EUROPE - GOTHENBURG

I wake at some point in the late morning as the van pulls into a rest stop somewhere in Denmark. Slayer is playing. We’ve jumped Europe’s pay-to-enter toilet turnstiles the whole tour, but get pinched this morning. As I close my stall door, I can hear some Danish guy storm into the toilets bellowing, ‘WHOEVER FORGOT TO PAY MUST COME OUT AND DO SO’, and then some of Inhuman Nature negotiating with him. I take a shit and wipe

 indignantly. Paid toilets are such a crock of shit. Why should we be penalised for bodily functions?

I’m washing my hands when the Danish Toilet Nazi enters again, makes some sort of whistle at me, and grabs my arm. ‘YOU MUST PAY’. My hands still under the running tap, I tell him, Yeah dude and I’ll be out in a minute. ‘YOU BETTER’. I dry my hands and prepare a huge, proletariat-inspiring diatribe, ready for all the patrons of this Danish truck stop to put down their Nordsee Fisch Baguettes and take up arms with me.

When I emerge from the toilets, the Danish Toilet Nazi once again accosts me but this time, in some bipolar, Good Danish Toilet Nazi Cop / Bad Danish Toilet Nazi cop routine. He smiles, slings his arm around my shoulders and says, ‘Don’t steal from me again’, and pats me on my way. I walk back to the van even more outraged than had I been made to pay.

In the afternoon we finally make it to the much-hyped Max Burger. It fucking delivers. A long-running Swede institution, it’s bigger than McDonald’s over here. And for good reason. Pioneers of vegan fast food in Sweden, I’ve never seen so many options. My head is spinning and gut rumbling. I get the double vegan cheeseburger and fries. It tastes a bit like Burger King is the band’s consensus, but I’m into it. One of the best vegan fast food burgers I’ve had. Much farting and snoring collectively ensues for the remainder of the journey.

We stagger into today’s venue in Gothenburg, a week on the continent but still carrying our post-Brexit reek. We are met with an incredible array of rider meals, all veggie (I get the chilli con carne with tortilla chips and salad and it is the best meal I have on this tour, and any other tour). The Swedes look at us like uncouth, uncultured Cro-Magnon buffoons, bearing the scars of years of English riders consisting of warm tins of Oranjeboom and a cold pot of beans (when we’re lucky). We have made it to Valhalla, tho we aren’t accustomed to the spoils.

Everyone in this diner-cafe/record store/live venue is good looking and stylish and tattooed. I’m telling the young promoter how we had our first Max Burger. She starts hacking and gagging before affecting that notorious Snobby Swede tone (turns out she’s actually Danish, so what do I know). One of her promoting partners is the (always- welcome) Level-Headed Swede. ‘They’re fine, there’s nothing wrong with Max,’ the partner assures. ‘They’re very popular with touring bands’. ‘I would rather eat dust,’ the snob shoots back, shaking her head with disgust.

We join up with Stockholm’s Morbid Breath, our tour buddies for Scandinavia. Lovely dudes, very young and serene as a Swedish lake. It’s a harder crowd tonite, some isolated head banging, no one really moving apart from down the front. I’m half relieved I didn’t play. Inhuman Nature seem a bit nervous after the stupidly tight, deathly thrashings of Morbid Breath. IN pick it up with ‘Nuclear Frost’, tight and heavy and propulsive as fuck.

Finally some cheers and applause. They win the cool kids over, everyone applauding by the end and merch sold. In contrast with the studied aloofness/arrogant reservedness, the Swedes halt and duck in consideration of my phone as I take videos. Patiently waiting for me to finish, avoiding getting caught in the shot. Polite wankers with their superior society and culture.

Morbid Breath tell us Stockholm should be good as people are in need of gigs - not just in the wake of Covid, but apparently they have the same social phenomenon/parasitism as London does. Influxes of monied, out-of-city cunts moving into property adjacent to venues and bars and complaining about the noise and getting the places shut down. Gentrifiers and culture killers.

We stuff and pile Morbid Breath’s equipment and personals into the back of the van and get ready to lose all that glorious leg room we had when it was just six of us. The tranquil, soft-spoken Swedes don’t know what they’re in for. After being together on the road for over a week, Inhuman Nature have degenerated into their own unique realms of lexicon and personal hygiene. I can’t remember a time when Simon wore something that wasn’t emblazoned with the Slayer logo. We communicate thusly - Fuck this, cunt that, fuck off, up your arse, up my arse - as we approach the end of our personal tethers with each other. But the Swedes are good sports and laughing a lot.

The promoters have got us staying in some weird sober state prison where they firmly tell us no drinking, no drugs, no smoking, no matter how we phrase our enquiries. Our building has a stage and sound desk in it (I’m starting to think everywhere in Sweden also doubles as a venue, what a paradise) and some locked studio rooms. There was supposed to be air mattresses and things but there is nothing. I roll up a long floor mat a few times and put my sleeping bag on it. Simon sleeps on two chairs which keep pushing apart so he sags between them. Charlie is sleeping on the counter of a coatcheck cubby. Before sleeping, we blaze in the van and drink comped 2.1% beers (the ever-illustrious Jack had charmed a shop owner out of a whole slab, but the gift soon begins to taste more like an insult as we neck the stubbies and receive zero intoxication...).