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Thursday
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And so it all begins… And as all great tales, it
begins with packing down every piece of electronics, no
matter how uninteresting, into cases and bags, big and
small, in order to travel into the great unknown. It's
like going thru your life, going thru boxes and cases
in your rehearsal room, going thru every little thing
you ever bought, asking yourself, "do i really need
this?”. But It proved to be an easy task, and soon
we were on our way.
And since the packing and loading took merely 35 minutes
(instead of the planned 3,5 hours) we arrived early to
the check-in at Arlanda, more exactly, 2 hours before
planned (1,5 hours before its even possible to check-in
the luggage).
While standing at the luggage cue, 2 hours early, out
of the blue, a supervisor happened to pass by our giant
heap of gear (more exactly, 33 fricking pieces of heavy
cases and bags). Realising the painfull efforts that is
going to be involved in checking in our luggage (out of
which, most would haveto go into the Special-luggage cue)
she decided to solve the situation on her own and helping
us getting our luggage checked in. Needless to say, we
were most gratefull to not haveto do this with 200 angry
passangers behind us. The next 2 hours was spent checking
in luggage, watching security doing some sweeps for bombs
and narcotics, and ofcourse, sitting on our asses gazing
upon the floor. When finnished, we wondered of to chew
down our last piece of food in Sweden for the next coming
2 weeks.
After eating we hooked up with our newfound friend, the
Supervisor, whom intended to help us come onboard with
the last pieces of musical equipment. After which the
plane was boarded and the short flight commenced, and
shortly after, finnished… As soon as we stepped
foot in Paris we began collecting luggage from the luggageclaim,
nervous as hell, making sure everything made it to France.
It soon turned out (after about 2 hours of aquiring information
thru our interpreter and guide, omar) that 4 of our most
important cases hadn't even gotten loaded into the frikking
airplane back in Stockholm… The promise was made
that the cases would be sent with a later flight to Dakar
and that everything would be just super…
As we collected the luggage that actually did make it
to France, it became painfully clear that a hotel was
out of the question, there is no way (that wont ruin you)
to get 6 cubicmeters (or more) of equipment to a hotel
and back… The night was spent in the halls of Orly
Airport, a notefully boring airport, with uncomfortable
seats and the most terrifying announcer-signal known to
man.
Friday Back
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Around 05.30 in the morning all attempts to sleep had
proven fruitless and we decided to head for the check-in
counter with our monstrous pile of luggage. 1 hour and
one embarassed dogowner (you get the picture) later, we
ones again had the luxury to recieve professionall help
with our special needs for our luggage, and we happily
moved on one step closer towards Dakar.
We couldn't really tell wether or not Orly was an especially
expensive airport, but luxuries such as food and drinks
were not handed out cheap. The other night, a modest dinner
consisting of a baguet, muffin and a bottle of water cost
12€... Needless to say, there was no such thing as
overconsuming any of the products being offered at Orly
airport, and further needless to say, that kind of diet
really messes up your stumach at general...
A few x-ray scans and conversations with people who couldn't
speak english later, we had lift off. The flight, as any
other flight, was not pleasant... The previously mentioned
issues due to crappy foodoptions and the lack of sleep
haunted most of us. And what would a flight be without
THAT screaming baby. Those of us lucky enough to be able
to listen to music thru soundproof earplugs had the luxury
to steal a few hours of sleep, whilst the rest hoped that
their tormentor would just simply fall asleep. Merely
5 hours later, the airplane landed in Dakar, and from
the good look we got during the last 5 minutes of our
flight there was no problem estimating the vast size of
Dakar, its enormous! A few minutes later the first breeze
of 30 degree warm air rushed into the cockpit, and we
climbed down the stairs, taking our first step on african
soil.
Well inside the terminal, we for ones recieved all checked
in luggage and some help to load it onto 2 big trollys
taking our luggage out to a waiting truck taking our luggage
to the hotel. When coming outside, we faced somewhere
around 100 people wanting a piece of Defueld.
