Getting picked up by a roadie who could drive us in through the Roskilde festival 'stage door' was a boon a half at the end of our hitchhiking journey. Not only did it mean we would save the 70 pound entrance fee, it also afforded us the luxury of being able to kick back and relax for the last few hundred km of the journey.
Oddly, I discovered these are not, in fact the types of incidents one looks forward to sharing with friends. They just end up seeming too far into the incredible category to sound real. At least they do in my estimation, which is why I often leave out this particular recollection when reminiscing with friends around the campfire on summer nights….but you and I are not sitting around the campfire, are we?
Now, I'd played in bands throughout most of my adolescence, and had debatably spent an above average amount of time hanging out with music industry folk, but this was my first experience, albeit an indirect one, with a group that was actually doing well enough not to have to drive their own shit around. Yes, the situation was a bit of an anomaly on many levels. I surveyed the interior of the vehicle with marked curiosity. There was a second empty bench seat, spotlessly empty, I might add, and beyond that a cargo area piled with neatly stacked almost new looking cases. There didn't seem to be one stray piece of garbage, cigarette butt or miscellaneous unmentionable in sight. It was unlike any touring van I'd ever seen. I wondered what the band thought of it…
I stretched out on the empty bench and fell asleep…
…but not for long. Within the next half hour, Brit had picked up 3 additional hitchhikers - a pair of girls and a boy who was hitchhiking solo, all from Denmark.It seemed the plan was to arrive at the festival with a full house. So much for travelling in rock 'n' roll luxury. As the Scandinavians now outnumbered the, well, non-Scandinavians in attendance, the conversation switched from clipped English to lovely sing-song Danish, which John spoke, it seemed, fairly fluently and I had obviously never encountered before. This left Brit and I to develop that odd add-liquid-and-mix familiarity one experiences when one is on the road and in the company of someone you really share nothing in common with other than the fact that you both happen to be from the same, very large, continent.
I came to like Brit very much in a big brother kind of way over our short journey together. He has a fun-loving roadie with a big laugh who obviously was always looking for a party - a real dark horse. In the afternoon we stopped for lunch in the downtown area of some pedestrian area of a Danish city whose name I've forgotten. There were buskers playing by the side of the cobblestone street and I stopped to listen to one as we passed. Realizing I had not yet had the opportunity to visit a money exchange and therefore had no money to give, I asked Brit for some change. He quickly handed me the contents of his pocket which I threw into the busker's empty case. A few blocks down the street, Brit asked me what I'd done with the rest of the money.
"What money?" I asked, "I gave it all to that guy"
"All of it?" Brit asked pausing ever so slightly in his gait.
"Yes, all of it," I confirmed.
"That was the equivalent of $40!" We came to a halt staring at each other. This revelation came as a total shock to me as the highest denomination coin we had in Canada at the time was the one dollar loony. It seemed unfathomable to me that a small handful of coins could be so valuable. Brit shrugged. "How generous of you," he remarked with a smile and then continued on his way.
Yes, I for the 5-6 hours of my life in which I knew Brit, I liked him very much.
A few friends have asked me to write about how I came to use the name, theotherlondon, so here it is: a collection of stories from June 1993 to October 1994 that include my experiences working in Switzerland and the UK; my engagement to a German blacksmith in Paris; our road trip across North America in a ’67 Volvo with an Australian footballer, and oh yes, my introduction to something ‘new’ called the Internet. You can find the first post here.
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