A legend stood in front of us. I went over and introduced myself while the other guys thought about what they wanted to say.
- Are you Harvey?
- Yes, I am Harvey.
- Okay. Hi! The boys here would like to talk to you but they are too shy, so they sent me instead.
I spoke a little with Harvey Williams and complimented him for You Should All Be Murdered and I'm in Love With a Girl Who Does Not Know I Exist. Then I stepped back to let the rest of the guys, the real fans, have a chat with their hero. Harvey Williams then walked away. We saw him on the scene a moment later, sitting at a synthesizer. The music was always present at Rip It Up, just as in this anecdote, but my days in Värmlandsbro instead came to be more focused on hanging around with people.
Rip It Up showed its most beautiful side on the sunny Thursday, the day before the festival officially started. The clock had just passed five in the afternoon and I was lying in the grass outside the train station in Säffle waiting for my friends. We soon met each other and turned down a black cab that was more expensive than the regular price before we got a real taxi which drove us out to the festival area in Värmlandsbro. We installed ourselves at the campsite across the stage and then went to the nearby located bird lake where we watched the sunset.
I had been told that this festival was haunted by rain. The sky opened itself as on demand just in time for Friday's first live act The Dreamers. Another two Swedish bands played after The Dreamers, but the festival began for real when Harvey Williams went on stage at 9 pm. The realization that it would not sound as good live as on the record London Weekend lowered my expectations, but many people in the audience experienced their own romanticized illusion of legendary Another Sunny Day. It was a mediocre gig that did the old songs no justice.
Days played after Harvey Williams. Everyone in the crowd may disagree with me on this, but I still think that all of Days' songs sound the same, and it is unfortunately not a compliment. I do not like Days at all, they will never become a band I like, but it would at least be hilarious if they renamed and called themselves Days of Thunder instead. The Gothenburg quartet's show was like a weak track that precedes the album's great hit. I stayed in the crowd only to be certain to get a place in the front row for the next show.
Was something at Rip It Up good? It may sound like I thought everything was terrible but I did not have much to complain about apart from the rain. The festival meant reunions with dear friends and old acquaintances. It was also nice to meet new people. Music-wise my question would be answered only a soundcheck later, but I already knew that beforehand. The Bristol band Secret Shine lights up the dark sea which is overflowed by reunited, past it, former Sarah Records bands who have realised that there is a scene in Sweden for old British pop bands which had their best times fifteen to twenty years ago. St Cristopher is by the way the worst super-annuated former Sarah Records-band as they only have recorded shit except for the 19 year old song All of a Tremble. Secret Shine is different and they still have a desire to develop their sound. Secret Shine played an intense live set with Adored and Voice of the Sea as the strongest songs before they concluded with Loveblind which by far was the best (all categories) at Rip It Up. When the next band The Ruling Class had finished their show one hour layer, I went to my tent on a camping shrouded in fog.
I understood on the Saturday afternoon that Rip It Up showed its best side in the evenings. In daytime the water in the bird lake was coloured like a disgusting shade of green mixed with gray. Gray was also the colour of the asphalt on which we sat when Darren Hanlon opened the Saturday's gigs. It would had been really nice to sit on grass instead. Now I instead came to think about how strange this place was for being a festival area. At the end of the asphalt, though, Jörgen and Renee's record store Fractiondiscs was temporarily stationed under the roof of a party tent. That made me feel at home.
The shows on Saturday were a bonus as I still was lyrical about the Friday night. Pocketbooks and Twig were good, but I felt sorry for The Clientele who got their show ruined by rain and I really longed for an indoor club when all the umbrellas stretched dangerously in every direction. I was very pleased with the Saturday, despite the extremely amateurish sound checks which destroyed The Tidy Ups' gig, when I crawled into my sleeping bag to get some sleep before returning home the following day.
Rip It Up 2008 was a cozy festival with nice people and good food. The best thing was perhaps that the arrangers had the good sense to keep the festival short. It was very great to come home to my real bed and a proper bathroom after three days in the wilderness.
