"Teaching Ducks To Swim"
Norwegian is a good airline although you still have to be careful when you
choose the day you want to fly on!! A lot of Norwegian people and families
live or have holiday homes on the Costa Blanca so the Alicante airport is
popular with them…. and their rug rats! Actually, "seat climbers" would be
a better term.
I've sussed it out now though… they mainly book seats on the right side of
the plane. I don't know why…. They just do!
Airline rules are okay. Most of them are necessary and a lot of them are
safety related. The problem for me is that they are applied so
inconsistently. How can it be okay for me to carry on a small guitar and a
small personal bag going one way and not okay coming back? No… it's not a
"load factor" thing either! It goes much deeper than that….
After a brief discussion during which the flight attendant chose to remind me
that "it's one piece of carry-on luggage per passenger", even though I had
cleared the scrutiny of the check-in agent, I returned to her and offered her my
little bag so she could consign it to the hold. We both knew this was
totally unnecessary and would consume a lot of time and eventually she said (and
here's the interesting psychological part) "it´s okay now, the flight's not full
and I have space in the overhead compartment". Hmmm…. "I have space…." so
now it was her aeroplane! Mike Taylor's great flight attendant joke sums
it up too perfectly.
I probably should have started writing this at the beginning of the trip because
I was in a far better mood and far better health then.
I left home feeling about 60% recovered from the flu that had flattened me two
weeks ago but the trip only made it worse and so I am on my way home now, hoping
that 3 days off will make a difference but knowing it probably won't. It's
the kind of bug that weakens you so much that, even when your health has
improved, your physical strength needs further time to recuperate.
And this affected everything… especially the show! The Sweden Rock
festival is one of the most prestigious in the world of festivals and, because I
know it's the last time I will play there, I considered it an honour to have
been asked.
The weather was great, the huge crowd sang and had a great time, everyone said
the standard nice things but for me it was garbage! For me the show was
totally "compromised" before it even started and problems with the organ at two
points during the show only made it worse. So… the least said the better!
Setlist:
- Intro
- You´Ve Got It
- Look At Yourself
- Just The Beginning
- Circle Of Hands
- July Morning
- Free Me
- The Wizard
- Hanging Tree
- Free ´N Easy
- We´Re On Our Way
- The Last Dance
- Fill Your Head (With Rock)
- Stealin’
- Easy Living
- Lady In Black
**********************
- Gypsy
I normally enjoy every single aspect of the "band travelling" thing but my
physical condition made it impossible to enjoy anything.
I was far too busy feeling sorry for myself !!
From Johannes…..
“Hello Ken
Just wanted to say thanks for everything and I hope you all had a good time at
the festival.
I only had time to see a few songs but it was fantastic... I mean really
fantastic!!
Your friend
Johannes"
Sweden Rock broke records this year: 33,200 people attended the festival per day!!
This was the biggest number for a music festival in Sweden... ever! Last
year the average was 29,000 people per day. Ticket buyers came from 42
different countries and there were 580 journalists from 28 different countries
covering the festival.
From
Jenny Persson....
"I came home from my first Sweden Rock Festival (4-7 June) ever late yesterday
evening. I'm very tired after spending hours on trains yesterday and before that
4 days of hot and sunny weather, cold nights in a tent, late nights and early
mornings, chafed feet, lots of beer and even more metal and rock. The festival
was great and the atmosphere was the best possible. I
heard it was 30 000 people there. As far as I know there were no fights or any
bad things except that a few people had to be taken care of as they'd been
drinking too much. I saw many bands but one of the real highlights for me was
of course Hensley/Lawton & Live Fire. They were one of the reasons I
decided to go. So great to see them again! As they were going to sign records I
took the opportunity to meet Ken and John a couple of hours before their gig
and had a nice but short chat with John. Such a lovely guy (as always)!
The gig started at 18.15/ 6.15 PM on Saturday, the last day of the festival.
What a great performance! Fantastic! I liked all bands I saw but this was easily
the best! Ken and John were as always good on stage. Eirikur Hauksson doesn't
only sing good, he's good and entertaining on stage as well. I was very
impressed. He treated the old Heep songs well and I doubt
anyone can complain. I've never seen him live before but to me it sounded like
he really did a great job with those old songs. He has a nice rock voice and
the combination of him and John is very good as they both know how to sing with
power, something they both did this evening. Ken seemed very pleased with the
response from the audience. Many people around me did as I did: sang along and
if not headbanging at least moving to the music. It was
easy to see both those on stage as well as those in front of it had a great
time. When Ken was going to play the guitar and Eirikur sat down at the
keyboards, Ken made a joke about it saying that Eirikur was going to try and
play the synthesizer. When John asked the girls to sing you heard there were not
that many there compared to the guys. When he asked those "in between" to sing
some in the audience did and he laughed. I believe some in the audience did as
well.
It was a big crowd and as I was just in front of the stage I took some pictures.
Even a couple of the security guys enjoyed the music as we didn't cause them any
problems. This was the only time during the whole festival I saw them enjoying
the music and not concentrate on the audience, giving us water or just make sure
everyone was okay. The audience sang every song and
it was a wonderful feeling to stand there and see Ken, John and Eirikur (and the
rest of the band) and sing together with them and everyone else that was there.
The encore was of course Lady In Black (and then Gypsy) and the audience started
to sing "Aaahaa" before the band came back on stage again. When they did, Ken
joked and said something like: "No, it's not that song". Of course no one
believed him, least of all cared to listen. Needless
to say they left some parts of the song to us to sing alone (not only the chorus),
just stopped singing and listened to us for a while before they joined us.
The set consisted of Heep classics and a few songs from BotH. Ken had some
problems with the keyboard a couple of times. It seemed to be easy to solve as
it never took long time before you could hear him again but you could see he
wasn't that happy about it. Still it was a great show, more of a nice rock party
than a band on a stage with an audience in front of it. To see that so many
people had come to listen to them made me very glad. I'd never expected that.
Great for them and great for me as a fan. I didn't take notes of who sang which
song but on some songs both Eirikur and John or Ken sang. With so many people
singing all the songs it must have been a great feeling for them to be at the
festival and I think they left the whole audience feeling it was worth the
ticket price just to see them. That was how great
they were.
Jenny"
I think the only time I really felt good was at 06:30 on June 7th when I looked
out of my window and saw a mother duck taking her chicks into the swimming pool
and teaching them how to swim. They did two laps, climbed out of the pool
and waddled off into the distance…… THAT made me smile!
God bless,
Ken
<><
June 9th 2008
