Sunday, March 18th, 2007: Punk gig, pubs & snacks in Helsingborg

What I think:

For one of my birthday presents this year, my girlfriend decided to take me to a Punk gig in Helsingborg last week. The band was called Asta Kask, and they'd had some success in the Eighties. That was all I knew.

As I've written before, there aren't too many places here in Helsingborg where they (occasionally) have good live music. So the gig took place at the Tivoli - the place.

That's really the only place in town where you'll find anyone who may have heard of performing - and that's only if you heard of them a very long time ago, or if you have very eclectically obscure tastes in music.

I was a little bit wary when the opening band started. Although their songs were in English, the lyrics had boringly predictable and bad rhymes (e.g. "Nothing's gonna change/Everything's the same", etc.), and there was absoutely nothing original about their music.

I tried to keep an open mind, and hoped that Asta Kask would be better. I was not disappointed.

Although I barely understood any of the lyrics (all in Swedish), these guys knew how to play, and had good original songs. And while some of the cool riffs they had veered sharply away from "Punk", the energy, attitude, and sense of fun were all there. They were having a good time, and so were we. That's the key.

I liked the fact that they weren't "trying too hard" to be Punk; they were just playing really good music that could really only be squeezed into that category.

It was a good show.
Afterwards, the night was still young, so we deciced to grab a beer elsewhere. Since we wanted to continue listening to half-decent music, we opted for PL13.

You may remember me mentioning PL13 before. I wrote about the fact that it's one of the best places to go if you want to see some fine examples of people who wear trousers (US/CAN: pants) that are too big for them. Have a look at that entry to see some cool specimens of funky underpants.

Something weird happened there. We went and ordered our beers, and sat at a table. Then this guy who works there (or maybe owns or manages the place) came over and put a bowl full of these crispy bacon snacks in front of us.

We kind of looked at him, confused as to why he'd just given us this treat, and he mentioned that he'd read this blog, and that he thought it was cool that PL13 got a mention. This was the first (and only) time that I'd been recognised by someone in town for being the author of Helsingblog. It was quite a buzz.

Here's the bowl of snacks:

They were pretty yummy, especially under the cicumstances.

If you ever come to Helsingborg, you should visit PL13. Tell them you heard about it from this blog, and ask for some bacon snack things. Get in touch with me first, and I might be able to use my new-found influence to get you some for free.

I was so excited that I just had to go and tell my mates
from Depeche Mode.

After a few beers there, we decided to start heading home. But then we thought that we might as well stop for a drink at the Charles Dickens. They have live cover bands on Saturday nights, so we thought we'd check it out, since it appeared to be music night for us.

The band playing was called Easybeat. They've got good harmonies, and they play a mix of some decent pop songs, some Swedish ones, and quite a lot of utter crap.

And they all wear football (US/CAN: soccer) shirts. I guess that's their "thing".

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good evening though: Saw a not-so-good band followed by a really good band, went to PL13 and got a free snack for being recognised, and went to Dickens and saw a hit-and-miss cover band.

Here's a shoe I wore that night.
I had a similar one on my left foot as well:

My issue is that there's no continuity when it comes to a night out here. It's almost always a mix of really good and really crap stuff. It's time that the Swedish government did something about it. That's what I think.