Though there was nearly noone remotly interested in the
band itself, most were there to try to help us and every
other person with their luggage in hope to recieve some
money for the service or selling different items outside
on the parkinglot. n the chaos before us, we found ourselfs
being rescued by the renowned senegalese artist, and our
friend, Maxi Krejsy. Though even that we had a few people
Maxi knew to help us when it came to loading the truck,
it was still very hard to keep track of who was with us
and who was a salesman trying to come close to us.
The chaotic scenery took its toll on all of us, especially
that soon after the flight, and it didnt take much time
before we felt an urge to get out of there. The truck
was loaded to maximum with our luggage, and the minibus
waiting for us then took us to the hotel. The truck with
our equipment had driven ahead of us at the airport, and
the big worry about whether or not we would ever see our
stuff again raided the minivan. But as soon as we got
to the hotel, we found every single case from the truck
standing neatly stacked in the lobby, thanks guys! We
checked in at the hotel and then loaded our rooms with
bags and cases, hurrying to take a wellneeded dip in the
pool.
As soon as we had changed clothes, taken a shower, and
became as new men, we took a walk to a restaurant nearby,
and then walked straight back due to the entire place
being booked. But it was a rewarding walk, enabling us
to have a closer look at the streets of Dakar, its people
and taking in the mood of the community. It is a great
people and a comfortable and laidback mood all over the
entire place. Nothing like we had ever seen before, people
barbecuing their dinner in the middle of the street in
a big frying pan (from which they all ate later on), a
small bar established in a doorway, goats and dogs roaming
free across the street among cars and people in their
colorfull clothes.
During the dinner, we had the pleasure of having Maxi,
his wife and the driver with us as guests. They gave us
all a great image of the senegalese people as the kind,
outgoing, helpfull and giving people that they are.
We were later on accompanied by Pindra, the arranger
of the entire event, who then explained the basic schematics
for the oncoming week; we were to spend the coming days
with some of the more wellrenowned senegalese hiphop artists
in a "workshop". The general idea was to have
a cultural exchange where we all togheter wrote music
combining our two different disiplines into something
new and cool.Then later during the week, the songs will
be both recorded in a studio, and then performed on stage.
It will prove to be hard work, taking alot of time. And
ontop of that we haveto make it work with Defuelds needs
to rehearse our own stuff prepering for the concerts at
the end of the week.
Saturday
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The morning started with a dip in the pool and some breakfast.
In the middle of which we had the pleasure of meeting
all of the artists involved in the project, who came wondering
into the hotel during this beautiful morning. As most
of their countrymen, they were extremely kind and forthcoming
i might add.
Until now the plans for the days to come had been somewhat
fuzzy, but the plans had been rearranged and it didn't
take much time before the plans were clear as sunlight.
The basic schedule came down to this: Defueld was to rehears
and "remake" already existing songs by 4 of
the most popular artists in Senegal, to make a collaboration
between styles and genres. This was to be recorded in
a studio and then to be performed during 2 live shows.
This meeting ended in the sunny side of things, and the
artists headed off and we headed for lunch at the French
Institute. And about this time we got a messege telling
us the first snow had fallen in Sweden. We didn’t
feel all that bad for not being home in freezing and gloomy
weather, especially since we were walking down a road
on our way to a restaurant in sunny 30 degree weather.
The French Institute was a restaurant in which we spent
many dinners during our stay. It was a cultural oasis
sort of speak, the first thing we saw walking in that
first time was a vernissage with a Korean (i believe,
didn’t get an all that close look at it all) artist.
Besides the vernissages with all different artists, they
had a big stage, a store/tailor for african clothes and
accessories and a big building with rooms dedicated for
cultural related matters like music and pressconferences.
Though i think the institute’s main function was
educational in some way.
Food was eaten, and as soon as we got back to the hotel
we jumped into a rented minibus to head of to get our
first listen to the songs that were intended for the "workshop"
as its refered to. And the drive to the studio where the
songs would be listened to was one heck of a journey!
As soon as we got away from the hotel, we started driving
thru one long frikkin street with small merchantstands
along both sides from start to end. And the word "windowshopping"
got a new meaning when the opened windows of the minibus
were breached by nummerous salesmen trying to sell everything
in between bananas and sunglasses. This soon proved to
be something that wasn’t just happening along the
merchants road, as soon as we slowed down to take a corner
(I would have said "stopped for a redlight",
but we soon noticed, there aint any), or basicly for any
reason at all, the same thing happened, no matter where
in the city we were.
