We woke in the morning to some pretty shocking hangovers at the ungodly hour of 11.30am, because we had to be checking out of the hotel by midday. This was not popular news, and we also discovered that the last batch of our sandwiches from homehad not survived the journey thusfar, which was a shame. Thus we set out again to roam the town and find something to eat whilst waiting for our bus back to Riga, mystical land of adequate vegetarian resources. We weren't very successful, although we did enjoy seeing the frozen river, and I tracked down the Baltic equivalent of a Kinder Surprise, and I'm pleased to report that the weird little car-with-face thing inside was at the very least moderately surprising. We finally got back into the capital and rushed off to Cili Pica again. While we were outside taking a photo of the place, a bunch of random Latvians ran into shot and posed incredibly quickly, before sprinting off again. The picture can be seen here. Note the hand-pose of the woman crouching down at the front. Bunch of weirdoes.
We ate heartily and then headed across town to meet up with Edgars again, who'd organized some radio time for both my good self and for Rockie Charles. We were excited at the prospect of seeing the captain again, so we ran over as fast as we could. On arrival we found out that I was going first because Rockie had got lost, so I headed into the booth with Edgars (not like that you sickos) and spoke for a while, as well as playing a couple of songs live for the show, which was nice. By time I was done Rockie and Louie had arrived, and they headed in for their slot. I was priveleged to lend my guitar to Rockie, and to watch him play a mad song about his "Uncle Steve" and to hear him and Louie recount the bizarrely homoerotic story about how they met in New Orleans and liked the way they looked. Hmm. After the session was done we headed into town with Edgars, Andzs and friends to go and get trolleyed (for a change). The shots came out, and things went from bad to worse, and then to even worse, before they really started to head downhill, and we started plumbing new depths. We also decided to visit the 24-hour copy-shop on the way home to photocopy our faces, something we only remembered the next morning when we found this photo. Oops.
Another morning in Latvia, another hangover. It was starting to turn into a pattern here, but as I'm sure you've all noticed, it clearly wasn't our fault. Our last full day in the country offered a show at the Latvia New Theatre, organized by Nimo. We got up and headed into town for sustenance. In the pizza place we went to, Jamie tried to order a Margherita pizza with no cheese, which caused uproar in the restaurant. After a fierce battle of wills, Jamie gave in and asked for a vegetarian pizza with no cheese, which they only just accepted. At this point we resolved to move out there permanently and open a vegan soup kicthen called Supa Dupa Zupa! How we laughed. Anyways, we went to the venue for soundcheck (always Jamie's favourite part of the day), and checked out the awesome backstage facilities, before heading to a restaurant and getting some soup. The gig itself was great, a cool crowd who gave me the thumbs-up, overall probably the best of the three gigs. At the end of the set I finished with a Queen cover, at which point everyone got to their feet and started dancing around me on the stage, which was a little odd, but actually cool as fuck.
The rest of that night was dominated by our encounter with Karli. Karli is without doubt the funniest, most insane Latvian, hell, human being, that I've ever met. He announced his presence at the show by calling for 'NOFX!' the whole time. When I finally played a tune he shifted to 'MaybeFX!' and finally 'YesFX!'. He then walked onto the stage while I was playing to offer me some whiskey, which was friendly. I think he started the little stage invasion too. After the gig he accosted me and shouted ' Do you like trampolines?' before assuring me that they were his favourite, and actually he played a show last week with King George VI's mother who was badass on the guitar. I swear I'm not making any of this up. We went to a bar together and at various points he told us that:
- His favourite English king was Charles I
- He was a big fan of Glasgow Rangers, and we were soft southern cunts
- He'd like to shoot Turks with a 'double barrelled shooting gun'
- He was a big fan of Monty Python
- Jamie was 'a little bastard that live in your ass-hole' (tapeworm, we think)
After an evening of more beer and pretending to DJ (fresh), we got a comparatively early night. The next day we had to fly home in the evening, so we spent the morning doing some last-minute touristy shopping in the central markets of Riga. They're absolutely massive, built in old German zeppelin hangars, and seem way too big for a country with a total population of 2.5 million. They were full of crazy shit - there were a few stalls selling neatly folded and ironed plastic bags from stores like Selfridges, Harrods and so on (rather than selling fakes!), which was trippy, and then of course there was the meat section, which we hippies wandered into by mistake and left pretty sharpish. We managed to find a veggie / vegan restaurant, which made Jamie's day (left). It was a bit crap to find it on the last day but never mind. We finally made our way over to Andzs' work place to get a taxi to the airport. To be honest we were dog-tired by this stage of the game, not to mention a bit fucked after 5 days of drinking like idiots, so the hilarious shennanigans were a little muted on the way home. The flight was uneventful, and we caught last trains back into the centre of London to sleep.So that's the story of me and Jamie in Latvia. It was a blast. It remains for me only to extend thanks once again to our friends in Latvia - Edgars, Nimo, Kaspars, Ivars, Karli. and all the kids who came down to the shows and let us have the best time in a long time. A special mention has to go to Andzs, whose hospitality was unending. I've been talking to people about going back out this summer, so watch this space.
