The Sweden Trip

Myself and Rich touched down at Alanda airport, only a brief 40 minute bus trip away from Stockholm. Once again my bag came riding on the conveyor belt like some crap prize rejected from the generation game but this time it had not been slashed open by whatever monkeys had been let out from the zoo to handle luggage. Once we had arrived at the Hostel and had chowed down on the first of many cheap burgers (which, by the way, ended us coining the phrase McTummy; use your imagination) we passed out; now I’m not trying to make excuses but we had had a long day and seeing as it was one in the morning it seemed like the intelligent thing to do.

On Saturday we awoke and made our way to do some brief sightseeing and reacquaint ourselves with the city. During this time I began to feel the bite for a beer, and Sweden being a country where people obviously care about their livers, found it rather hard to actually find a place to begin getting drunk. Luckily for me but unluckily for my largest gland we managed to find a hole of sorts that dispensed beer. We then remembered that Sweden; once again looking after the second largest organ in the body (it is…the skin is the largest…look it up); runs its alcohol distribution through some government run off licence called System Bolaget.

Now the strange thing is on a Saturday the System closes its doors at three in the afternoon and therefore at half past two it seems that every Swede is a raging alcoholic as they attack each other for the booze and a place in the quickest queue. I and Rich managed to join in the scrum and elbowed chaos in the face and managed to buy as much booze as we could so we would be able to drink ourselves into some sort of drunkenness like all English people can. A joke I heard once, I feel, best describes our mindset: “English people are the only people on Earth who get drunk before they go out to get drunk. That’s like eating a steak before going out for a three course meal.” When we promptly tried to explain this mindset to our Swedish friends we failed because we were well on the way to getting drunk.

We headed in to Slussen section of Stockholm so we could make our way to an Alternative Club called ‘Debaser’. This club is somewhat of a perennial place for bands to play from all over the world. The roster of artists and bands that have played there reads like a who’s who of…well you think of the simile yourself. I’m tired from the trip. We entered the club and carried on our drinking in earnest. Between bands, whilst the dance floor was empty, I punch danced myself out for awhile (Rich managed to record the whole thing on his mobile, and keeps threatening to post it on youtube).

We began to mix and talk with many people and once again, Swedish people proved to me that they are the friendliest people on the planet. Every person we spoke to smiled and had conversations with us while we mumbled our way through. Kudos to the Swedes for not only for having English as their second language, but also for being able to understand us; where English probably sounded like it was our fourth or fifth.

Of the people we spoke to one guy we met was called Rickard and after him having to put up with us telling him he resembled Jack Black (sorry Rickard) we found out that he was a member of the band Suburban Kids With Biblical Names ( a fantastic moniker I think you’ll agree). After many more drunken conversations we all agreed to come and watch his band play in one of (how ironic) the suburbs of Stockholm.

On a Tuesday night we arrived at a suburb called Telefonplan and after making our way out of the station headed towards a smell venue. As we entered it dawned on us quite how small the venue was. We were crammed into the place and it was packed so tight it felt like my eyeballs were getting popped out of their sockets. I bought a beer and wished for a straw as I bumped someone every time I tried to lift the glass to my lips.

I fought my way through a plethora of indie boys with sucked in cheeks that looked like retired lab technicians and indie girls wearing polka dot dresses and looking uncannily like the indie boys. The band edged their way on to what really should be called a plinth (though we will assume it was a stage) and played a great set. The music sounded like they had somehow bottled summer and then spread it across their instruments and melodies, for a moment I forgot it was February. Each song managed to bring a smile to my face and made me wish that I knew the words. Rich had the task of taking the snaps whilst I was able to enjoy the music, as my beer became warmer and warmer. After the band completed their set the floor suddenly breathed out and I could move again.

We continued to watch the other bands on the bill though I was unimpressed after seeing Suburban Kids… These bands sounded like they had spent months listening to Moldy Peaches outtakes and then had decided to play them backwards. There is Lo-Fi and then there is just an inability to play and the last two bands fell into the latter. We drank some more and finally bid adieu to our Swedish friends after having a great night. It was only marred by some loud Americans who obviously felt the need to broadcast where they came from…like we did a couple of nights previously.

But I like to think we did it with more class.