Live: A Travis surprise and a Danish surprise

I have one of the worste call phone cameras in the world, but it's better than nothing ;)

Sometimes I think I have friends in high places.. I really don't, but sometimes I am lucky :) Last night I got a message from a friend of mine on Facebook. He knew that Travis was going to come to Norway tomorrow to do some promo and was doing a surprise gig at Mono! I have been a huge Travis fan since 2001, so I was of course thrilled and "sneaked" the message to my Travis-friends. i didn't want to many to know about it, in fear that it would ruin the whole gig. After a lot of smsing and planing I was sendt of to Mono. There was no way of getting hold of the tickets so the plan was to stick me in there early. (Once your are in they can't kick you out, and I could buy tickets for the others. I arrived at Mono at 18 (they were supposed to start to sell tickets at 20). For the first hour or so I was alone with two other people. I was bunked up in a great sofa right in front of stage with a book about Italian. (Me and my mum are going in about a week. MUCH more about that later). After about one hour my first friend arrived and then a little while after, my friend the SuperTravisFAn. This girl takes the term fan to whole new limits ;)

About half an hour before the show Andy and Fran comes walking casually in and talks a bit to the sound guys and then went away again. It was very very weird. A bit like we were in someones livingroom. I still can't belive how short they are though. I always think that. But it also might be the fact that I am very tall myself ;)

After about one other hour they came back. Both in black. Fran with a very nice hat and Andy with a nice little scarf. It was so cozy, there were only about 100 people tops in the room and it was just very very nice. They were on a tiny stage in the corner only about 5 meters away in a little club. Started of by playing Sing, great as always, and we were singing along. Then it was time for Side. Wonderful. I love that song. I think it's might be my favorite Travis song. Suddenly the guy next to me starts talking about how Side is a coversong, and I said: "No, it's not." "Yes, it is!!" "No, listen. I have been a fan since 2001. I KNOW these things". But he wouldn't give up. It all ended with him getting my phone number after the gig so that he could go home, look it up and tell me that I was wrong. hehe. Very drunk, so I doubt that he'll remember it, but I will tell you if he does. I do not remember the precise order of the rest of the set list, but they did Driftwood and two songs from the new album and a cover. The cover was something about lesbians or maybe a confused gay guy. Didn't really get that, but great song ;) The two new songs also sounded really great, can't wait to hear the whole record. Fran joked about the fact that there is really no use for making more than 4 albums and now they are on their 6th. SO they decided to do a consept album. All the songs are supposedly about J.Smith and his life. (J. Smith is the most common name in the UK). So some kind of everyday man. Will be very exciting to hear the tracks with the whole band and finished.

Andy had an amazing guitar too, twelve string and six string combination. Fran was joking about the fact that he was going to set it on fire, not by matches but by his guitarplaying ;)

During the cover song Franny taped a sheet of paper two a second mic on the stage and read it from there. Really funny. Really greatly played though. Though they must have struggled a bit, because they kept smiling and almost laughing to each other. (See photos under)

Fran also told the story about this surprise concert. It turns out he was sitting at home in Berlin (yes, he lives there now!) and thinking.. I am going to Norway tomorrow. We should play a bit while we are there. So he had phoned Mono and asked if they could do a little live set. And of course they said yes. Very good. I like stars that do it like that.

After Travis Lofiman came on. They were supposed to do the warm-ups and had to follow Travis. Poor guys ;) They were quite good though, I love their guitars and riffs, and rhythms. The melody lines of the vocals wasn't that good though and the vocals in general. Too bad. I think they could have been amazing.

Then it was time for the second surprise of the evening: Barra Head. The next band was supposed to be the main act and we stayed just to see what it was. And it was fu*** amazing!! Frist of all they were so incredibly tight. The music was really surprising and floating and had great rhythms and it was just amazing. Can't belive three persons can make such a great music. Lovely post-rock/metal feel. Just as I later found out they describe themselves. I HAVE to buy the record. An oh, that bassplayer is the best I have seen in my life. Maybe I haven't seen enough but I like to think I have seen a lot. We all were just mesmerized by his playing. And that is not often when it comes to bass players. They are Danish, so after a few songs, the singer started talking. And of course supposed that we would understand. And we kind of did... but not totally. And of course the guy beside me started screaming... "We don't understand shit" So the rest of the show the lead singer/guitarist kept talking danish and the bass player translated it to English. Even words like Thanks and it was very very funny. Great band. Hope to see them again soon. This is their page on MySpace. Magic intensity.



(Oh, and while writing this, I got a message from the superfan. She did it agin. She actually ended up at Fran's table talking to him.. hehe. Well, she deserves it, after 10 gigs. If I had been a little more observant I probably would have been able to too, but by then I was far to occupied by the Danish wonder boys and probably a smoking break).