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The rock’n’roll traveller’s best tips (Part 1)

I was at the bank yesterday and the lady showed me a calculation of what they figure “the normal person” spends monthly. I laughed, said it was clear that this was based on a completely different kind of people than me.

“Howso, are you a big spender?” she asked. She wondered if maybe I was a party-animal who spent my money on nightlife and other meaningless things (you know, expensive living in general).

Quite the contrary. I spend next to NOTHING on the things that they had listed. I’m saving it all for travels and I mentioned that I’ve been to 11 countries (including 2 continents counting the US-trip next month) only this summer.

She stopped what she was doing for a second and I could tell that she could not believe her ears.
“Did you go by interrail or something...?”

No. I went by plane. :-) There are so many budget airlines nowadays that it costs less to fly from Copenhagen to London, than taking the train from Malmo to Stockholm, which is in the same country!
You just need to know a few basic tips and tricks.

  1. Use price-comparing sites.
    There are always tons of different ones and it depends what country you’re in, what fits your needs best. I usually use www.flygresor.se . There’s http://www.edreams.com/ for other European countries – but be careful – the price they initially give you, might change when they’ve added their own service-fees! This goes for edreams.com.
  2. Always book Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
    Those are the days when you will get the best and cheapest deals. Never, ever book on weekends or Mondays. You’ll be surprised when you see how much of a difference it makes. A trip that costs $100 on a Monday morning, will most probably be down to $70 by Thursday, so stay cool and keep checking prices several times a day!
  3. Go to the airport website of your destination and check operating airlines.
    You might be able to find a budget airline you haven’t heard of before, and check their routes. The smallest ones aren’t always included in the results of price-comparing sites.
    I found Niki Air for instance, a small airline in Austria with ridiculously low prices on some of their routes. My flight was flown by Niki Lauda himself, the former racing star. :-)  
    Save on Niki Flights
    Same with Swiss airline Baboo (now Darwin) which operates from Geneva. I flew with them from Geneva to Florence a few years ago. It was the most comfortable plane I’ve ever been on, and they served fantastic gourmet food, air-style instead of the regular kind of plastic-tray airline food that we all know. :-) And it cost next to nothing! So – playing detective usually pays off!
  4. Consider renting a car – or using domestic flights. 
    If you’re going from Copenhagen to Florida for instance, you might find that it’s actually cheaper to fly to a New York-airport first and take a domestic flight from NYC to your FL-destination instead. Same goes for most cities.
    There might be a cheaper option if you choose a different airport.
    For my Firewind-tour that starts next week, I’ll fly to Dusseldorf (Germany) and rent a car – then drive to my 3 different destinations in Netherlands, Belgium and Cologne, Germany, cause it’s cheaper than flying straight to the nearest Dutch airport – even with the rental car fees and gas cost.
  5. A lot of times – taking the TRAIN can be a better and cheaper way to get from point A to point B. For my UK tour, starting next Friday, I’ll be flying to Manchester, but from there I’m taking the train up to Glasgow. Cheap, there are more departures to choose from and you actually see more of the country.
    Trains nowadays are modern and fast, and I find it to be relaxing. Usually they have Wi-Fi as well, so I can just check my mail or write my blogs on the train.
  6. Consider what’s most important to you.
    The cheapest tickets are usually for days and times when most people don’t want to travel. It could be very late in the evenings or very early in the morning. I’ve sometimes chosen the late departures, spent the night in some cheap hotel near the airport or bus/train/subway station, then continued on my way.

HOTELS

  1. Like with airplane-tickets, use a price-comparing site such as booking.com or hotels.com
  2. Or, if you are going to a specific place, such as a venue – go to the venue’s webpage and find out their address. Then go to Google maps and search for hotels nearby. Check the prices and compare with booking.com and hotels.com (or whatever is equivalent in your country). That way, you will save on transport costs. You don’t want to book a cheap hotel outside of town and then spend time and money getting to and from your “place of interest”. Be smart about it, it saves you $$.
  3. Read  the customer reviews, those have helped me a lot. I’ve only once voluntarily chosen a crappy cheap hotel, well knowing what I was getting myself into. It was extremely cheap and I just needed a bed and somewhere to put my bag. You need to know where your own limits are and how comfortable/uncomfortable you want it to be. Choose the right comfort level for the price you’re willing to pay, or else anything is going to feel “too expensive” (for what you got for your money)
  4. Airport-hotels are almost always the cheapest. Sometimes they even offer free shuttles to the city center, that way you will save on transfer-costs as well.
  5. Consider hostels or hotels with shared bathrooms.
    If you’re going to be out sightseeing most of the day, you might not need a fancy bathroom but can settle for a shared one and save yourself  $$$. Some hostels I’ve stayed at, have even been better than hotels, such as Pink Hostel in NYC (for women only) where you can cook your own food in their fresh, modern kitchen. THAT saves money, cause you can just go to the nearest grocery store and get a cheap TV-dinner or noodles or something and microwave it, instead of buying an expensive breakfast (breakfasts are not always included in hotel prices).
  6. Some hotel chains will get you points if you have a mileage card. Collecting enough points gives you lots of advantages, for instance a free hotel night or a free flight once you’ve got enough points. :-) I got myself a free flight from Tampa to Atlanta in October for my Delta miles. :-)

