Rake's blog

28/2/05 Monday –

Packed up the chalet and then some of the guys were heading down the beach before leaving. I tagged along and managed to see the ocean this time. I said my goodbyes and jumped on the bus for the trip back to London.

On the train I met up with Cultur, who Roland had introduced me to on the last night. He is an artist living in San Franciso, who also played music. We talked on the way to London and then wandering around being tourists together. As I had no credit card and was trying to save my cash, it was really cool when Cultur grasciously invited me to sleep on the hotel floor of some of his friends.

Last day. A good start when I realised that I couldn't locate my credit card. After some frenetic searching, I decided I must of left it at the reception booth when I had to pick up all the ATP paraphernalia. I headed over to the check-in desk, but they didn't have it. Not having a Visa number to call, or my bank details, I finally found a number for my travel insurance that was meant to be able to help me out. I didn't manage to get through and eventually gave up. I went and checked out the rest of the bands and we stayed up until about 6am.

Brightblack's instruments sounded pretty amazing... and although the songs tended to drag a bit, I quite enjoyed it.

26/2/05 Saturday -

Managed to get up sometime around when the bands were meant to start. Started breakfast with a Vokda mixer drink and then it was lots of listening to bands.

Later in the night, Slint played and it was totally amazing. After the gig, we went back to the chalet and as we got outside it started snowing. It was magic! Everyone tended to agree that Slint had blown them away. I heard that one person had tears in their eyes when Don Aman was playing. Well worth the long and complicated trip over.

I had been feeling amazingly good, considering the events of the night before, but I figured it would only last so long. I wasn't much feeling like listening to anything after Slint anyway. In the communal chalet, we watched this strange old horror film, I think it was called, "They Drink Blood". We had some instrumental music playing over the top of the TV, I think it was a band called Cinematic Orchestra. It made the movie even more amusing as it managed to sync with the unfolding events quite well. Started my way back to the chalet about 3am. Nearly didn't make it back, as I had left my jacket in the chalet and was wondering around the maze of chalets desperately looking for room 206. I managed to find it just before turning into a popsicle.

25/2/05 Friday –

Started with walking through snow to the train station and now I'm on a train on my way to Rye and it is sunny enough that I'm starting to get a headache. Actually, it started with nearly walking into someones strategically directed spew in between two one metre doors from the night before. Obviously someone had taken advantage of the Generator's cheap (the only cheap thing I have seen so far) happy hour between 6-9pm. Somehow I was awake enough to miss stepping in it. In my short trip to the bathroom, one of my Italian room mates had managed to find his women and she was in his bed again.

24/2/05 Thursday

How to put a major dampener on your planned holiday, misplace your passport, look around for a few hours and miss the plane by 10 minutes! After mad rushing about at the airport, my redirected ticket had me waitlisted at Singapore airport to go to Heathrowe. Being stuck in Singapore when I was meant to be in Rye by the 25th was not really going to cut it. After much rearranging and a patient travel agent, a $650 cancellation fee and up to 8 weeks for a refund on my remaining money from the $2000 something dollar airfare, I was very tired and not in the best of moods by the time I got on the plane.