First Gigs: Copenhagen

There’s a catch to Copenhagen. Unless you fly or get a ferry there, the only option is to drive over the bridge from Fyn, and that costs about NZ$80. Each way! We’ve got to do this two more times yet.

When we got to the pub (no mean feat), we got an extremely matter-of-fact welcome from the bar staff who had to be pumped for every bit of information, like: where are we staying? When we finally got to our billet (the back of the pub across the road) we took a reality check on what we were in for for the next couple of weeks. I think these are old offices – a single six by three metre room and two mattresses. That’s it; no chair, no table, no shelf, no pillow, one window, one fluorescent light, one power point. We’ve had to buy earplugs to sleep through the environmental racket – which in Anna’s case I think includes me, although she’s being very diplomatic in not saying so.

It’s worth mentioning at this point, how Catgut and Steel ended up here – both in Denmark and in bad Copenhagen accommodation. In my past two trips here with The Chaps, I’ve been a bit spoiled I suppose, playing nice two-set concerts to nice middle-aged Danish people (and they don’t come nicer – or more middle aged) and staying with lovely hosts or in quaint, clean B&B’s. The odd occasion I had heard pub bands here, especially those of an Irish nature, I thought, “Anna and I could do this, and probably a lot better.” Add to this a New Zealand musician acquaintance, Dave Fountain, who does exactly this and last year I ‘interrogated’ him about the possibilities. He put me in touch with his agent who specialises in putting solos and duos in Irish pubs around Scandinavia. Neil Brophy http://www.brophybookings.com/ is still no more manifest than a pleasant voice at the end of a telephone but, sight unseen, he has taken us on and given us a healthy run of gigs. The important point is that gigs pay about twice as much as they do in NZ. (Another important point is that everything costs twice as much here, so it’s a bit of a balancing act.). So along with a kind invitation (though solicited by me) to the Halkaer festival it was starting to look like a starter.

The clincher was, for Anna, the occasion to take her two daughters to Oma and Opa in Holland. So here we are now, faced with the reality of playing long, late gigs. We start at 11pm and play to 3:30am. The sun is up when we start and the sun is up when we finish. This is the acid test: can we cut it here or are we just a couple of Kiwi wannabes.

Every indication from the crowd (and it is a crowd) is that we’re going down a treat. The staff shrug when asked and say, "You're different." Helpful. Dave Fountain, a kiwi musician who sponsored us here, came in and gave us invaluable advice about the dodgy PA, setting up a tip jar and generally keeping operational for the duration of the gig.

However, our gigs have been good, the people are good – even though the pub is packed and rowdy, there’s no sense of aggression. And the tip jar fills up nicely. We even sell the odd CD.

We find a laundromat in a bohemian part of Copenhagen, and Anna seems to have spontaneously befriended some Romanian gents, one of whom is a rapper. Now they are swapping photos on their phones. Three nights in Copenhagen and we're done for the week. Picked up our pay and headed off the island and across the $80 bridge. We make a quick phone call to an unsuspecting friend in Fyn and more-or-less announce that we're coming to stay (I had an incorrect phone number, and by the time I’d fixed that we were on our way!) but we were well received. Lone and Mikkel live on a little farm in the south of Fyn. The following day we went to a fairy-tale castle and spent the day sightseeing. Tonight we are having a session with Lone (accordion) and her friend Arna (fiddler) but Anna is reading music flat out, there’s no real opportunity for me to join in so I’m here writing more. It’s funny how someone’s ability to sight-read music can turn a session into an academic exercise - even though she turns to me and says "you play one," it’s not like having fun playing music together. In short I find it quite exclusive.

The next day our hosts drop us Faaborg, about 30Km away, with two bikes and say, "See you back home!" Now we're having fun.