In part two: A lesson on how to pack light and just breeze through security and airports while other passengers are waiting at baggage carousels or desperately digging through their carry-on items to get through security…!

 

Also check out The Rock’n’roll traveller’s best tips part 2 and 3:

http://lita77777.posterous.com/the-rocknroll-travellers-best-tips-part-2
http://lita77777.posterous.com/the-rocknroll-travellers-best-tips-part-3

 

One big rock’n’roll family

The past week I have seen how rock’n’roll can truly bring out the best in people. In this case, it’s more indirectly, but still – the common denominator is the love for music, and the relationship between the people who create it, and the ones who listen to it.

It feels like a family, and I guess in a way it is.
I read one of the nicest messages I’ve seen on Facebook the other day. 

This message was sent out by legendary bassplayer Neil Murray about two days ago:

“When I win the lottery, I’ll get everyone together who wished me a happy birthday and have the best party ever! Thanks again for all your kind wishes – I’m a lucky guy to have you as Facebook friends!”

Very short, but a very cool gesture and I loved the part about “winning the lottery“. :) He could just as well have thought “I don’t know those people” and just have settled for a short “Thanks for the b-day wishes” – period.

Anyway… I loved what he wrote.
Then a more sad situation but also a very sincere and wonderful message from another rock-legend, Jon Lord:

“Just a quick line or two from an absolutely overwhelmed, gratified and humbled musician.

“Your responses to the news of my condition have touched my heart in a way that has truly helped to make my life a better place to be than it had occasionally threatened to become these last few weeks.

“Your wonderful messages wishing me strength and courage have given me even more strength and courage — and so much more than you can ever know.

“I read many of them with tears in my eyes, grateful for this cast-iron proof of the innate goodness of the human being, and grateful to every single one of you for your invaluable support.

“This message goes out, too, to all the similarly wonderful folk on other websites whose support has been equally warm and strong and I want you all to know how greatly heartened and comforted I am by all this.

“The treatment continues and I am confident and being supported by my glorious family and an amazing group of friends.

“See you soon.”

I think the same kind of support is what kept Ronnie James Dio around for a while longer. We love our music and we love our heroes for giving it to us. It all comes back somehow, goes in circles, just as it does at a rock’n’roll-show. The exhange of enegy from the crowd to the band and right back again continues in a sort of way off-stage as well.

Sebastian Bach lost his house, his posessions in the hurricane – everything. Including the Skid Row mastertapes… People who are usually calling him every bad name in the book, finally showed a more human, decent side, and said they were truly sorry to hear about his loss.

I sent an e-mail through the management offering him some of his memorabilia back, if he was interested. Back in the day I used to collect Skid Row stuff, and Sebastian has acknowledged that collection several times. I wouldn’t get rid of it for any reason, just because of all the memories that go along with it, but in this case it felt like I could and would.
I saw that other people offered something similar, so I guess he will get part of his collection back eventually.

Collection

As much as we’re all strangers by the definition of the word, we’re also close to the artists whose music has touched our hearts. And when there’s a crisis, people seem to really step up and show what they’re made of. A day like this, I’m really proud of the global metal community. :-)

Only two weeks left

Been going through the travel-details, just making sure that I’ve got everything I need for the next round of the Firewind-tour.

And speaking of Firewind – everything related to the UK/Europe/US-travels this fall, will be in a new blog that you’ll find here:

http://firewindtour.posterous.com

Figured I might as well put all that stuff in one place since there will be a lot of FW-material the coming few weeks for obvious reasons.

It will be more of a challenge travelling with only carry-on baggage now when it’s getting colder. It’s easy if I have hotels booked, but I won’t have that on the last date of the UK tour. And who wants to go to a show with a suitcase? I’ll figure it out. Everything can be solved, I’ll have to write a book about rock’n’roll travelling someday! :-)

I’ll be away most of September, it feels great. Being home is nice for about two-three days, then I start getting restless again. I am addicted to airports, hotels and venues.

