HellTrek Diary, Part Five

[mad_andy]

Part five - For those about to rock...

Before we left, however, we spotted Markus again.

That is to say, he didn’t come over but--

He was busy.

He emerged from the bus - by now we were so attuned to the damn thing that as soon as the door began to move along its runners with a hydraulic hiss we all swung in that direction, ears pricked and eyes alight - and went to the back of it to rummage in the locker. Now, I remember from Ian’s quick tour of the Leppard bus (ah, way back in ‘03) that these things have a locker at the back, only accessible from the outside, where they stash extra gear, bags, suitcases, that sort of bulky stuff that needs to come along but not on the trucks. Markus must have needed something pretty badly, because he spent alnmost a quarter of an hour having a damn good rummage.

The rest of us went back to waiting. Lia, however, remained where she was, arms folded, watching.

“Lia?”

“Mmm?”

“What are you doing?”

I got a vague wave and a mumble.

“Lia, are you staring at his ass?”

She turned to me and gave me her best innocent look. It didn’t work, because I know what an earthy little soul she is, and just how much she adores Markus. The chances of her staring at him with anything less than utterly filthy thoughts and, indeed, intentions were vanishingly slim. Sensing that the innocent look wasn’t washing, she just grinned at me.

“But Andy! It would be a crime not to...”

~*~

We returned to the same little bar/cafe we’d used earlier, and eyes once more widened when the odd Inglese and her companion sauntered back through the door. They knew something of significance was happening over the road; people in tour shirts and leather jackets had been popping in and out all afternoon. But the really weird one had just strolled back in with her native guide, and this time they were going to find out just what was going on.

Lia had one of her little coffees and for someone like me Italian coffee is a bit of a revelation. This stuff is, anyway. It comes in teeny tiny cups, and Lia herself says it should not be more than two fingers’ worth in the bottom of it - two of her fingers, and she has the smallest fingers I’ve ever seen on an adult.

This is a little drastic for me.

(On the other hand, with such a small set of digits she’d be great at sheep obstetrics - nothing like getting your hand stuck in an unco-operative ewe at three in the morning in January, lambing. A hand like hers and even the most stubborn lamb wouldn’t be able to get stuck! Sorry, I’m digressing again, aren’t I?)

So I ordered a hot chocolate - well, Lia did because my tiny store of Italian doesn’t even stretch that far and besides, my brain was frozen almost solid - and I loosened jacket and scarf to soak up as much warmth as possible. The girl behind the counter said something, and Lia turned to me with a laugh.

“She says you must be freezing because you’re nearly naked under that jacket!”

This was not entirely true. However, a thin strappy t-shirt does not provide much defence against freezing winter weather, which is why I was wearing my big silk scarf; wrap that bugger around your neck and it’s more effective than a woolly one twice its size. I was still cold, though.

I winked at her, and she chuckled.

The drinks arrived, Lia’s coffee lurking in the bottom of the doll-sized cup and mine--

The fuck...?

Now, whenever I’ve had hot chocolate overseas before - I’m thinking Germany and Iceland, predominantly - it’s come in a honking great mug, steaming and with everything from whipped cream to melting marshmallows drifting like fluffy icebergs on the top of it. Huge, fattening and massively fortifying, air and hot milk and cream and chocolate forming a sort of liquid souffle that one can wrap one’s hands around and warm up with in all sorts of different ways. The heat radiating through the ceramic, great whiffs of hot, scented air up the nose, long draughts of warm sweetness into the stomach, dissolving the frigid chill of the great outdoors from the inside. You know the sort of thing. This was...

... not like that. At all.

It was a small cup, not quite as petite as Lia’s coffee but the sort of thing you’d get a cup of coffee in pretty much anywhere else in the world. Your average, basic, standard (perhaps a little on the small side) ceramic cup and saucer. How odd. Stingy devils.

I peered in the top. The contents peered back.

There is a place near Geysir, in Iceland, where you can watch pools of boiling mud plopping and burbling cheerfully to themselves amongst the wreaths of sulphur-scented steam; each one makes a different note and it’s not entirely dissimilar to a chorus of very odd frogs proposing love to each other. My point is that the mud has a strange, thick consistency and were it not for the fact that it’s hot enough to strip the flesh from your fingers you would be tempted to touch it to see if it is really quite as silky and smooth as it appears. It looks, in short, like liquid milk chocolate. (Smells like rotten eggs, but that’s entirely by-the-by.)