We soon got on the "highway" to get to the
studio, located in a suburb of Dakar. But i don’t
know what to say about a highway with SPEEDBUMPS(!) every
500 meters… Allthough i must say i wasn’t
the only one being gratefull for their existance, it was
exiting enough to go thru the senegalese trafic in 70-80
km/h. Seeing that every car in sight was more or less
smashed in some way made an impression that going faster
might be alittle over the edge, especially without seatbelts.
Everywhere around us constructions of roads and buildings
was made, and you could easily see that Dakar was advancing
to a yet undecided (but without doubt great) future.
Well in the studio, the songs were digested by hungry
ears. And there was merely nothing but great response
from the entire band, most of it was basicly ready to
rock on the spot! We really felt that this was some good
material we could work with.
We soon enough found ourselfs on the road home, and we
headed of to the highway from which we had come. Not that
we had thought of it driving of the highway going the
other direction, but the ONLY onramp was the same we had
driven of on… That is, THE FRIKKIN ONRAMP DROVE
STRAIGHT INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC! To get to our side of
the road, we had to drive straight over 2-3 lanes of oncoming
highway traffic.
Shaken from the somewhat unusual ride home, we trampled
straight into the pool when we got back, followed by dinner
at the french institute. There was a well renowned french
hiphop-artist performing on the stage and we felt that
it would be a good conclusion to the day to listen to
some tunes before going back to the hotel.
When getting back, we spent a few hours in the hotel
bar with the CD of the songs to be "remade",
jamming with a guitar and the bars piano. Some good ideas
hatched during the night, and we now felt ready for the
days to come.
On the other side of things, the situation with our luggage
took a few steps in the right direction (after some hard
work). First of all, it came to our attention that the
luggage still hadn't reached Paris. So we quickly made
a few phonecalls to get hold of the people at Arlanda
to see where everything had gone. But since they proved
to be both unwilling and uncapable to help us out, the
mood of the group turned from good to worse. A few phonecalls
later we got hold of a most helpful man in charge for
the security to help us out (cheers man!). And merely
moments later, we were notified of that the luggage had
gone to Paris thru London, and there was a possibility
that the luggage actually already had arrived. Yet to
be confirmed, this news was still very good.
To be continued…
Sunday
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The day began at 9 a.m. (yea i know it's early and we
are rockers, but bare with me, there is a valid reason),
when we took our chariot down to the Dakar harbor. From
there we were to take the ferry to the island of Goree.
The island bares a grave history; During times of slavery
in North-America this island served as a last stop for
the slaves-to-be. The island itself was very beautiful,
but the houses surrounding us made it very clear, this
islands original purpose was to be unescapable. We had
the opportunity to step into one of the cells in one of
the mansionlike buildings. We there were notified that
the cell, not bigger then 3x3 meter, had housed somewhere
around 40 slaves. Not a "pick-me-up" of any
notable proportions, but it was educational and rewarding
in many other ways.
Like most places of Dakar, Goree island had its fair
share of salesmen, but also a big collection of different
arttypes which were performed by nummerous artists all
over the island, one being the most eyecatching (not only
because he housed under the biggest frikkin cannon i've
ever seen). The guy made paintings with sand and glue.
The sand in different colours came from different beaches
and deserts, and the pictures portraying traditional african
motives.
When coming back from our trip, we read in various Swedish
magazines that Dakar was the hottest location on Earth,
with 38 degrees. We still didn’t feel all that bad
for not being home in the snow.
Now it didn’t take long before we found ourself
on the other side of town ready to rehearse. Allthough
late, we arrived to the penthouse room in which we were
suppose to rehearse. And merely one hour later, everything
was rigged and ready, and the workshop became reality.
It didn’t take much time before results were made.
What came out of our collaboration KICKED ASS. The basic
foundation of the song and the groove had been set when
Fredrik became the first victim of some unknown indisposition
and had to take the bus back to the hotel, leaving the
rest of us to finish the last few things with the song.
