Tomorrow I will take JJ under the arm and do some high time, late night walkabout in Uppsala – my hometown! Uppsala is perhaps not the hottest town on earth but nevertheless, fun it will be! If we are lucky Michael will join us! Marcus is about 600 km away. But he is still young and pretty fast so you never know!
Anyway, we will hang in the pubs, checking some local bands and talk with people you met 100 yeas ago! All in all it sounds like a brilliant evening! And talking about hot Cities… I have had the privilege to see a lot of them when touring The Flower Kings and others.
New York City, Barcelona, Tokyo, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, London , Oslo, Caracas, Los Angeles, Moscow, Nicosia, Helsinki, Budapest, Rome, Madrid, Quebec, Chicago, Santiago de Chile, Amsterdam, Thule (that is NOT a hot City!), St. Petersburg, Tartu, Milano, Vienna, Copenhagen, Montreal, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Glasgow and many, many more.
And there are some stories:)
The forgotten maracas!
The 1st of December 2000 The Flower Kings landed in Santiago de Chile. It had been a long, never ending flight from Europe. My legs felt numb, and there was an on-going, slow burning “fire” in almost every part of my body.
The first thing we always did when landing a new territory was to check the language reserve. Normally we could speak English but also Strassen Deutch, Fake Dutch and Vulgar French. It sounded like a language stew, a total mess of words and a mishmash of expressions. The most important element was; “The language melody”. As long as it sounded a little bit like the right tune it was quite ok! Now, the band drummer at this time was Jaime Salazar. He was BORN in Chile! Perfect! So here we landed in this new country totally prepared for everything! This was going to be a great day!
We did some TV interviews (Jaime did and the interviewer called us "The Flower Skins). The jetlag was of course a fact, but I've never had problems going west. It was just a longer day. And talking about long….The Flower Kings sound checks! The band always made extremely long sound checks. It felt more like rehearsing!
Anyway,I remember the gig was great fun and I was surprised by the look of the South American fans! I mean in Europe and US the fans often wear an old t-shirt saying “YES -79” and “Genesis -76”! And we mustn’t forget the “Pink Floyd -81” t-shirt! In South America people dress up in nice suits and stuff!
After the gig Jamie’s cousin and friends came backstage. “Nice meeting you too” and tons of cheek kisses! Great fun and where is the party?? Santiago is a huge City (5.7 million) with a never ending nightlife. We decided to go to a club, a dance club! Oh yeah….
So here I am in this club surrounded by well dressed, sexy Latinos. Ok, what I should have known was that “Dance Club” in South America really means “Salsa Club”! If you ever seen a couple of salsa dancers then you know, you can't fake it! I mean you need to learn how to dance salsa. The salsa culture is tight and sexy and and has nothing in common with progressive rock! So what to do? Should I say; “Oh sorry I don't dance? “Oh no it's been a long day”, “Damn, I got this pain in my foot”, “Sorry, No hablas Espanol”…..
I wanted to dance but then again what kind of dance?? In Sweden we have this Polka and Hambo which would a truly disaster in this club! Desperately I tried to come up with something! Then I remembered I saw Roger Moore in a movie. I'm not sure if it was a Bond movie … but I remember his dance! I always thought Mr Moore was rather stiff in his characters. And so he was as a dancer!
We can call it the “Forgotten Maracas” and this is how to do:
Place your feet securely on the floor. Move them not too much, try to follow the rhythm. Put your hands in front of your face. Pretend that you hold on to a pair of maracas. You should now be able to see your thumb. Slowly move them a bit to the right. Now listen to the rhythm and start to shake. Not too fast, think stiff, be cool!. Four shakes on the right, four on the left. I think you get the picture by now!
Tomorrow I WILL take JJ under the arm and do some high time, late night walkabout in Uppsala – my hometown! Uppsala is perhaps not the hottest town on earth but nevertheless, fun it will be!
Tomas