The stuff lurking in the cup had that same look to it - touch me and I’ll burn your hand off - but a couple of shades darker. Oh, and it smelt considerably better, to boot.

I looked up at Lia, and felt a little helpless. They’d given me a cup of-- of--

“Oh,” I said, “er. This is... um.”

She grinned, and headed off to the loo leaving me propped against the bar, centre of a circle of fascinated - if covert - regard and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do next. I turned back to the small cup, now developing a wrinkled skin on the surface of the seething liquid inside, and picked up my spoon.

I poked it.

It released the spoon with great reluctance, although the sucking sound was probably my imagination; I stuck the spoon in my mouth, cleaning it of the clinging coat of chocolate with some effort.

When these people make hot chocolate they do not muck about. As far as I could tell they’d taken a bar of very very good chocolate, melted it, and put it in a cup. Perhaps adding a little boiling milk to keep it from returning to an entirely solid state too soon, but not a great deal. Not very much at all, because trying to drink it from the cup was like trying to drink wallpaper paste. It tasted a good deal better, I’ll grant you, but the consistency told me that if I wanted to try and get it all this way I’d end up balancing the cup on my nose until it drained and wearing the biggest chocolate moustache ever; I don’t mind being the comic relief but this was going to border on the ridiculous unless I came up with a plan, and quick. Before my drink turned into a snack I could shake out of the cup like a mould. Which would, knowing my luck, then run away laughing at me.

I put the cup back on the saucer and watched the chocolate inside slink back down to a slightly lower level than it had been at before, snickering at the stupid Inglese who’d never had to deal with the likes of itself before, getting herself in a terrible pickle over something as simple as consuming a mere cup of hot cocoa based beverage. This was crazy.

Right then, when in doubt, reach for the cutlery. I have no idea what the correct etiquette is for consuming a cup of the stuff is in public in a Milan bar, but whatever it was I just ploughed ahead and ate the damn thing with a spoon. It was... ridiculously good. I mean, totally, obnoxiously, batteringly good.

Hot chocolate normally cuddles you warm, right? It’s a comforting drink. It’s something to snuggle down into the sofa with while the wind howls outside, or to fill yourself while watching the cold play with the sparrows outside the cafe windows. Not this stuff.

Nope, this stuff sort of screamed into the stomach, fizzed along the neural pathways with one heck of a belting sugar rush and booted the brain into gear, warming you up like some sort of nuclear reaction within the gizzard. Gentle it wasn’t. But damn, was it good.

Nobody laughed at me. Either I’d got it right, or they didn’t care, or nobody dared laugh at the crazy Inglese who was, let’s face it, hardly dressed in a demure and retiring fashion. Fair, gentle flower of femininity I ain’t, not with the Boots Of Doom and the much-patched denim over the leather, anyway.

Lia returned from her comfort trip and I headed off for mine. I had to chuckle when I glanced over my shoulder; the staff had closed in around her and were chattering excitedly, waving arms and eyes alight. Curiosity was evident in every line; I may not have spoken the language, but I could read what their bodies were saying without the need for an interpreter. It was as though a strange alien had walked in, all blue skin and horns, and they wanted to know what it was about; was it friendly? Would it bite?

Lia’s body language was equally easy to read - I love Italians, when you’ve trained yourself to pick up what the average Brit is thinking they’re dead easy - and she was relaxed and open, chattering back to them with as much enthusiasm as they were showing her. I smiled. It wasn’t just the band who’d noticed my place of origin; I was rapidly becoming accustomed to whispers - and indeed, quite loud comments - of ‘Inglese?’ pretty much everywhere we went. Never in a tone which indicated anything other than honest surprise, occasional approval or outright astonishment, but it was beginning to make me faintly paranoid. I was awfully glad for my petite little native guide...

Comfort stop complete, I swung my ass back out. If I was on show, then let ‘em look; I’ve got quite good at the shoulders back, head up, look-’em-in-the-eye-and-damn-the-torpedoes act over the years. Doesn’t mean I’m any more confident inside but--

I’m digressing again.

It was all smiles and waves as we made our way back outside, and I waited until we were safely across the road before turning to Lia.

“What did they want?”

She looked surprised. “Nothing, why?”

Try again. Lia’s English is so good I often found myself forgetting that she didn’t have a lifetime’s worth of experience with the language behind her; so sometimes I’d use a phrase and she would react to the words instead of the meaning.