And today we got more detailed information about the
oncoming shows; The first gig to be played is at a smaller
private club for about 300 VIP guests, whilst the second
is on a big festival stage in the city of Pikine, which
is a stage that our source of information says might draw
upwards to 10.000 people. Holy shit! And the day after
that, we are due to make an interview in live radio. Sounds
plenty interesting to me.
Monday
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A day of relaxing, since our first scheduled activity
was scheduled at 15.00. One hot frikking day though, so
a lot of pooltime was unavoidable.
The situation with the luggage also got one step closer
to resolution; two out of four cases had arrived to the
airport and would be picked up tomorrow. Although (!)
noone seems to know where the other 2 are?!
After throwing some food down the hatch, we headed of
to rehearse. But due to a misunderstanding with our driver,
we had to go by taxi. That was one hell of an experience,
the only things working on that damn vehicle was the engine,
tires and breaks, nothing else… Luckily the engine
kept a steady 50-60 km/h so the ride felt (under the circumstances)
pretty comfortable, counting out the constant fear for
our lives.
Rehearsing went great, but the heat… it was almost
unbearable, even the senegalese artists gave me the impression
that they felt it was alittle to much. Today we finished
the third song with one song left for tomorrow. Which
by the way is going to be an interesting piece of music,
especially since it isn’t written yet. During the
rehearsal we were also shown the flyer for the shows,
looks fantastic, feels great to see the flyer with Defueld
and the workshop as headliner.
Tuesday
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If yesterday was hot, i don’t have the vocabulary
to describe today. We have understood that we are in a
season of hot weather, but comon! At 10.00 the temperature
was already at 30 degrees! This provided us with an early
indication that this day was going to one pain in the
ass, but that it would be a pain of epic proportions was
nothing that we saw coming.
Today was The day, when the materials that we had rehearsed
would be recorded in a "pro" studio. And what
do you know, we almost made it on time today! The days
before we had been told a lot of nice things about the
studio, that it was a professional studio with a full
backline and everything else we might dream of needing,
so we had our hopes up way to high… Upon arrival
we first had to spend 15 minutes in the reception, becase
well guess what, the wheels of bureaucracy moves slowly,
even in Senegal. Then we were shown to some storage-room
centred between different sets (the studio was located
in the building of a television studio) and the nastiest
toilet known to man, in which we were told to wait furthermore.
After 30 minutes we were fed up and Chris and Emil (the
bassist) took out the bearings on where the studio was
located, and then we moved out with all our gear. As suspected,
there was the studioengineer just anticipating our arrival.
Finally, when standing in the studio, all our expectations
crumbled down like a house of cards; besides the drumkit,
there was Nothing in the room where we were suppose to
record, no amps, no power nor instrument chords, nothing.
The time was 12.45, we were already 45 minutes late, and
the room wasn’t even remotly ready to work in, not
by a longshot.
Considering the fact that we had spent every rehearsal
this far just playing the Senegalese artists music, we
had been anticipating being able to rehearse some Defueld
tunes, atleast ONCE before the big show, and it now became
painfully clear that this was nothing that had been prioritized
(even remotly) by anyone but us. It felt like we even
were facing some subtle resistance when it came to playing
our own songs. The arranger of the entire project seemed
more and more eager to simply record the songs, no matter
what, to get it out on the street for sale. Even though
i understand his motives, and that he has spent a lot
of time and resources on making this happen, this eagerness
had by now cost us a lot of the time we had been assigned
to rehearse and record. This simply because of plans not
being properly explained, or simply changed in mysterious
ways. And aswell that the things we were and still are
told vastly differentiates from what everyone else is
being told.
Anyhow, somewhere around 13.00 the engineer started setting
up the microphones for the drums. This seemingly simple
process seemed to take forever, and we soon realized that
this was neither going to be any rehearsing nor recording
the coming hours. When the microphones finally had been
properly set up, and the engineer started to set up the
drums sound on the mixerboard, it became painfully apparent
that this guy couldn’t get a good sound out of those
drums to save his life, and the job of setting up the
drumsound was taken over (after some minor struggle) by
Chris and Emil (the engineer).
Whilst Chris and Emil were twisting nobs on the mixerboard,
Nothing else happened, noone lifted a finger to prepare
any of the 200 other things in great need of being prepared.
