guy and we had a “What the f...” conversation as he revealed he was from Burton Latimer – Steve’s home village and they both gave the Burton greeting “Burton for certain” which I had never heard before. He is called Gavin and is driving/tour managing the band who are in fact called Die Hoje Haele which means “High Heels” and is indeed utterly unpronouncable.  The band all look like what would happen if Vikings had given raping and pillaging a rest and instead taken up surfing. Oh here they are, look:

 Seeing as The Makeouts (Swedish) were leaving after the gig we had our new Scandinavian best mates. I like to keep things like this up so we are now also on the look out for some Norwegians for a full set. The last band were snappily titled Acid Baby Jesus and all looked about twelve years old. They were also really good. Sorry I can’t really tell you any more than that because by now Steve and I had got stuck in to the Mirto (The local shot of choice) and things were a bit blurry.

The after party was at Oliver’s place so when the pub emptied out about 2am we all headed up there with the exception (remarkably) of Steve who came home to bed, the lightweight. This left me unsupervised. I should never be left unsupervised. In the early hours of the morning I am only going to either a. Have an argument or b. fall in love with someone so utterly unattainable that the conversation is delightful but with an air of resignation. I chose the latter and spent an hour or so finding out the life history of a truly delightful German girl called Sandra but who I had got it in my head was called Francesca.  Well she looked like a Francesca and it’s my head. Just when things couldn’t get any happier for me she told me she was my neighbour and had travelled down from Lake Konstanz with the guy with the porn star moustache. Lake Konstanz is now my favourite place on Earth that I haven’t been to. The Swiss guys were around but were being their usual demure selves so I never spoke to them. 

We walked back from Oliver’s at Godknowsoclock, drank another bottle of wine with Pornstar moustache bloke and then she fell asleep next to me with her head somehow dropped down to the level of my lap which meant myself and pornstar moustache bloke (I think I’ll call him “PMB” for short now) could make very rude remarks about her and giggle like school children (There were also some beneficial herbs knocking about). I retired to bed around six-ish. It was getting light anyway.