“I mean, I saw ‘em close on you when I went to the loo. I wondered what they were asking about?”

She laughed. “Oh, why we’re here, why everyone else is here, why you were here and why I’d want to fly back to London...”

“The band?”

“Yeah.”

“So they think we’re nutters?”

“We are, aren’t we?”

No good answer to that one.

We settled back into our spot and waited. I shall draw a veil over the rest of the afternoon, because to describe it in minute detail would be just as boring to read about as it would be to write - and to experience, quite frankly. I will make a couple of observations on the difference between British queues and Italian ones....

The contests. Every now and again my companion would belch loudly then cock her head as though listening for an echo.

“What are you doing?” I would ask, faintly revolted even while noticing that nobody else had turned a hair. It transpires that usually (although not on this occasion, thankfully) one very loud eructation is indeed echoed until everyone has either run out of gas or is laughing too hard to continue. Er - right. There’s one I hope never makes the transition!

Singing. Now, whilst spending many cold - but ultimately satisfying - hours waiting for Leppard with the girls we’d been known to belt out a tune or two, but it’s not that common, on the whole. Here? Oh boy. And not just Helloween; Manowar, Gamma Ray, Edguy - very few of them spoke the language but damn, did they know the lyrics. Not too many of them could carry a tune in a bucket but the sheer exuberance was an absolute delight.

Oh, and lining up. Only the English queue; everybody else sort of bundles, but at least the Italian crowd wasn’t as bad as the Bremen lot. That one hurt and got really nasty, but this was just lots of good natured shuffling. Once the steel barriers were brought out and we were all corralled I elbowed my way past a lad, only to get a bollocking from a security guy - of which I understood not a word. He gave up telling me off when the blank look on my face persuaded him that I was either an idiot or a foreigner, but at least he didn’t throw me out.

Lia dragged me closer to her, and refused to let go of my hand until I calmed down; as ever, the last twenty minutes or so of waiting were absolutely killing me. What if we didn’t get to the front? What if we were held up? What if what if what if?

Those who didn’t have tickets were herded to the other side of the doors; I assumed that once they’d let us in then those others would be shuffled along to the box office to pick up any leftover tickets. Funnily enough, RIN was amongst them; for the amount of time he’d been hanging around - and the way he’d been getting in everybody’s faces - we’d all assumed he’d had his ticket nice and safe. (Earlier, we’d caught him staring rabidly through a gap in the folding steel doors, and had assumed something was happening; on staring through the gap above him it turned out that the inner doors had been shut and he was staring at a blank wall. For ages. Weird kid.)

Still, it got him away from us, which worked for me.

I’d told Lia that, as I’m a bit slow, that she should just get to the front and try to hang on to a spot - I’d catch her when I could. She agreed, and we went back to the shuffle-squeeze of the final run up to being let in.

And Hallelujah but they got it right, for once. When they let us in it was in small groups, and I mean small; four at a time, stop the ones behind, wait until that four had cleared right through, next four. I was in the second bunch, having been thoroughly squashed by the tall kid I’d elbowed past earlier - what goes around comes around, I guess! Anyway, I was in and whilst running across the floor - with nobody shouting at me - my cigarettes made a break for freedom. And here’s a tip; never try to pick your cigs up off the floor while running because guess what?

You fall over.

I rolled to a halt, hooting with laughter; somebody kicked the pack to me but I fumbled the save, and eventually a sympathetic security guy picked them up and handed them to me. How embarrassing....

But there I was, settled on the barrier next to Lia, all safe and unsquashed. And relieved! Time to shed the gear.

More differences. English barriers are horrible things (oh, but I’m sure they’re very safe), made of pierced steel that gives no purchase whatsoever, reaching to either just below my boobs (Astoria) or just over them (owch, Hammersmith), with a step on the back side to allow security to climb up to see what’s going on, catch crowd surfers, pull people out and all the other things security are supposed to do during a gig. These were very different. More akin to decorative gates they were box-section steel in a criss-cross pattern that, I was to discover later, gives great purchase to knees and feet and allows little Lia to clamber halfway up them to counteract her shortness. They were also low, coming to just above my waist.

Now, if the step is on the back of the barriers to make it easier to pull people over, why not make the barriers lower? I have to say, these were the easiest and best barriers to deal with I’ve ever experienced... although English Health and Safety would no doubt have a dicky fit if they saw them.