And before continuing i want to clear one thing out;
during this trip, we do not intend to step on peoples
toes, we wish to make things work Togheter with or fellow
musicians, artists and engineers.
But since noone of us knew what gear was supposed to
be used, and where it stood and that it was almost impossible
to get a clear answer to our questions, anger and apathy
grew more and more inside of all of us. And as soon as
the drumcheck was done, and there still hadn't happened
shit, we were fed up, and put everything up by ourself,
took us merely 15 minutes and a lot of guessing. Getting
the studio-hands to help us to get vocal microphones and
chords to our instruments was neither an easy job nor
a fast one. AND since ALL of our damn chords were stuck
in one of those four cases, we could do nothing more then
wait. Those studio-hands worked slower then anything we've
ever seen, as engineer Emil pointed out; Stress seemed
to be something unheard of.
After setting up our stuff, we were ready to kill to
get out of that studio, just for a while. Nothing was
happening and nothing was being done about the things
that we had no control over, there was nothing we could
do. Apatheticly we stumpled out of the studio, to go grab
a bite with Keyti who by now was almost destroyed under
the pressure of the last 4 hours development. It felt
fucked up; he was our contact with the arranger and was
assigned to help us thru everything, there for he was
the one who got the dirty buisness to give us all the
bad news. This guy had been helping us out with everything,
struggling to keep everything running smoothly, but all
these bad news and the horrible planning was not just
taking its toll on us, but reflected horribly on Keyti,
who most of all didn’t deserve that.
The (now completely shattered) schedule for today was
to first write and record a new song with Keyti, then
rehearse and record the other 3 songs. Then Defueld was
supposed to get 90 minutes of rehearsal. Needless to say,
this timetable was broken, destroyed, and incinerated
by now. Slowly our anger and apathy was accompanied by
anxiety. But when getting back to the studio, everything
was to our surprise close to being completely set up!
Even with some minor details like broken amps and stuff
like that, we now had Sound! 4 hours frikking late…
We tested the sound for about 15 minutes, Then the power
went! But with the ill came the first of the days two
good news; All of our luggage had arrived safely and was
on its way! After 20 minutes of (yet again) slowly moving
wheels of bureaucracy, we finally got the gear into the
studio. We hooked everything up and when the power got
back, we wrote the days second good news, "The forgotten
people", a powerballad with Keyti. It turned out
great. But by now the time was 19.00 and our heads had
been turned into jelly by the pressure of trying to accomplish
something, against the odds. We quickly rehearsed the
other 3 songs, then we simply called it the day. Even
if the other artists didn’t appreciate this, I hope
they understand that there was nothing good coming out
of continuing, we were all toasted after this day filled
with struggle.
This horrible day was finally coming to an end, and we
went back to the hotel so wash of our burdens and to grab
something to eat. Though some of us didn’t apreciate
that the food for some reason tasted like crap, the rest
of us was to apathetic to even care. Not a day we will
remember fondly.
Wednesday
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With yesterday in mind, we were positively surprised
when the day started without any problems.
The order of arrival to the breakfasttable was yet again
the same as usual; Ronny, Fredrik and engineer Emil, Chris
and Patrik then Alex and bassist Emil. I believe the word
im seeking is routine. Time moves fast, it's already a
week since we left Sweden. No wonder we are starting to
get a routine in our everyday life down here.
Some took a dip in the pool, some chose not to, and then
we jumped into our chariot and away we went. 5 minutes
after leaving the hotel, we suddenly started seeing posters
with our pictures on it. And it was not like back home,
with 1 poster ever now and then, it looked like they had
used it as wallpaper on the outside of some of the buildings,
the festival poster was everywhere! Cool! Seems as we
get more recognised by the public now, today a windowsalesman
came to the cars window when we were stuck in traffic
and started talking about Sweden and rock sung in french.
Needless to say, they seem to be aware of our pressence,
i just hope they are ready to hear what our music is all
about. But this remains to be seen.
We got to the studio in time, and merely 2 hours later,
3 out of 4 songs were recorded! After the break for lunch,
the last song was recorded. NO FUZZ!!! Finally result
came out of all this misery and agony.
