Manchester

Parking was hard in the tight alleys of Manchester. After sorting out some garbage, moving some traffic-cones, we made enough space for the bus to back up into a perfectly fitted spot. Too bad we intruded the privacy of a homeless guy, poor fellow. Waking up with a bus right beside you is scary for anyone. Since Erlend actually lived the simple life of an upcoming pop-star in Manchester during the hard 90s, he took on the mission to show us a great restaurant for breakfast (brits and buyouts – always the simplest solution). He took us upstreet, to a nice little café where we enjoyed a vegan meal, some freshly pressed orange juice (I actually cried a tear of joy for this one) and coffee. Exactly what we needed. While we sat there, Erlend reminiscing his past, he suddenly burst into laughter and pointed finger at an old asian place where he used to have vegetarian curry for 2.50 pounds. They raised it to 3.00 now.

Oldham street is wicked (this is me tryin to act english). Filled with record shops, vintage clothing and parading hipsters, it was definately the place for us to hang out for a couple of hours. Piccadilly Records were amazing, this guy DJing played some amazing stuff from the 70s, real hypnotic, long, and just driving me into a world of perfectly tight beats. I had a moment there. The band he was playing was this experimental krautrock-act from Germany, Neu!

We also visited the sweet Pop of England shop, where me and Adrian went wild with our credit-cards. I got myself a sweater with a tiger, Adrian a nice wollen one for cold winter nights. But the sickest thing was this hipster wearhouse. It was a four stories building with nothing but stores for gangsters, hippies, freaks, hipsters, hip-hoppers, geeks, indiekids and aroma-therapy girls. They had it all. Glow in the dark neon earrings, old SNES-games, hommade t-shirts, coca cola, 60s lamp shades, a hairdresser, you name it.

Feeling like little kids being sent on a Saturday-mission to buy take-away Pizza, we collected buy-out from Trebbi and went straight to Pizza Hut. Yum yum. The concert went pretty good, we played Explosion for the first time in a long while. Nostalgia. Some professionals tried to rob our bus, using equipment taken from a James Bond-movie, so we had to stay watch while The Whitest Boy Alive played their set. We watched Francis Ford Coppolas Dracula all through the night. So nice.