Yesterday my travel buddy Em gave me two tickets to see Gogol Bordello at their one and only gig in Canada this year. It just happens to be in Vancouver, a couple of days after we are due to arrive and a few days before my birthday, and the venue is only 500m from our hotel.
Oh, it's just all so wonderful.
Years ago (1989?) I was travelling round Northern Italy with my boyfriend and we found ourselves being driven around Milan late at night in a raging storm in the teeny-tiniest little car, that doesn't have a red doors and a plastic yellow roof and that you push along with your feet, by an Italian soldier who was trying to outrun the military police and get us to the railway station for the midnight departure to somewhere.
Cowardice being the better part of valour, we ran like fuck when he slowed to walking pace and opened the doors, and got on the first train we saw. It was absolutely packed to the ceiling with a Dark Side of Pink Floyd fans who were on their way to Venice to see them perform on a big floating pier in front of St Mark's square. We changed our plans and went along for the ride. A lighter in the air affair, but one to remember with great pleasure.
Does anyone remember Archaos? They toured and then camped out on Clapham Common in the early 1990s for a couple of summers and juggled flaming chainsaws while doing wheelies on the wall of death on motorcycles. The first time I went to see them I came out in a daze, it was like a 3D virtual Mad Max circus, but real. You just don't get entertainment like that anymore, outside Moss Side.
Any favourite nights out...?