We then rehearsed thru our songs, and not as surprising
as you might believe, we found that the songs still sounded
like they should. We also tested some guest appearances
by our friends Keyti, Matador, Fatim and Mame Xa. Sounded
great, they added new edge to the songs Hero(in) and Spawn.
Let’s hope the audience will like this as much as
we did.
Sadly, Chris was slowly turning ill during the day, and
by dinner he most likely had a fever burning. Not a good
thing with a show the next day… Let's hope he gets
better until tomorrow. Performing as a vocalist when feeling
nauseous and having a fever might turn ugly, but hopefully
a lot of sleep and some pills will get him up and running
again.
By now, almost everyone of us has been stricken by some
form of indisposition and we are all happy we took a trip
to our local farmacy before going, don’t know how
things would have turned out without it.
The two big days of this trip are closing in, and soon
we will have our chance to show them what we are made
of! These gigs are going to be far beyond anything they've
ever seen or heard before! We are all certain that we
will kick ass no matter what, as long as Chris is healthy
enough to stand on stage.
Thursday
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With great anticipation we all left our beds in the order
previously mentioned to digest some breakfast and to cool
down our burning hearts in the pool. Then somewhere around
12.00 we left the hotel with all our gear to set up for
the night. In the car Ronny told us that the arranger
had made sure that for the festival in Pikine, we'd have
7 bodyguards, and ontop of that, local lawenforment and
THE ARMY would be ensuring public safety during the gig.
Evidently the festival is a yearly tradition, where the
artists of Senegal (and some from abroad, i.e. Defueld)
played for free in Pikine for those less fortunate, which
is an event that attract significant amount of people.
When arriving at Just4u, It proved to be as we assumed,
nothing was ready. The drumkit had holes in most of the
heads, repaired with ducttape, and the venue staff proudly
introduced us to their 1 guitaramp (try to divide 1 by
2). But thanks to our saviors Keyti and Lai (i think it's
spelled that way) and their most helpful friends, we managed
to get an awesome drumkit in place, a second amp and a
good PA system. Holy crap; great gear, talk about turning
a frown upside down!
As always, engineer Emil had to mind not only the sound,
but the onsite engineer, who most of all seemed to want
to have a go at doing the sound. But after some minor
struggle, engineer Emil finally got the upperhand and
was free to do the sound, and i must say, turned out better
then we could've imagined when we first arrived.
Today Chris's health had gotten worse, he could barely
get up during the day, and we decided to fetch him when
he was needed, to reserve his energy. When arriving to
the venue, we immediately had to place Chris in a room
in the back due to his condition.
When the rest of us were out in the restaurant at Just4u
having dinner, we suddenly found ourself in the shadow
of 5 solid, welldressed men. It was our bodyguards who
had come to introduce themselves, and they were HUGE.
The feeling of being a rockstar was further enhanced by
this experience, no doubt about it.
Chris was still in very bad shape when we entered the
stage and the decision to shorten the setlist was quickly
made. It was exiting to enter the stage and see the expectation
in the eyes of the crowd, and it was now that it really
became obvious that most of these people were going to
see a rockband live for the first time. We started out
with the song "Alone", which was received with
cheers and applause. What a feeling! Then we quickly moved
thru our setlist, About 2 songs short, Chris had absolutely
no energy left and could not go any further. Since we
were going as far as Chris's energy could take us, noone
was prepared when we stopped and couldn't go no further.
Especially not the crowd, who at first didn’t understand
what had happened. We went of stage to let a senegalese
artist perform, and to catch our breath. And when he was
done, we then went back to the stage togheter with the
senegalese artists to perform the workshop material.
The reception of the material was fond, and i think the
artists thought it was just as fun as we did. Afterwards
there was nothing left to do then to pack things up and
go back to the hotel. We put Chris in a taxi, sending
him home, then the rest of us started packing. About 1
hours later we were finally done packing In the company
of our bodyguards. When arriving back to our hotel, the
most bizzare sight met us outside the hotel, Chris was
stepping out of the damn cab, more then one hour after
leaving Just4u (which is about 10 minutes by car away
from the hotel). Apparently he had the great unfortune
to have gotten himself a driver who didn’t know
as much as you might wish of a cabdriver, for instance,
the names of the roads.
