Band Camp in Gästrikland

When snow melts, floaties are compulsory safety equipment

So I play drums in Luhrarne, the uni big band, and a couple of months ago we went to a small bands festival (a small festival for uni bands, not a festival for small bands) in Gävle, which is the capital of the Gastrikland region, whose name never ceases to amuse me. Come to our fine restaurants! Recover in our world class hospitals!

The band uniform is the green lab coats. Under which overalls can be worn, and generally the more prylar or crap attached, the better. We actually placed ourselves in mortal danger by standing here, because a bus went out of control and drove through it before crashing into a concrete barrier on the Sunday. A few hours later. In the square next to this one.

I couldn't quite get the right angle to make this look dodgier than it is... but some surreptitious drinking in public places is being done.

Almost Leunig-esque. I like the touch of the ciggie and the paper. Actually, Gävle is probaly most famous for the Christmas Goat, a massive straw julbock that gets erected in the town every year, and more than half the time has been burnt down or vandalised. This year, on the 40th anniversary of the goat tradition, the town invested a lot of effort into impregnating it so that it could not be burnt. It seemed like they were issuing a challenge actually. And one attempt was made to set it on fire, but was unsuccessful. The only time they ever caught someone for burning it down was an American tourist, who thought it was an official tradition, and didn't run after setting a match to it but stood there watching it burn!

If you look down the list in the Wikipedia link above, you'll see that 'hillbillies' were involved in crashing into it one year. These raggare are basically bogans in souped up Volvos. I haven't noticed any fluffy dice, but that's because the windows are all tinted.

Not a strange initiation ceremony. Just some emergency reindeer surgery

Reinholt, our reindeer gift to the festival organizers. Its teats dispense whiskey, and reaching up its ass up to your elbows you hit... 'chocolate' (quotes not needed, it is real chocolate). Albin, our fearless leader, suckled at its teats to get his hit of highest kvality German whiskey (yes), with 'whiskey colourant added'. Classy stuff.

Not an inspiring building to have a class in. (For you swedes out there, frigg in aussie would be something typ fan or djävla).

Opera singers getting... boned? Oy.

The blåa burk (blue tin can), the new arts center

Litheblås from Linköping Uni. A big, energetic brass band, with a fantastic drummer somewhere in the middle there. And a dancing crew. Here in Sweden, and especially up north, pair dancing (foxtrot and a kind of swing dancing called bugg) are very popular, so guys really need to know how to dance.


Whacky entertainment is the order of the day. Our band plays classics like the Gummy Bears Theme, Batman, Greased Lightining, the CanCan (for our dancers), and then usual swing stuff. Just dont ask about why I, in the seconds before starting, could forget the simple drumbeat to I'm So Excited, on stage, two concerts in a row...