Jonathan Vidal's norweigian tour diary
(July 1999)

Re`presenting Tipos de Interés I was promoting the new band's stuff, specially the brand new 7" featuring Ramones' covers in Norway!

Under the kind management of Åsmund Prytz (Nullskattesnylterne) and the misterious influence of Dirk Von Schneider, label manager of Nosebleeder Records (the label that just released the mentioned 7"), I did a 3 gigs-tour around Trondelag (Nord west of Norway)

On Wednesday 23rd of J, minutes after stepping down of the plane, I did an interview with a local newspaper which was announcing my shows there and talked about Norway and our releases in Spain.

The first show (Thursday July the 24th) took place at Dirty Nelly's, the classic irish pub in Namsos. A new club really similar to Dirty nelly just opened the week before, and that was a bit of a drag because very few people attended the show.

Anyway the performance was way cool from the beginning. The sound was unbeatable and the audience very kind and interested in my music. According to the situation, I decided to mix the TIpos de Interés songs with spanish/latin all-time classics such as “Guantanamera”, “Bésame mucho”, “Española abanícame”, “Temperamento Español”, etc...

This last song from Los de la Torre became my first true hit in Norway, specially for the lyrics. The songs deal with scandinavian beauties from the 60's comming to Spain for thier holydays looking for the sun, where spanish boys showed their "spanish temperament" and were ready to please the girls.

By the end of the show I played some songs with Åzzy from Nullskattesnylterne. We played "Cuatro Maletas" (Tipos de Interés), "Dime que me quieres" (ending with norweigian lyrics which got me some extra-applause!) and the TDI classic "De ti".

Namsos is a beautiful town sorrounded by an impressive fyord with more or less 25.000 inhabitants. "Dirty Nelly" was placed on the greatest side of the pier and I could see boats sailing from the stage while I was performing at 23:30. Just in case you never heard about this, summer nights in Norway never get dark. There is always a light which would be normal at 21:00 p.m. anywhere else in Europe, and that made the scene even more beautiful.

The day after this show I was interviewed for Tronder-Avisa, who placed a big article for me (half a page!) the next day. See picture...
 

The show on Friday was really different. Mi role was to create a spanish atmosphere for a "spanish night" at Tino's, a high-standing Italian Restaurant in Namsos. The sound was a little bit worse than Thursday, but according to my previous experiences in Spain with TDI, it was still wonderful! The customers seemed to enjoy my performance a lot again, even though they didn't clap too much because their "paella" dishes were getting cold while clapping! Anyway they loved it, and it was another cool experience for me as an artist.And what the hell, I got a big wad o' money for this gig!

Saturday's gig was brilliant. ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! I played at a festival that took place on an island named Tautra. It was the Taeterstock Festival, where I played with lots of bands playing different kinds of music and where Nullskateesnylterne were the main attraction and last band to play.
 

We were a little bit late (just like rock stars do!) and I just had time to plug my guitar and go for it. When I jumped into the stage I was impressed by the wonderful sorroundings of the festival. The sun was shining (seems like I brought some spanish sun for Norway and I made jokes about this point) and the ocean was just 30 meters from the stage. Everything was green and the audience was again very kind and pleased for my show..

In the end I played with a super guitarist with a really difficult name ("Skjalk"?), with whom I performed “Hechizo de mujer”, “I wanna be your boyfriend”, and also “Dime que me quieres” and “De ti” with guest appearance of Åzzy.
 

When I finished I thought about how proud I should be of having played in such a beautiful place like that. I really consider that it was even better than the Doctor Music Festival, which takes place on the spanish pirinees.

After all the other gigs and drunk like a fish because of our own imported directly from Spain "Calimocho" (red wine with Coke) and a weird home-made liquor from Trondelag named Koshk, Nullskattesnylterne invited me on stage to sing "She's a sensation" with them. I guess that I destroyed the song, but it was fun as hell!

The rest of the trip, after accomplishing my "professional duties", brought me some surprises like travelling on a fishing boat which got up to 18 giant salmons, going to mark raindeers with the Sami tribe, visitng Oslo and its famous club "Last Train", a place where Gluecifer and the Hellacopters jumped into the stardom of R'n'Roll and where the Pleasure Fuckers played on their Norweigian 1997 tour.

Before going back to Spain the Ramones' split tribute 7" (featuring Tipos de Interés, Nullskattesnylterne and Harry Coltello) arrived. After a meeting with enigmatic Dirk Von Schneider, and the signing of the contract for this EP and future relationships about opening a Nosebleeder Records sucursal in Spain, I went back to barcelona with a great feeling and experiences on my suitcase. Takk!
 
 

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