We arrived late to Hamburg on Friday night. It had been quite a pleasant trip on the autobahn from Berlin to the port city listening to great pop songs. But when arriving, things weren’t that pleasant, as we couldn’t find a parking space at all! Maybe it was that everyone wanted to go to the Gruner Jäger to see The Faintest Ideas? At first my plan was to stay 3 days in Berlin. But plans changed when I knew that the fast handed Faintest Ideas were going to play in Hamburg. I had put out, some months before, a little CD by them, the witty “There’s No Captain on this Cruise and We Don’t Serve Orange Juice”, and it was such a great occasion to meet them at last. I don’t think there was going to be another chance that all of us would coincide in Germany again. Of course I had to come back to Hamburg! Eventually after driving round and round, five blocks away of the club, we found a space.
We were starving and I tried, for the first time, on a corner restaurant, the Turkish pizza. Oh! It was great! Not apt for vegetarians though! And be careful, that the tzatziki sauce finds it’s ways to drip out of the aluminum foil, so ask for lots of napkins, which I forgot to do! And then, straight to the Gruner Jäger, were I had been already on Wednesday checking it out. But this time the Hit the North party was happening, and the music was going to be so much better. Marco and Jens are two superb DJs.
Getting inside the club, feeling somewhat happy that I was on the list for once, I meet Martin. I was saying hello when suddenly he gives me one of those infamous Gotheborg handshakes… !! Oh dear. And then I met the rest of the gang, Markus, Christoffer and Joel. We sat down at a table in the patio. Had such a great chat. I didn’t know that Markus and Joel were brothers! And that Markus actually knew some German and was born in Germany! It was great to meet them. And then singing me some songs about Miralda Second-Hand Furniture or Josephine Girlfrendo… oh what fun! How many anecdotes they had. And I was wearing my Faintest Ideas t-shirt and I couldn’t stop smiling. This is what indiepop is all about I thought, I’m so far away, I’m in Germany, they are from Sweden, we are getting along, is it the international language of pop?!
Then time for the gig, the crash-crash songs, the fastest guitars this side of Gedge. Their punkish Boyracer pop, Martin beating the snares, and that hi-hat shaking faster than a hula hoop! They even played some Javelins classic tunes. That, for me, was thrilling! Their “Terrific Times and Unrehearsed Crimes” is one of my favourite CDs I have on my collection. So listening live, songs as ‘Dexter’s Got a Sinister Heart’ or ‘I Was Raised as a Polar Bear’, was more than I could have asked. It was a perfect show. It was fast, maybe around 20 minutes, and the whole crowd was left in such a rush, that everybody started jumping and dancing as soon as Jens put the needle on some indiepop hits! You just couldn’t stop!
I have flashbacks and I see us all still dancing ‘Sensitive’ on a big circle, all holding hands and chanting. All of us having Becks after Becks, till the night dawned and it was day again. We all walked out of the club together. And it was a bittersweet goodbye. I always wonder when will I see them again. Hopefully when I get myself on a plane to Sweden. It’s time.
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