I’m sitting in my tiny room in an East London flat, struggling to give birth to this first post to what I want to be a great blog about music and travelling. The trouble is, I don’t classify myself as a traveller, so who am I to give my opinion on it? As I rack my brain with my fingers stiff on the keyboard about how not to come across as a complete self important git in this post, I’m staring at my bedroom wall. There’s a poster on it. Actually it’s a poster I got at an Arcade Fire gig in Glasgow in 2007 while I was living in Edinburgh as an exchange student.
Thinking about that night in Glasgow I remember the two Swedish architect students I went with and how relieved I was to have someone to go with after a lonely first month in Edinburgh, although I can’t recall they’re names now! I also remember walking the streets of Glasgow afterwards and lamenting the abscense of Crown Of Love from the setlist while trying to be funny to my new friends by rolling that 3D Neon Bible poster under my arm and pretending to be (Nintendo’s superhero) Mega Man (didn’t score many laughs but I thought it was hilarous!).
Since then the poster has travelled from my wall in Ediburgh to my first flat in Reykjavik, and again to Montreal where I lived for few months in a warehouse conversion (where coincidentally Arcade Fire played one of their first gigs back in the day). It then travelled back to Iceland after the failure that was Montreal and finally to London, where it’s happily resided for the past year and a half.
So what is so important about this poster that I would sacrifice precious baggage allowance to travel across the world with it? Apart from it being very pretty in all it’s 3D splendour, I like to believe that it’s a subliminal reminder of the fact that I suceeded in doing something on my own, alone in a foreign country, namely booking that ticket because I desperately wanted to see Arcade Fire and then convincing some random Swedish exchange students to join me in Glasgow so I’d be able to share the experience with someone. The concert was great, I remember that much, but it’s all the other bits that stuck with me a lot more to tell the truth, the bus ride to and from Edinburgh to Glasgow where I listened to Funeral twice over, the awkward pre-gig drinks with the Swedes and the even more awkward Mega Man incident.
It’s exactly these kinds of stories that I’d love to see on this site, whether it be dirty festival tales, sleepless band touring stories or stupid recounts of a travelling gig poster. And that’s where you come into play.
I want GrooveTraveler to be very much a community and I’m always open to recommendations and suggestions as to what you would like to see featured here and subjects for me to talk about. I hope that as this site begins to take shape, it will prove an invaluable resource that bridges both my passions of travel and music.
