After a leisurely breakfast of coffee and french pastries, we flew out of London on Tuesday 25th from Stanstead airport and up over the lush green fields of Europe soaring down above the fjords into Oslo. The sun was out, the birds were singing, the sky was blue and we sang the Australian national anthem for the Norwegian royal family in excellent angelic three part harmony.

If only this were true. We woke at 4.50 am and after skipping breakfast, stumbled down the stairs of the flat and 'jogged' to King's Cross station, where we caught a bus to Liverpool St. station. It was freezing cold at that time of the morning. We were early for our train, but were convinced by a German woman that the bus to the airport would be quicker. So we raced out back into the cold and just missed the bus. Oh well, we thought, we'll catch another. No. The next bus required a different ticket than ours, so we started to worry and decided to get back on the train as planned. However, this proved to be the beginnings of a shmozzle. We arrived 20 minutes late for a check-in time and had to pay another 150 pounds. That's a lot of money for three lanky greasers from Australia.

After a wonderful five hour wait at Stanstead airport, we boarded the plane to Norway. Having arrived, we caught the bus into Oslo. It ended up taking us nearly an hour and a half from the airport into the city, which is odd because it's a relatively small city and there's only 500,000 people living there.

We were greeted by the lovely Miriam who took us back to her house where she lives with her mother Hannah and her friend Tale (pronounced Tah-leh). Tale is the young lady who generously organised the gig for us. She had seen us in Brisbane earlier this year and had become quite a fan. They live in a flat up a really steep hill that took the wind out of us by the time we got up there. Not far from the house was a huge wood with lakes and winding paths that we walked through before the sun went down.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Tale had prepared a great dinner for us. Meatballs Norwegian style, which went down exceptionally well. She had also baked bread which was very impressive. We then polished off a great deal of Norwegian beer and Italian wine and stumbled off to bed where apparently I floundered around and made some extraordinary attempts at crazy yogic positions in my sleep, much to the amusement of my band mates. According to Kris I was trying remove a tablecloth from a table while sleeping. I think I was cold and it probably seemed like a good idea at the time...

The next day we went off to visit Miriam at work. She works at a kindergarten, so we reckoned it might be fun to go and play some songs for the kids. Well, they were very cute I must say. When we arrived at the station Miriam came to meet us with two tiny Norwegians who were very excited to meet some 'rock 'n rollers' (they had been learning about rock music the day before and were very keen on it). Once we got to the kindergarten (which was a beautiful old farmhouse that had been converted) we sat down and played three or four songs sitting out in the sunshine. The kids were sitting in three rows on the grass, totally agog. It was rather hilarious sitting in front of these little bona-fide under-ages. The size of one of them could have easily fitted into a pint glass. We said goodbye and they were most sad to see us go. I was rather keen on the idea of nicking a couple of them to take back, but I thought better of it.

Then we trundled over to meet Tale at her work. She works for the national broadcaster in both TV and radio and so we met her for lunch at the cafeteria where we all had 'hen stew'. As I was raised surrounded by my father's chooks I thought this was probably 'chicken stew'. And I was right.

Then it was time for the gig. We caught the train down to the venue which is called Muddy Waters and then waited for the PA to get fixed so we could do a sound check. The club was more of a blues venue than anything else, but there were plenty of good-looking Norwegian folk, keen to hear us. Tale and Miriam had brought lots of lovely young cats and chicks down to see us and they were most charming. After a few beers and a few chit-chats it was time to play.

We then delivered two really great sets and pleased the audience no-end. We weren't expecting to play two sets, so the second one ended up being a very loose jam of some originals and covers. The grooves were tight and the audience really got into it. Jan, the manager wants us to return soon with some more music in exchange for more money and accommodation. Everyone was in a really good mood and so it was decided that we should go to a club. We went around the corner to a 'kool' bar and it turned out to be great fun. The Norwegians seem to have a strange way of moving through crowds. We nearly got bowled over several times at the club, just with people wanting to push through. We were followed by our new 'friend' Johannes.

Johannes was a horse trainer who 'broke in' young horses and had recently fallen on hard times. He looked about 70 years of age but was probably only 40. We first saw him outside the station near Muddy Waters wearing a pink leopard skin cowboy hat, asking people for money. Ten minutes later he was in Muddy Waters drinking beers. He saw our whole show and really liked the music. Afterwards he butted in to every conversation we were having and rattled on in a thick Norwegian accent about discotheques in Denmark. He smelled like horse meat and campfires and had a gimlet eye, that glinted when he spoke. At the club he wandered about, collecting cigarette butts that he rolled his own out of and poured half-finished beers into his own pint glass. He invited Tale to 'go somewhere quiet', to which she declined. As oddly as he appeared, he vanished.

We returned back to Miriam's and partied on further, though trying to keep the noise down so we didn't wake up Hannah. After crashing into bed, we woke the next day to part company briefly. Kris and I were off to Berlin and Wally was returning to the land of his birth (Belgium). We said goodbye and then Kris and I had an 80 dollar breakfast. It was good, but boy Norway is expensive.

We made our way to the airport and said goodbye to a very beautiful country.




Tim