Really happy about WHITESNAKE coming back to Europe in the fall for some arena-dates. :-) So, I will not be missing that either – just haven’t decided on where to go yet – Poland, Germany or the UK. Plenty of time to decide. First thing’s first.

If you haven’t already “liked” my page on Facebook, go check it out – every update is always posted there: www.facebook.com/intherearviewmirror

Or Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/lita77777

Have a great week fellow music-maniacs. :))

 

Rock’n’roll Women

It’s interesting how women’s role in rock’n’roll has pretty much always been limited to one thing: “groupies“. I never quite realized how bad it was until I started meeting/interviewing bands and I constantly was taken for a groupie by strangers who didn’t know anything about me.

It’s as if there was no other box to put a female in. Guys who were hanging outside backstage doors for hours were called “fans” or simply “autograph-collectors”. The general view on those guys was that they were dedicated, they were the real FANS. 

Girls who did the same thing were…groupies? Nobody cared why you were there, how many records you had by the band, how many shows you had seen, or how many nerdy facts you knew, it was just assumed that you were there to screw some musician.

It was so damn tiresome and I always knew what people would automatically think every time I showed up at a hotel or a venue. A blonde hanging with a band – well, that was crystal clear then, could only mean one thing, right?

The funniest memory in that respect would be when my friend Bianca and I went to hang with AC/DC on their tour bus in Albany, NY many years ago. It was so unpretentious, Angus and Malcolm had just ordered pizza from Pizza Hut and Angus tried to pick up that sloppy, greasy piece of pizza to hand it over to me and Bianca. He had to get a handful of napkins to wipe off his hands. And we were, for some reason, discussing the Beatles and the bus-interior (cause they had this huge stereo in there, which was the latest technology at the time).

It was just fun, very relaxed, we were treated very friendly and nothing weird was going on. But you can imagine people’s faces when two Swedish blondes got off the AC/DC-bus wiping their mouths with napkins?! ‘Nuff said. ;)

[Me, Angus, Malcolm and Bianca with our pizzas on the bus, 1996]

 I always dressed in jeans and sneakers when I went to gigs, figured that nobody would ever take me for a groupie since I was there rocking out, getting all sweaty and messed up like everybody else.
Didn’t matter. If I had a backstage pass or was seen talking to a rockstar – that was it. It was as if I had the word “Groupie” printed on my forehead.

Professionally, I was very particular about staying 100% business. Cause if you want to be taken seriously, you’ve got to act professionally, even if the people you’re dealing with, aren’t.

Cause if you cross the line and get involved with musicians, and it’s really just hurting your professional image, since it fuels the general public’s attitude towards women in rock. I worked too hard to make a name in this business to jeopardize it for some meaningless one-night-stand with a rockstar. Especially not since I know those guys better than most, as I have been around musicians most of my life. I know how all that works.

Groupies were “no-names”, for the most part. There was always some other chick in the next town that looked the same and would be used for the same thing as the one the night before – and the day before that. Nobody ever gave a fuck about them and certainly didn’t remember their names.

People remembered my name. Maybe because I didn’t screw anyone, maybe because I surprised some of those bands by actually knowing a lot more about their music than they expected me to, or maybe because it was obvious that I was dedicated to the music, not the musicians.
I don’t know, but I earned the kind of respect I would most likely not get if I had been a groupie (unless, of course, I had gone out of my way to become the next Pamela DesBarres or something).

I was rarely treated badly by people in the business, especially after a few years when my name got known by a lot of people. There were, of course, managers, record company representatives and people like that who were annoying assholes, but it was just because they were like that in general, not because it had anything to do with me, personally.

But things are SO much better now than they were in 1983. There are more women in the metal crowds now, there are women in all fields of the business and it’s no longer a big deal. I guess a female musician still have to hear that she’s “good – for a woman” and answer questions about her female rolemodels or other things that are focused more on her gender than her music and musicianship. But it’s still a whole lot better now than it used to be.

And it’s only been in more recent years really that I’ve met other females in this business that are super-professional, tough ladies and very, very good at what they do.
Two of them I met through Jon Oliva’s Pain. Anett, their tour manager, and Hanneke, the light-tech. Both very cool ladies who I think are truly inspiring. I can relate to them because they’ve both had to overcome obstacles to prove that they know their shit and earn the respect that they deserve.

I remember Hanneke yelling at some stage-guys when she was out working for Finnish rockers Lordi, and when I laughed at her “bitchiness”, she just stated that it was the only way to get people to listen to you. If you’re too nice, they’re just gonna treat you like a doormat.

