top: Simon Palmskin, Split!
bottom: This is the festival site. Note: no mud
Back on the road with The Bays then, in the customary Mercedes Sprinter splitter bus that’s seen more rock and roll wrongness than it has kilometres and judging by these threadbare seats and worn out ashtrays, that’s more wrong than Lemmy’s jeans' drugs pocket.
We plough on through Croatia, heading for “Petrcane, close to Zadar, A fishing village on a peninsular where the Dalmation Coast meets The Adriatic Sea”. We smashed it last year so everyone is pretty relaxed and, approaching the event, mentally and geographically, The Bays feel warm right now. So much so, the beer’s flowing great, really great. Ricky Ricketts, the sound man for everyone from Erasure to, erm, lots of other people you’ve heard of, always ensures every speaker is full and every journey is filled with much merriment and joy. When international, all we ever do is drink all night, sleep for a bit, eat fish, play an amazing gig, sweat some more, make sexy party till dawn then go back to the airport and today is looking unlikely to break that pattern, thank God.
Check in at an air-conned Euro-speedo hotel and I’ve lost my passport, causing much deserved piss-taking (very bad form—I wonder why it's nearly always the crew and not the band that causes concern) only for the splitter to race back round the corner with a tanned arm waving the most loved piece of burgundy since my 80s Farahs. Okay. Swim anyone? The water in Croatia feels like we’re the first to ever swim in it—always the best means of shedding that travelling skankiness. I love the sea, so why do I never swim in it? Keep all of East London’s ‘hidden gem’ lidos; this is the spot, right here, today. A wonderful splash about and it’s more beer I think, in fact I seem to be assembling a very accurate list entitled “How To Dehydrate Yourself Like The Typical Half-Witted Brit”. Anyway, gig day is tomorrow and Soundwave got us here early for just this—bless you, wonderful promoter.
