...This is one of me and Rachel and Belle sitting on a bench by the river in Nairn talking to the one-and-a-half-legged seagull. Belle has just jumped on Rachel and Rachel has just got jam on her trousers. They sky is cloudy and bright and the light is coming from everywhere around. It feels so unreal and magical. I am holding a stolen rose that’s pretending to be a daisy and if you listen close enough, you can hear me say: …I am a lurker, I’m not a lurker, I am a lurker, I’m not… Hello, I’m Dimitra and I like Belle and Sebastian. Actually, I like them so much, that I thought it would be a good idea to stop in Germany on my way from Scotland to Greece to see them once more –and to meet yet some more sinisterines. Travelling is a strange thing, though, it sort of happens without you; once you decide it, it just takes care of itself. And I’ve been to and left so many places and different situations and ways of living in the past month, that on my the train from Amsterdam to Germany, I was feeling like an alien – what the hell am I doing here? But then again, I couldn’t think of anywhere else I could be. So I stayed on the train and listened to Richard’s perfect mixtape, and waited for the time when it would all start feeling okay. At first Haldern was hot, later on, it was wet; everyone was speaking different languages and I hadn’t really known them before. But they were lovely, really: they put up my tent for me (cause I had never seen it before and couldn’t figure out what to do), they gave me food and drink and money and everything else I had managed not to bring with me; and it has something to do with falling asleep and waking up again and people being there, but by Saturday morning Haldern was the right place to be despite the rain. ...This one was taken on Friday afternoon – that’s me looking silly in the middle of the road and the girl walking up to me is Nal. I know she’s Nal, but for some reason all I can think of is she’s not Ola (for who I am waiting for) so when she asks me if I know who she is, I say no. You can see the stupid look on my face, the fields around of which the camping site consisted, and generally Germany being sunny! You can’t see Ola walking up to us cause she’s on the opposite side... ...That’s from a few hours later, there weren’t any lights in the fields so it was very dark with the darkness of the countryside. The boy that’s sitting half in and half out of the tent is Mark Bots; he’s smoking and talking in a drunk quiet voice about how flat Holland is; I am kneeling on the grass and getting wet (the weather had changed); you can make out the outlines of tents –that are not in rows-, cars, and at the back, some trees; and above them, there are three or so fireworks. They’re green and orange. To my tired and dazzled mind it all feels like a dream... ...And this is from the next morning, that’s Mark and Marsha sitting under the tree in the rain having breakfast. It’s fairly dry under the tree but all around the rain falls harder and harder; you can see it fall on –yet another- green field behind them... I joined them, and we sat there until the tree started dripping too much for our liking. Then the rain stopped, and later on Belle and Sebastian came on stage, and the ‘what else am I going to do for this band, why am I doing this anyway’ soon turned into ‘what am I going to do when they stop touring? What am I going to do without them?!’ . This was the sixth time I’ve seen them play (in a little longer than a year) and it was the one that made me remember all the reasons why I ever fell in love with them in the first place, and fall in love with them again. I’m not sure how this time was different from the others, I have to admit that the setlist was perfect and that they do, really, seem to be having more fun on stage without Isobel – but there was something about it, and when Stuart sang ‘you can concentrate on the ones you love’ it brought back memories of the time I first heard that and how I was so thrilled, and touched, and surprised, that there was someone else out there that concentrates on the ones they love before they fall asleep. And they made a song about it! And I liked it so much, that I bought all their records and I joined a mailing list about them; so much, that three years later, almost every other song reminded me of something: Waking Up to Us reminded me of listening to it in Benicassim and thinking ‘I though they’d never write songs that describe my life anymore, but this does! Wow!’, Jonathan David reminded me of singing it in various places around Europe that summer; Scooby Driver made me bounce and Roy Walker made me dance, Simple Things made me sigh and Loneliness of A Middle Distance Runner almost made me cry. And thank god for Belle and Sebastian. And I was so happy, I wanted to cry and bounce and laugh at the same time; I wanted to marry them and take them home with me, I wanted to watch Stevie spin and dance and be so cute in genaral and I wanted to figure out what’s going on in Stuart’s head and I wanted to make Mick smile and make Sarah talk and laugh at Chris’ jokes. (It was a bit sad, when they disappeared backstage: how we think of them and they don’t need us in their lives). And wherever I looked there were happy Belle and Sebastian fans, grinning stupidly and bouncing to the music played in their heads. ...This one is of Robbie, one of the Bowlie kids, doing that exactly... ...Oh, this one is of the Belle and Sebastian party we had later, we sat on a blanket and listened to the latest Peel Session and Tigermilk and sang along and we talked about how they and the internet changed our lives, and about travelling and different places. All the things that I’ve come to like about festivals, that is. But all you can see is a bunch of kids sat behind a car in the dark, drinking, looking at the stars. I told you, it was very dark. I think we were too inspired and happy to let this night end and to make it last longer, we sat in the space between our tents –Mark, Ola and Goshia, Annie, Aton, Olivier, and Andreas, a random German bloke Aton had met at the station. Mark and Ola played the guitar and we sang along, some people more than others. (This one is of Mark singing dEUS’ Three Blind Mice, which send me right back the when I was 18). And then, when they ran out of songs to play on the guitar, we sang without it… some people did more than others… I usually don’t sing, and there’s a reason for that; as Mark very kindly put it, I have a Moldy Peaches type of voice. Meaning, I can’t sing really. But Mark and Ola said I sounded nice, and no one complained, so I sang three of four Hefner songs with Ola, along with This Charming Man; and then I sang half a Hefner song, Ÿ of an Aislers Set song and a greek nursery rhyme about all things pink. On my own. In the dark. To seven other people. And it felt great. ...I think this one is from when I was singing Home, I can’t tell you how priceless it feels to bounce in the dark (to keep warm) and sing to a circle of Belle and Sebastian fans that Dirty young wives turn to pretty young mums in the springtime You’re dirty bussinessmen with no light in your lives You’ve got no dirty little wife of your own I can’t believe it’s true what they’re saying I just want to go home All these people are cheaters and liars I just want to go home You’ll never know what your love is like My true love is at home We've got the songs, we've got the sun, we've got the love... ...And this one is from the when I was singing in greek… I had my eyes closed and my fists clenched and I must have looked like a five-year-old at a school show. Everyone took it as a lullaby. Love and pink songs and dark nights zoziepop xx ps I want to really really thank Ola and Mark for getting me to sing, and Mark especially for finding something nice to say about my singing! I never thought this could happen. I am as thankful to them as I am to Kenny for making me dance at Tigermilking for the first time in my life… pps Here is the almost perfect setlist (stolen from the Bowlie Boards and revised and still probably inaccurate), so that you can be appropriately jealous: Fuck This Shit Sleep the clock around String Bean Jean Waking Up to Us Wandering Alone Get Me Away From Here Like Dylan In The Movies Jonathan David Scooby Driver (extended version! Woo!) Simple Things The Boy With The Arab Strap Dirty Dream Number Two Roy Walker Middle Distance Runner Wrong Girl Me and the Major Legal Man And Kraftwerks "Das Modell" (with Stuart and Stevie not singing the words very confidently and the melody based on Mick’s trumpet, sooo great), then the Model, and Seymour Stein somewhere in the middle but I’m not sure when. Do you see why were so happy? pps Back to being a lurker! _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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