Same thing with Anett. She’s definitely not letting anyone treat her like a doormat, that’s a tough lady with brains and very dedicated to the business. It’s her life, she loves and knows her rock’n’roll.

I always had to turn to guys to be able to do that. Most girls weren’t interested in music on that level. But now, I’m getting to know more and more of them, and it feels great!

There are a few more very close friends that are extremely skilled, as photographers, managers, whatever else they have chosen to do and it just puts a smile on my face to see how things have changed for the better.

Heavy metal will always be “masculine” music. It’s a macho world, for the most part. But it’s no longer an exclusive men’s club, like it used to be. It’s a music style that attracts all kinds of people, all ages, all kinds of backgrounds, men, women, workers, lawyers, young, old….

I remember how I was one out of…maybe 5 girls at Judas Priest-concerts in 1991 or the Clash of the Titans-shows (Slayer, Testament, Suicidal Tendencies, Megadeth). It was ONLY guys. NOW, you will find that things are very different. There are girls everywhere, loving the music just as much as any guy.

I’m glad that even the male-dominated world of rock has evolved. It only took almost 40 years to get there, but it shows that nothing is ever impossible! :)

Last Ozzy-trips of 2011 – I’m gonna miss it…!

It’s been another busy week. Two more countries visited and the last Ozzy show of 2011 is now done… But let’s go back to last Friday, to somehow recapture the past week that I never quite had time to write about until now.

I had a visitor here, Vera who I met at Sweden Rock Festival, that she was covering for the Russian edition of Classic Rock Magazine. A really cool girl, so it was fun having her here, eventhough it was very improvised.
I got sick,  was almost broke, then it was raining most of the day on Sunday so maybe some of the circumstances could have been better but all in all, it was great.

It’s just rare with other girls that are just as passionate for rock’n’roll as myself, who are in the biz and can relate to the same things. It’s also interesting to learn a little about how things are in another country.

Went to the Modern Museum, a small private museum in town, because she wanted to see the Picasso-exhibition. I found a painting by Matisse that I stopped at because I know that it’s David Coverdale’s favorite artist. Or one of them, maybe I should say. :)

Then I thought I’d show her Turning Torso, but instead we ended up in the middle of a dog-exhibition of some sort out there on the beach! I didn’t even know there was an event there, but it couldn’t have been more perfect, we both LOVE dogs!!

In the evening we met up with my friend Henny, went to L’Angelo to “have a beer”, but as we were all either sick or driving, we ended up ordering TEA and JUICE! How very….rock’n’roll ;)
Went to the rock-pub Dead End for a short while but there were only annoying people there so we just decided to leave.

The next day was spent indoors watching videos on Youtube, music-DVD.s or flipping through music magazines. Pretty much like the classic “nerd evenings” here. :) She left in the evening for Gothenburg and her friend there.

I went home to try to get better, because I was coming down with the worst cold ever. But Monday was POLAND-time. One of the last OZZY-shows this year. The flight was an hour delayed due to technical problems, which was ok by me – I was so sick that I just sat there sleeping at the airport. Slept all the way to Gdansk, and then headed straight to the first taxi I saw.

The people in Poland weren’t better at English than the Greeks, so when I asked the cab-driver how much it would cost to the hotel, he drew “80” with his finger on the cab window.
80 zloty. Ah.

I got the absolutely coolest hotel-room ever. I checked into this art hotel called Lalala, every room is different, and mine was designed for a rocker. :) You’ll see pics of it in my previous blog.

I just went to bed early that day. The next day – the day of the show – it was pissing down. The sky was BLACK and I had a fever, could barely breathe, felt like shit.
I stayed in bed all day, until it was time to get going, cause I wasn’t going to miss the concert.
I’ve been sick at shows before, so I was determined to go.

Asked the guy at the reception (which was actually also the hotel BAR…) how to find Ergo Arena, and he immediately said with a big smile: “Ah! OZZY!” He knew what was happening there that day apparently. :)

It wasn’t close, it was a good 30-40 minute walk, but it was easy to find. Just straight, across the railway station, two more right turns then I could see the arena from afar and people with Ozzy t-shirts in a caravan walking across this huge field. I guessed that they knew a shortcut, so I just sort of blended in and followed those people…

Called my friend Mari who was my personal GPS when I got lost in Greece as well and she looked up Google maps once again. I found the way to the arena, but then finding the way to the entrance was a different story. The security guy answered in Polish and that didn’t help me much. I eventually found that too.

