Ballboy - Lokal Bar, Vaxjo, Sweden, 12/4/2003

  by Tommy Gunnarsson

published: 19 / 4 / 2003

intro

Tommy Gunnarsson waited for more than three years for ballboy to come to Sweden, but finds it has been worth the long wait

Regular readers of this magazine may have noticed my affection for the Scottish foursome ballboy. Well, if you haven’t, you may have to stop calling yourself a regular reader… Ever since I first heard 'Donald in the Bushes with a Bag of Glue' three years ago, I have been waiting and waiting for the opportunity to see them live in action. I kept on wishing that they might want to come to Sweden, but that didn’t seem very likely. Instead, gig after gig were booked in their hometown of Edinburgh, and I seriously thought about going there just to see them play. Well, Edinburgh is a wonderful town as well, so I thought I might as well spend some time there too… My financial situation, however, never really gave me the chance to make it over there. I was, therefore, so happy that I could cry when at the beginning of this year I saw these wonderful words on their website: 'April 9th – April 12th – ballboy’s Swedish tour'. Finally! But then month after month passed, and nothing more was heard of it. When it came to April 1st on our calendars, there was still no sign. Well, no ballboy for me, I thought. Then, a few days later, a friend of mine called me up, almost screaming the news to me: “ballboy is coming to Lund, Växjö, Uppsala and Linköping next week!” My life was once again complete. Then on Saturday 12th, I finally stood there, in front of the stage, waiting for the band to come onstage. An hour or so earlier, I had had the chance to talk a little to Gordon McIntyre, the singer and guitarist with the band. When I told him that I have been waiting for three years for this day to come, he said “Well, let’s hope we don’t fuck it up then, because we sometimes do that.” Let me tell you right now: they didn’t fuck it up. Oh no ! After a rather worthless opening act from Växjö, the four guys and girl from Scotland finally walked up on the stage, and after saying hello to the audience, Gordon launched into what was a quite unusual song to open the gig with, 'A Day in Space', from their debut-EP, 'Silversuitsforastronauts'. It’s one of those “talk songs”, where Gordon spends the whole song talking about space and other nice things, while the band plays a nice little tune in the background. Normally, these kinds of songs wouldn’t be too great to hear live, but here it was perfect! I saw some of the other people in audience starting to look around and maybe to think about leaving the place. Those who did stay, and as far as I remember there were quite many who did, were in for a treat of a lifetime, as the band then continued with such classics as 'I’ve Got Pictures of You in Your Underwear', 'I Hate Scotland' (another one of those “talk songs”), 'Public Park' and of course 'Donald in the Bushes with a Bag of Glue'. Gordon also told us that their real drummer, Gary Morgan, was ill and had to stay at home for this tour. Instead, they had got Alun, who normally bangs the skins for bands such as Desc and Barrichello, to cover for him, and I can’t tell you enough how impressive he was behind the drum-kit. Gordon said on stage that Alun had learned many of the songs during the tour, and my God is he a quick learner! If I hadn’t known what Gary looked like, I would definitely have though that Alun was the regular drummer boy. After a whole bunch of songs and some fantastic stories in-between them, they finally got off the stage, but the audience wanted more, so Gordon decided to stay on stage and play the marvellous 'They’ll Hang Flags from Cranes upon My Wedding Day'' alone on his electric guitar, which was a first for him. It sounded great, of course, and then off we went into the chilly evening. Now I just hope I won't have to wait for another three years until I see them again. But as I am planning to move to Edinburgh this autumn, I guess I will wee them quite soon again. Don’t you dare move from Edinburgh now, ballboy !

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