Oct 8th: Flying To Norway
Flying is the quick and easy way to get places, but no one reminds you about the hassle of getting to and from the airport.
We’ve got to get someone to drive us into Oxford, then get on the bus from there to Gatwick, which is actually the easiest way to get there for us. We’re not really carrying enough gear to warrant having someone take us directly to the airport.
As usual, within 30 seconds of the plane starting down the runway I’m already asleep, a talent I picked up a few years ago and have honed to almost perfection. Hitting the tarmac on the other end is what wakes me up, a two-hour powernap makes me feel all the better.
There’s a slight delay at the airport as one of the customs sniffer dogs takes a liking to Martin. I have to say at this point there really is no reason for it to, but it has. Maybe it’s trained to sniff out Scousers? Anyway, he gets pulled to one side as we walk through, as he does I swear I can see the customs man pulling on some rubber gloves and smiling.
It’s almost an hour later before we get him back. There really was no reason for the search, and, of course, they didn’t find anything. Apparently they were so convinced they wanted to take him to the local hospital for a complete internal search! Now that doesn’t sound like it’d be much fun.
Bergen Skyline
We get to the hotel to meet Omund, the guy who’s booked these shows, and who’s looking after us for the first one. He’s a nice guy, takes us to somewhere to drink … oh yes, drinking again. He points out to me that all the time I’ve been emailing him, I’ve been calling him Ormund, when there’s no R in it. He’s not
that pissed off; well, I don’t think he is.
Oct 9th: Huelen – Bergen – Norway
It’s a rather dull, overcast day today, which is a pity. Bergen looks like it’d be a stunninngly beautiful place with a bit of sunshine.
Down at the fish market, myself and Martin decide to have some lunch. It’s not until you see the price of certain things that you realise how expensive Norway is. Drinks last night were not cheap, but it’s hard to tell once the booze starts flowing. I’m sitting in a Café looking at a menu now, and realising that a burger is 160kr: about £15. It’s not even any sort of gigantor-mega-burger made with crushed diamonds served on a solid gold plate. It’s just a regular run of the mill burger with a few chillis and some giant potato wedges.
Not a cheap burger 
Instore session
I did a bit of checking around and it turns out that the minimum wage in Norway is about 100kr (£10) per hour, things are starting to make sense. Apparently if you’re a student, they pay you 6000kr (£600) a month to study.
We get down to the gig later and it turns out it’s an old bomb sheleter from WW2. Getting into the club means walking down a huge long corridor, carved straight out of the rock, pretty funky. The guy who runs the club tells me that it was sitting derelict for years until they approached the local council about using it. Because they offered to do all the work themselves, the club only pay 1kr (10p) a year in rent, which is nice.
Working on a set list
For dinner Omund takes us back to the bar where we were drinking last night, he says he has a surprise for us, which is slightly worrying. The surprise is the food, a traditional Norwegian dish. Potato dumplings, sausage, lamb and bacon. The dumplings are the special part of the meal apparently. They’re about the same size as a tennis ball, but are a similar consistancy to a block of cheese. This is real stodgy food for harsh weather conditions. I dread to think what the calorific value of one of these things would be. They’re actually pretty nice, but after one you feel really full: It’s in smaller pieces now but you can still feel it sitting in your stomach refusing to digest. Not sure these would take on anywhere else, but judging from the busy waiter, the Norwegians love them.
The gig
The gig is surprisingly good, for a band who are pretty well unknown we manage to get about 150 people in to the show, including a large percentage of hardcore music nerds, every city has them I guess.
Oct 10th – Garage – Oslo – Norway
I’ve been to Oslo loads of times and love the place, for everyone else it’s the first time. Should be fun.
Sleepy crew 
Can’t believe no one made a joke about the name of the hotel. 
Happy House! 
Oliver in full swing
There’s a bit of messing about in the afternoon as the equipment they’ve supplied for us isn’t quite right, but we manage to get another guitar amp in for the show and everything is cool.
There’s a whole contingent of people from the Norwegian arm of the record company, who’ve brought with them one of the players from the Norwegian Natioanl football team. Not being a football fan I have no idea who the guy is, and for the life of me can’t remember his name … sorry about that, if you ever read this.
Strange thing today is that I meet a girl in the bar from Edinburgh, who lives just around the corner from where I used to, she’s over here visiting her boyfriend who I think feels a bit nervous about the fact she’s talking to us and ignoring him … although I could be completely wrong about that.
By the time we get offstage and get back to the hotel it’s after 3am. That’s not good as we have to be at the airport at nine to fly to the next show. Oh Dear.
Oct 11th – Checkpoint Charlie – Stavanger – Norway.
Everyone is a bit pooped today. We all passed out in the car on the way to the airport this morning, and now everyone apart from me is sleeping in the airport. They all look so peaceful that I feel bad about having to wake them up to board the flight.
Like most of Norway, Stavanger is a smallish town, but is quite beautiful. We’re in a hotel right next to the harbour, with a nice view down the fjord and across the bay.
As we head over to the gig, the town seems to be completely dead. Strange being that this is a Saturday night.
Unfortunately the gig is not much better. Even though we hold off starting the show for a little while, we still end up only playing to about 40 people. The good thing about that is there’s no pressure and everyone is quite relaxed. At the end of the set one of the crowd asks the band to play
Autobahn, a song off the band’s first ever EP. At least the people who
are here are real fans of the band.
Leaving the gig was a little bit scary. It turns out that because drinks are so expensive in Norway, people don’t go out until later. So what was a quiet little area of the town two hours ago is now like a madhouse, the streets overflowing with drunk people. We just look at each other and decide that going out might not be the best idea.
So it’s off to bed, another early flight tomorrow morning back to the UK and a few days off before getting back on the bus again.
