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Peter's
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The Novi Sad Experience
The Players:
Peter - Vocals,
Dave - Drums
Paul H - Bass
Andy Aggro - Guitar
Tracy - UK Driver
Introducing:
Djura- Best sound man in Europe
and our
Serbian agent
Igor - Novi Sad promoter
Tuesday 8th May 2007
Why break the habit of a career
and get picked up to go to the airport at a decent time? After
all, if ain’t broke, why fix it? And so it was that Dave, Tracy
and Paul picked me and Aggro up at 4.30AM for the trip to
Heathrow. Before I go any further I should
point out that Aggro was once again filling in on guitar as Del
didn’t fancy it. Due to personal issues Walnut also couldn’t
make it. We checked in without any hassle
and then hit the bar in Terminal 4. Now obviously you expect bars in
airports to be a bit expensive and as I was ordering H’s
bloody mary I remarked to Dave that I thought this was going to
be about a fiver. Wrong. It was £6.70 ! I had one later and I’ve
gotta admit it was bloody good although I'm not sure if it was
really worth it. Once seated on the plane we were
told by the captain that there had been a delay in the alcohol
arriving and that rather than delay the flight we were taking
off without it. A likely story. Expect more bullshit like this
as we head towards the time when all economy passengers will be
refused free alcohol. Upon landing in Belgrade we were
met by Igor who turned out to be the promoter from Novi Sad. A
few minutes later our old mate Djura turned up and we all got
into a beer stocked van for the drive north to Novi Sad. The sun was shining , we had
plenty of beers and we were all in good spirits. I sensed an
eagerness in everyone to banish the memories of our last gig
which had been dreadful. At Novi Sad we checked into a
nice hotel in the centre and after a shower went to a local bar
for a couple of beers.
Front Table L-R : H, Djura, Peter,
Igor, Dave, Tracy and Aggro.
We then all piled into a couple
of cabs and drove out to the old fortress overlooking the city
and the Danube. It is a beautiful place and it is also where the
Exit festival ( one of Europe’s biggest ) takes place each
summer. The reason we came here was
because we had been invited to a barbeque....and what a fucking
barbeque it was The food was amazing. The chef
Branko and his willing helpers came up trumps. During the course
of the evening plenty of other people arrived and we all had a
brilliant time. Thanks Branko
 Djura’s dinner looked
interesting
 But Branko’s cooking was a lot
tastier.
It all started so well
 But then things got...
...a bit messy
Back at the hotel me, Aggro and
Dave had a few beers in Djura and H’s room before they kicked
us out. Dave couldn’t get Tracy to open their door as she’d
also crashed out. Aggro could see what was gonna happen so he
scarpered off to his room. This left me apologising to all the
people Dave was waking up and wondering what the fuck I was
gonna do with him. I managed to half carry him
upstairs to my room where he immediately adopted the starfish
position on my bed. He mumbled something about there being room
for me, which was a lie , so I rummaged about in the wardrobe
and found enough stuff to make an uncomfortable bed of sorts on
the floor. However after an hour or two I’d
had enough.It was my bed, if anyone was
gonna piss in it , it was me. I called Tracy again and
fortunately this time she answered and came and collected him.
Wednesday 9th May 2007
In Europe the 9th of May is
called Europe Day. It is basically a celebration of the end of
WW2 and kicking the nazis out of Europe. Obviously it’s a very
big deal and as such is a national holiday in most countries.
The Studentski Kulturni Centar Novi Sad (the Novi Sad students
cultural centre ) had got together with the region’s (
Vojvodina ) council and decided that this year they were gonna
celebrate with a big free open air gig in the city centre.
 English toilet humour.
Fortunately they asked Igor to
help and rather fortuitously for us he is a big Peter and the
Test Tube Babies fan. It seemed a bit strange to be invited to
play at such an important event especially as we had never
played in Novi Sad before, but this just made me even more
determined not to let them down.
Anyway at midday me, Dave, Tracy,
H and Djura wandered over to the main
square where the stage was being erected. We hung around for a
bit until Tracy dragged Dave off to visit some museums or
something equally cultural. We decided to go for lunch and found
a nice pub, The Goose Brewery, where we sat outside and had a
few beers. Once Igor arrived we had some lunch and chilled out.
We met up with Aggro who’d been
out either looking for a pharmacy ( diarrhoea drugs ) or a sex
shop ( toys ) and wandered up the main street to another bar.After another beer and a bit of
sight - seeing I went back to the hotel for a siesta. That didn’t last long cos at
6pm Djura woke me up with the news that I had loads of TV
interviews to do. He wasn’t wrong.
 She wanted it.................an
interview.
A few hours later I met up with
all of the band again back at the Goose pub where they
had been joined by a load of Djura’s mates from Belgrade. As I
was sitting there a gang of punks came up to me and presented me
with ........the key to the city! Fucking nice one! After all these
years I finally get one! Cheers guys.
 I’ve got the key to the city,
now everything’s free....
I wandered off to find Igor and
the two of us went to a pub to watch the Chelsea v Man Utd game
which was as boring as it was unimportant. Upon leaving the pub at about
10pm we had to walk past the city square. By now there were
about 8000 people there. After grabbing a bottle of wine
from the nightclub that was doubling up as our backstage and the
venue for the after show party, I met up with the others at the
side of the stage.Now it was our turn. Out in front
of us were at least 8000 people. I turned to Agg and asked him
if this was the most people he’d ever played to. “ Fuck Yeah “ was the reply.
We walked onstage and the reception was amazing.
As far as I could see it was just
full of people and as soon as we launched into ‘Moped Lads ‘
they all went mental. The sound onstage was superb and I knew
that with Djura doing the sound out front that would also be
superb. It was down to us to raise our game and reciprocate. And
at the risk of sounding big-headed , we fucking well did. Dave
and H played their socks off and Aggro just got better and
better with every song. You’d have never known that it was
only his 5th gig with us and his first without Walnut also
playing guitar onstage.
The enormity and importance of
the gig could have fazed us but instead it spurred us on. We played well, it sounded great
and the audience loved it . What more could you ask? I had the time of my
life. At our last gig I had wished a
heart attack on myself just to get off stage it had been so
awful. At this gig I didn’t want it to stop. Even while I was
on stage I knew it was one of our best ever and looking out to
the sea of people in front of me I felt immensely proud.
Before long though we had
finished the set and had done two encores. We all stood at the
side of the stage congratulating each other before being ushered
off to the nightclub / backstage. The club quickly filled and I
slowly got drunk. The last thing I remember is us
lot walking back to the hotel past vast piles of bottles and
glasses in the square.
Thursday 10th May 2007
At about 9 I met the others for
breakfast and after saying goodbye to Igor we set off in the van
to Belgrade airport. I think I slept all the way. At the airport we said goodbye to
Djura and then we went to check in. For some reason they had no
record of us but the guy behind the desk just checked us in
anyway. The flight back was uneventful (
aren’t they always ? ) as was the van journey
back to Brighton. The gig though had been anything
but uneventful. Our first show in Novi Sad and we’d
played a blinder. Result.
Thanks to:
Djura, Igor, Sava, The SKCNS,
Branko and all at the fortress, The Goose Brewery, The Belgrade
crew and very special thanks to the people of Novi Sad for
making us feel so welcome.
Photography by : Daniel Tesanovic,
Ceda Vasilic and Tracy O’Brien.
Go to our MYSPACE site ( link is
on homepage ) for even more pictures.
Latest
update:
23rd May 2007
Peter's recent blog comments continued
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