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August 14th 2004
Up in time for breakfast. The mist from the sea
had travelled up the fjord and was covering most of the mountains. A
hard view to explain and I forgot my camera too but I’ll be sending
Rod some pictures anyway.
This was the first time Klaksvik had staged a
festival but, in general terms, one hardly noticed. The organisation
was enthusiastic and energetic and their lack of experience only
showed in a few deatiled areas. We headed for town to do some window
shopping before we got to the stage for sound check. This was a bit
chaotic but we got it done and the show started on time at 3pm with
some entertainment for kids, then some local folk music. I couldn’t
understand what they were singing about but it was probably fish!!
There is so much local legend dating from the middle ages and before
and there are literally tens of thousands of verses and rhymes most
of which have been passed down through the generations and which
were only written down a couple of hundred years ago when the
language was first established! I of course was singing in English
(I had only recently realised that some of my songs have a lot of
words in them!!) and the sound on stage was quite good so we were
basically happy…… except… … some of the equipment was being shared
and that’s usually a recipe for disaster!! We did what we could to
avoid too much changing and left for dinner, fingers firmly crossed.
We would have 45 minutes before our show to adjust things so we made
a plan and left it at that so we could enjoy the local brews and
some excellent lobster, salmon and cod accompanied by more of their
wonderful hospitality. I was again reminded how lucky I am to have a
bunch of guys with me who are respectful and polite, an appropriate
response to such kindness and it made for a very friendly and genial
atmosphere in which to spend a couple of days.
Archie had become
our friend very quickly and he invited us to his house after lunch.
I wanted to see some of his art and he and his wife wanted us to
sample some local delicacies so we tasted dried whale meat, dried
cod and whale blubber among other things. It’s a grand privilege to
be invited into someone’s house no matter where you are
or who it is so we were very appreciative of this time but we had to
run as it was time for us to get ready for the show.
They estimated there were about 3000 people and
they had come from all over the islands so it was a strong and
enthusiastic crowd that were up from the very beginning and going
nuts by the time we hit our final song, Lady in Black. The sound on
stage was awful. The monitors had changed totally and we couldn’t
get them back no matter what signs we made to the engineer so we
just went for it! Stephan had done a great job out front and you
only had to see the audience reaction to know that!! Everyone had a
great, great time and I really enjoyed myself. The random, surprise
pyrotechnics made the stage experience even more interesting and I
would think that, by the time they run their next festival this will
be an event not to be missed.
But now I was really tired and all I could think
about was grabbing a few hours sleep before we started the long
journey home.
A great experience in a great place and with
great people. To the band, Tommy, Alvaro and Fabian, to Stephan for
stepping in to run sound, to Archie, Eli, “Winterbottom”, Eydun and
all the wonderful people we met I can only say a heartfelt thank
you!! I hope you’ll invite us again sometime.
God bless,
Ken
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