Hate living in a Tent but did it

I hate living in a tent. Not only does it make me feel like a scout, there´s no room, you can´t stand up straight and you have no bathroom. Why the hell would you want to live in a tent?! Well, I did it, willingly last week. I t was hell, beyond that even, but I got to see Iggy up close and it was all worth it!!

Last week, it was the Hultsfredsfestival. I have been there 2 times before, -95 and -96. I loved being able to go to shows every hour, but I hated the tent and the dust. You found dust everywhere, in your coffee, in your sleeping bag and even in your knickers. It all got to me and I stopped going to festivals. I never went as a photographer either. Partly because of the bands usually pplaying to big stages for it to be really fun to take photos, but also for the fact that most people become fusspots backstage. If I go to a show or a festival, I go as a fan. I love the music, that´s why I am there but I hate all that comes with trying to make a living as a photographer and a writer. I can´t stand the meet&greet and I can´t stand people trying to act like they care about what I have to say when they´re in fact just standing there in order to try and look as cool as a rockstar in front of the cameras. So, I pay to get in. To all shows and all festivals. Basicly cause I am a fan and I don´t try and pretend like I am something I´m not.

But this year, Hultsfred was the Festival with a big F that almost made me appreciate dusty knickers. With bands like Rocket From The Crypt, Nomads, Danko Jones,Nashville Pussy and Iggy Pop on the list, I could not stay at home working and still stay sane. So, I went. I didn´t bring my camera, just a small one that I would miss if it got smashed in front of a stage. Met up with a couple of Stockholm-chicks and lived in a tent. Drank vodka and kool-aid to be able to sleep in the tent and walk in the dust. Tried to avoid to go the the portable toilet and if I had to, well, some more vodka for me. I waited for the Saturday, the day that they somehow had managed to put up all the great punkrock acts.

In the meantime,one of the band I went to see was Godsmack, the american metalpunkcore band Magnus had told me about. They were surprisingly good. Usually american band this genre makes me puke cause they have no sense of humour and act like it´s the doomsday. This band though, did not only have a good singer that would make Layne Staley doubt his own resources, but stage presence, threw beer at us, was tight and seemed to have fun on stage. With Limp Bizqit playing at the festival too, it was a relief to see that some still had talent and wasn´t stuck with the ass in MTV´s couch. For more info on Godsmack, http://www.godsmack.com

The same day, Thursday, I also saw the band that by more than one, have been linked as a wannabe-Backyard Babies; the Spitts. Hailing from Örebro, I understand that they want to be something. For some reasons, most bands from Örebro are longing to be somebody else. maybe it´s something in the air or water. But, this is still a good band. I really likle their music and they would be a great swedish band to be proud of if only the singer either quit the band or learned to relax and not try so hard. He looks like a 14 year old SexPistols fan on acid and doesn´t really sing better than one….They´ve released a 7″ and a cd and you can find soundclips from them athttp://www.thespitts.com/indexf.html

Twopointeight didn´t really play at the festival, atleast not officially, but they´ll be featured here anyways since they´re Twopointeight, the fellas who told Safety Pin to go stuff it when most bands kiss ass and do whatever they can to get their name on the label of a 7″. They played on the small Digfi stage. They´ve just released a new demo and in order to promote it, they did a short gig. Soundclips from it can be found athttp://www.twopointeight.nu

I desperately wanted to be upfront at Queen of The Stone Age. Call it nerd-alert, call it what you want, but I had to be there. I waited for 35 minutes and I was there. I´m lucky I was. Nick Oliveri and Josh Homme in the same band, how could it be anything else than something you loose your panties, and the dust in them, over?! Experimental, furious and brittle all in one. http://www.qotsa.com

The best part with festivals is that you get to met people that live in different part of the countries. I met a bunch of people who did the same music and that I have on my Icq, but I never get to see. It´s always fun to see how people are in real life, do the act the same? Look like you expected them to? Most important of all, do you get along?! It´s almost like bingo, you´ll never know…Then there was Saturday. The big punkrock-day. There is no way I can write about all the band without making this the longest update in Coolgrrrls´ history. So, I won´t write about it at all. I won´t write about any of them, in fact. If you weren´t there, you missed a great deal.http://www.rockparty.se