Friday
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First of, as of today, we have written history; First
heavy rock band to ever have played In Senegal!
Since i no longer feel any need to explain our morning
procedures i will go ahead with the things that matter,
The gig in Pikine!
Bassist Emil and Patrik were sent with all the equipment
to scout the stage a couple of hours ahead of soundcheck
today. After loading all the gear onto the stage, Emil
quickly started checking the stage, whilst Patrik made
sure that the drumkit was good enough. After merely 20
minutes, everything had been prepared. The stage was Huge
and the area around it looked perfect, this was going
to be one hell of a gig. When done, the boys headed back
to the hotel to cool down and relax, while waiting for
the rest of the stuff to arrive to the stage.
One hour later, Lai called us telling us the stage was
ready and it was time to get there. Upon arrival, we could
quickly see that Lai had been our saviour today yet again.
Not that there was anything that wasn’t working
on the first visit, but when coming back, everything was
the way it was supposed to be, no fuzz no nothing, just
the way it was supposed to be. And on location were some
of the most professionall engineers you could have wished
for. Everything felt great by now; this had the potentials
to become a kickass show.
Pikine itself was a worn out city with sand for roads.
The stage itself was located in an area in between three
different rows of houses in the shape of a 100 meter long
triangle. The stage itself had no roof and the soundcheck
had been one hot ordeal, and with everything else taken
care of, our biggest concern now was leaving our equipment
in the gazing sun, but since there was nothing to do,
we left for the hotel when we were done with the soundcheck.
On the way out we got stuck in traffic and the dinner
had to be a short and intense in order for us to be able
to get back.
So after throwing down dinner, changing our clothes,
we jumped into the car togheter with two of our bodyguards,
and drove straight back. Even though the traffic had eased
up somewhat, we still got to the stage late enough to
miss a few acts. On the sunny side of things at this point,
we got a good look at the crowd when (lead by our bodyguards)
made our way to the stage thru the crowd, it was frikkin
huge! The turnup had been nothing short of what we had
heard prior to this date.
There was considerably more artists performing in Pikine
then at Just4U, and after watching close to 10 different
acts performing and doing their thing, it was time for
ours. We stepped out on stage, taking our first real look
at the crowd. 6.000 people were standing there watching
our every move, and i think they aswell as us had no idea
what to expect at this point. I mean, a bunch of Swedish
guys crashes a Hiphop festival, playing heavy rock. We
started of with the song "Alone", and during
those 3-4 minutes of playing, every inch of worry were
gone; they loved it! We went thru our setlist like a steamroller,
with Chris, Emil and Alex jumping across the stage like
rubber balls and Patrick doing an incredible drumsolo
(in which the entire crowd started chanting, singing and
cheering). We ended the gig with the song Spawn, after
which we thanked the crowd for their incredible response
by small barrage of t-shirts.
After some waiting backstage, we headed up on stage ones
again to perform with the workshop. The songs sounded
great, and the response was good. Allthough the crowd
had dispersed during the first song when the power went.
But as soon as the power went back on, we started playing
again, and those In the vicinity of the stage returned
when they heard the power was back.
At 04.00 we returned to the hotel and sleeping had never
been easier. The deed is done and the history written,
now we turned our sights to the coming journey home. Due
to some issues with the flights, we were to spend a night
and day in Paris before going home, whichh gives us a
chance to get a good look at the city before going home.
Saturday
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This was the last day of our visit, in which we didn't
do much; most of the day was spent relaxing in the sun
by the pool. Some of us also got royally screwed while
going shopping during a smaller tour of the actually factories
in Dakar. Even though It had Its cost, It was pretty Interesting
to visit the actuall factories and see all the things
they sell In the market being made.
During the evening we made a trip to a local radiostation
where Chris and Emil the bassplayer got to talk on the
air with the deejay. But as every word had to go thru
an Interpreter the time restricted the boys from getting
much said. After the Interview our song "Crime of
the century" was played in Senegalese radio aswell!
We went back to our hotel and went directly to OUR table
at the french institute. As it turns out, by now they
were so used to us coming, they had been reserving a special
round table for dinner every night! There we met up with
the producer of this event, who brought newspapers containing
reviews of the gig at Just4U. The response was overwhelmingly
positive! Now we await the newspapers to come out with
the reviews of the gig in Pikine, which we all consider
a far better performance on our behalf.
