DIARY: The Tønder Festival

The Festival is over...

4 days of working as a volunteer bartender all the while having a few drinks, meeting all the old friends, and, of course, sampling the superb folk, folkrock, and jazz programme on offer.

I managed to take in most of the Thursday concert with Scottish Runrig, as always the most popular band at the Festival, got into some very (very!) rough pseudo-satanic folkrock with English Levellers, and my personal favourites this year: Canadian drink-singers Great Big Sea.

There was torture to be had as well, as my old friend Janne dragged me out for a "Polka Rave" late at night on the plaza. People who know me will not have missed the fact that I'm no fan of dancing (so much in fact, that I have never verbally uttered the words: "Do you want to dance", at least not while sober enough to remember!). But but, you have to make an absolute arse of yourself once per year, and I definitely got the chance here, displaying an amazing lack of motor skills despite the fact that I was the only sober person in the tent!

Low Alcohol Policy
The Festival was the Litmus test of my new alcohol policy, and it went quite ok, which leaves me optimistic that its now a permanent feature. Thursday to Saturday I had between 2 and 5 drinks per day, Sunday i believe perhaps 6 or 7, before refraining completely at Mondays Volunteer Party.

Its quite different I must admit, especially for the people around me, and it will take a bit of adaptation to "party hard" while being all ascetic...

The "Traditional" Sing-song
Sunday nights have turned into a personal highlight for me. Everyone from Tent 1 gather together to "take stock" of the remaining bottles in the bar, and last year I had the chance to follow my passion for singing, going through a repertoire of Irish and Scottish songs, urging people to sing-a-long.

This year, I had to do it sober, which was definitely more difficult (apparently the only two things that can make my nervous is singing in public and asking out a pretty girl!). After a rough start with the warm-up "talksong" General Munro, I had to abort "Fiddlers Green" as I could not make it work. After a brief interim in which Jannes musician friend, Alain entertained with Blues Songs on his guitar, I had warmed up sufficiently and it was with great glee that I observed most join in on Molly Malone, Whiskey in the Jar, Wild Rover, Loch Lomond, We Shall Overcome, and a few other songs that I now forget. More glitches jumped in surely, such as our botched attempt at "Rare Ould Times" (too pretty for that hour of the night), but overall, great fun, and I will be practicing some more tunes for next year, as I think I have finally gotten Boulavogue down right after 5 years of fighting with that old anthem honouring the men of 98.

The musical entertainment did not end there, the first love of my life, Signe, and her girlfriend Camilla (who are getting married, congratulations!!!), arrived and sang a song that can not be described as "dirty" but more "pornographic"! After that the girls went on to entertain with some Danish songs, before we all filtered back to the Volunteer bar for a long night session. As I thought the night had ended, my oldest friend David staggered in from the darkness and we chatted away until the first rays of Sun broke over the flatlands of Tønder.

Sick but on to Aarhus
I have started running again, but today I have fallen slightly ill and am desperately trying to recover my strength for Saturdays 30th Birthday party in Aarhus with my friend Kristian, or "Kedde" as he is known on these parts.

Him and Michael "Miv" bartended with me and Janne throughout the festival, and it will be intersting to see how much energy remains for the next big party.

I will be posting the pictures from the Festival shortly.