IMAG1506.jpg

Security people in Poland were kind of intimidating, and they were shouting out instructions to people that I didn’t understand, so I didn’t dare filming in there at first cause there was a shitload of security guys looking like a freaking army, but then I laughed to myself when I realized that these guys had NO idea what was about to happen to them in a few minutes! :))))

They would all get hosed down with FOAM from head to toe, and lose their faces and image completely, so suddenly they didn’t seem as intimidating anymore. :) My videos could make anyone seasick but I was trying to make it look like I was taking pics, not filming so…. ah well, what can you do. :)

The Polish crowd was WILD! Absolutely crazy! I mean – the NOISE that they made when Ozzy and his guys walked up on stage…!! The energy that they kept throughout the whole show, it was amazing! I was too sick to do anything but just HANG there on the barrier. I felt like a zombie, but at least I was there. It just puts a smile on my face seeing Ozzy and his boys – there is so much LOVE on Ozzy’s stage.

[Video: SOMEONE THREW A PURPLE BRA AT OZZY :-)))]

That whole Prince of Darkness-bullshit is just ridiculous. There is no danger-factor to Ozzy, he is more like Barney than Lucifer. All I see is a man who has come to a point in his career where he doesn’t need to pretend to be someone he’s not. He is OZZY. People love him no matter who or what that is. He has earned the right to just do his thing and be happy! I love the sincerety, the true enthusiasm that he projects, it’s very contageous.

And the guys in the band are like brothers, it’s very obvious that they really enjoy playing together and that there is a wonderful chemistry between them as people, not only as musicians – and all of that is what makes a great concert experience.

You go to a show because you want to feel something. You want that adrenaline-kick or you want aggression, euphoria, sadness, happiness, anger – whatever, it’s just a question of emotions. Ozzy treats “his” guys like they are his beloved sons, and they love the man – we all do.

So, it doesn’t matter if Ozzy loses his voice or fucks up every now and then, he is the REAL DEAL, one of the few in the music business nowadays. And it’s been worth every hard earned buck that I’ve spent on my trips across Europe this summer to see the Ozzy-shows.

Anyhoo…. walked back to the hotel – across that dark field, through the dark streets of Sopot/Gdansk, and slept for 2 hours. Then a cab picked me up at 3.45 in the morning to drive me to the airport. I was totally gone, my head felt like a bowl of Jello.

Changed flights in Warsaw, then back to Copenhagen – straight on the next train to work…. and I had the late “shift” of course. I don’t know how I managed, but I felt like I was going to throw up all day…

Pretty much passed out when I got home that day. I had the next day off, because I was going to the LAST Ozzy show of the season. Smukfest in Skanderborg, Denmark. I had a long drive ahead of me and of course – it was going to be rain. LOTSSSS of rain. It took almost 5 hours instead of 3, because the rain was so bad at times that you had to drive really slow on the motorway.

When I finally got to the festival-parking lot, there was so much mud – I was afraid my car would get stuck in all that goo. The actual festival was far from the parking so I got on one of the shuttle buses and picked up my pass. The festival was actually nicely arranged, right in the middle of the woods, very cool.

When I got there I saw that there were two stages next to eachother, at the foot of a hill, so for once it seemed like a better idea NOT to stand in the front row, but to stand a bit further up the hill as it would be like standing right in front of the band on the same hight. Well… BAD idea.

It seemed like a brilliant idea when some Danish band played earlier in the afternoon that didn’t have that many crazy fans in front of the stage…. BUT – as it was getting time for Ozzy to hit the stage, the situation was TOTALLY different… I had all kinds of annoying, tall assholes in front of me, couldn’t see shit.

I actually asked one of them to pleeease not move another inch, otherwise I wouldn’t see anything. He heard I was Swedish and asked if I was there just for Ozzy. I said yeah – and much to my surprise, he was struggling all evening -with people pushing HIM, not to end up in front of me. That was super cool – so there are nice people everywhere. :-)

It was a great atmosphere at that last gig. The band played so well – it was as if they brought it up a notch because it was the last show, it was just so effing GOOD!!

[Video: GUS & ADAM enjoying the last evening on stage in PARANOID, hugs Ozzy/band]

I left with mixed emotions. On one hand I was buzzing because it had been an excellent gig, and once again, Ozzy’s smiling face is so contageous – same with the big smiles on the guys’ faces – cause Gus, Adam, Tommy and Blasko all seemed to be having a blast that evening.

On the other hand, it felt crappy because it was the last show. It’s easy to get used to this. I’ve had shows to look forward to since June, and now it’s all over.
Well… I’ve got the Firewind-shows to look forward to at last – all 9 of them. And at least 1/5 of Ozzy’s band will be there, so…that’s good enough for me. ;)