Something else they’d have hysterics about was the behaviour of security. Happily taking coats and bags and stashing them by the stage, sorting through them and returning them when asked - and even getting into the music. Smiling at fans. Being helpful and friendly.

I’m sure there’s a law against that over here.

I explained all this to Lia, and she was startled. “Why?” she asked, and to be honest I have no good answer. Because we’re English, I guess.

Anyway, the ink got plenty of attention. I was wearing the bodice I’d worn for BruceAir - because I can take my shirt off without anything falling out, ha - and a strappy little tank top. This meant that pretty much all of it was out there for inspection except the stuff under the hair; every now and again I’d hear an exclamation of “Ooooo!” and knew that Eddie had caught somebody else’s eye. Lia would laugh and turn to them, explaining in rapid Italian what it was and then I’d lift my hair and turn my back to them.

Always gets one heck of a reaction.

OK, so I’m an attention whore when it comes to my skin art. So sue me.

It got tighter but remained bearable, and we passed the time hanging over the barrier and waving at various of the people who’d been waiting for so long with us. The two people next to us were going to be a pain in the bum, I could tell; the guy was standing behind his girlfriend, hands on the barrier protecting her; nice, but the pair of them kept mumbling whenever my elbow hit his hand. Oh people, get real. You think this is bad, wait while the band comes on....

The lights dropped and the support act came on, a few at a time; drummer, bassist, then guitars. Cute. Give ‘em a roar, let them know that if they put on a decent show we’re with them. I like seeing support bands; I’ve seen some corkers over the years and it’s a good way of seeing a band you may never have heard of before. And although there’d been a lot of bitching outside (of the ‘I heard the support act is shit’ variety) the crowd didn’t give them too hard a time. For two reasons.

One, they threw themselves into their performance heart and soul. Always helps. And two, one of the singers was a very nice looking girl.

“Nu-do! Nu-do!” chanted the - mostly male - crowd, and I creased up. I didn’t need a translator for that one.

The bassist clocked the cleavage early and kept wandering to the front of the stage for a closer look. I’ll make a brief aside here; it’s not just the cleavage that draws the eye of whoever is on stage, although it helps. I maintain that the fact that if the music catches me I fling myself into it and have a bloody good time helps; and anyway, looking at a decent set of boobs probably makes a nice change from watching a lot of sweaty hairy lads flinging themselves about. Not to mention that the owner of said decent boobs is also leaping about like a maniac clearly enjoying herself.

That said, the male singer kept wandering over and leering cheerfully - I leered back, he was cute - and plucking the front of his shirt. The meaning was obvious; take it off!

What, for the poxy support band? No chance, John. You want to see ‘em, nip back out when Helloween are on. But for the moment you’ve got all you’re getting, so there.

The girl singer took the chanting in good form, and I noticed she came and gave all the girls on the barrier a wave and a wink; we were all giving her all the support we could, and i think she appreciated it. I hope she did, anyway, because she was damn good. In fact, they all were; the band is called Axxis, and they’re definitely worth a listen. I enjoyed their set, a lot, and the rest of the crowd did too, I think.

They even, at one point, got a girl out of the crowd to bang on a tambourine during one one song; the singer had eyed me but give up my spot on the barrier? Not on your life, pal. The crowd (and the band) laughed their nuts off when the girl chosen couldn’t keep time if her life depended on it, but kudos to her for having the balls to get up there in the first place. The drummer eyed Lia and I and shook his head with a grin, as did the bassist.

Must be boob men.

Off they went after doing their thing, Lia managing to snag a drumstick after a short but intense battle with the guy next to her. here’s a tip, don’t get between the pocket rocket and anything she’s after - because you will lose.

The crowd began to shuffle and fidget, surging and shoving a little, and you could feel the adrenaline beginning to rise; I got one of my bottles of water out of Lia’s bag (no bag searches or restrictions here, hurrah!) and stuck it in my pocket, after swigging down a dextrose tablet; ending up at the first aid post with no Italian wasn’t my idea of fun.

The lights went down. Time to shed the shirt, stuff it into the trousers before the arms got too trapped to move.

The noise level went up.

AC/DC came over the PA, the last song with the volume raised high enough to rattle the teeth. For Those About To Rock... and the crowd knew every line, and we sang it and we swayed and we began to sweat, and we shuffled and we roared and we shouted and we stopped being individuals, just becoming part of that shifting, chanting, happy organism known simply as The Crowd.

For those about to rock - we salute you....

FIRE!

~*~