The rest of the evening was spent by the pool trying
to make sence of the hotel bills. Took us several hours,
and by the time we were done, we went to our room to catch
some, if any, hours of sleep before going to the airport.
Sunday
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At 4 in the morning, we went up, packed our chariot with
ALL of our gear and bags, then klimbed in… If you
ever wondered how you stack 8 people and a half a ton
of gear into a minivan without dying, then join the club,
i still can’t believe we actually succeded.
When we arrived to the airport, we quickly noticed that
the airport is the one place in this country you don’t
arrive late to. I don’t know how long people had
been waiting there, but the line to the check-in desk
was long as hell… And being Swedish, we are used
to having a queue system that actually works, which wasn’t
the case at this airport; zealous attempts to cut Infront
of us quickly began to piss us off. After about 20 minutes
we got in contact with a man at the airport who helped
us into a queue of our own where we could load our stuff.
Grateful and relieved, we checked in our stuff.
After about 1 hours checking in, we were finally done
with the luggage. Although a lot of other issues surfaced
and caused us more then 90 minutes of hassle before we
could go any further. Since things went apeshit of epic
proportions, we were damn lucky to not miss the flight.
Needless to say, that when we finally found ourself on
the plane, it was easy to get some sleep.
BUT, heres the real kicker; The same baby that had been
screaming during the entire flight from Paris to Dakar,
had been seated next to Emil and Emil during this flight
going to Paris! 11 days later! Now you may wonder what
the odds are; slim to none, slim to frikkin none…
Our luck had changed this time around though since the
baby fell asleep during takeoff.
Well in Paris, we located the office of a special serviceprovider;
a storage facility who had a desk in the halls of Orly
airport. So we went to the desk, got our stuff driven
away to the storage where we would come get it the next
day. Then we jumped onto the bus going to downtown Paris.
After about 45 minutes we arrived to a park with a BEAUTIFUL
view of a handful of Paris finest architecture. From there
we took the subway to the street closest to our hotel.
Quickly the rooms was seen over, beds were chosen, or
should i say fought over; every room had 1 single bed
and one twin bed where two guys had to share one cover…
Then we went to have dinner along Champ D'elysee. The
vast differences between Paris and Dakar made it clear
to us what an adventure we had been undertaking.
The dinners this far had been VERY monotonous, don’t
get me wrong, most of the times it tasted great (especially
at the french institute), but because of our disposition
as tourists, our foodoptions were extremly limited (no
sallad, nothing that hadn't been deepfried, no ice etc.etc).
Eating steak with frenchfries every day might sound like
a dream when you don’t actually eat it every day,
but it doesn’t take many days to get fed up with
it. So it was a joy most welcome to be presented a menu
from which you could eat everything.
Every one of us took our time with our dinner, enjoying
every single bit of it. Although this change of diet overwhelmed
yours truly, and i must admit (even though i HATE sallad)
i almost wept in joy when being presented a shrimp sallad,
which i actually could eat without worrying for salmonella
or something worse, like dying.
Sleep found us (go figure) and we went down like drugged
elephants when getting back to the hotel.
Monday
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We began the day by heading over to a local coffeeshop
to get some breakfast. On the way we got the feeling as
if our journey never happened, here in Paris everything
went by the same routines as back home, it was monday
so the street was filled with children going to school
and noone payed any attention to us none what so ever.
After throwing down some baguettes and coffee, we started
our little sightseeing tour of Paris; first goal was the
Arc de Triomphe followed by the Eiffeltower. From which
we continued along the river Seine, until we found a nice
restaurant to have lunch. At this point we split up, to
take a closer look at different locations of our own choosing.
A few hours later we met at the hotel from which we went
to the airport.
The flight home went quick and painless, and just 2-3
hours later; we landed in Stockholm, during rains and
the crappiest weather known to man. Still felt good as
hell to come home, and laying down in your own bed, for
the first time in almost 2 weeks.
The journey is over, the history written, and now we
haveto move onto the next task at hand; In just a few
weeks we begin recording our Debut album!
Until next time, Piece!
