Stefan's

Story

Stefan's story: My sister had stayed in London as an au pair for a year, and as she was so close to the source of new, brilliant British music, I asked her to put a tape together for me. And so she did--excluding the track listing, though. So I was humming along to tracks by bands I didn't know. "Good time girls having a good time..." was one of them, pretty catchy. I only found out later that it was a Travis b-side I'd been listening to. Of course, my sister had already seen them live and liked them a lot, so when Travis's name cropped up on the bill for a German festival in the middle of nowhere, my girlfriend and I decided to go there. That was in August 1997. Travis were on second or third on the bill--very early in the morning indeed. Not a lot of people were there, but the few songs they played were brilliant.

When they walked out of the backstage area later in the day, obviously leaving for somewhere else, I ran up to Andy and told him how good their set had been. As they were scheduled to play The Astoria in London when we would be there on holiday, I asked him if he could put us on the guest list. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything to write, so I gave him my address card. He said he'd see what he can do. And did he? Did he f***. We were pretty pissed off, standing second in the queue for their Astoria gig, then the guy at the reception told us we weren't on the guest list. But that was only one evening blown...

They made it all up by playing their only German gig of 1997 in Hamburg, close to which we had just recently moved. It was pretty short but very good. And then they returned in February to play a much longer gig with new songs which was brilliant too.

We saw them again at Rock Am Ring, where they were obviously enjoying the festival mood. They were watching the Stereophonics together with Mark from the Bluetones--and decided to watch it right in front of us. Let me tell you, they are pretty short fellas... We didn't talk to them, though, 'cause it's always a bit weird talking to people you'll see on the big stage later. And just recently, we got to see them at Reading festival, which makes it three times we've seen 'em this year. All except Frannie were walking past us in time to catch Echo & the Bunnymen on the main stage... Their headlining slot was utterly amazing. That new song, "Flowers in the Window" is just so goddamn divine. And the rest as well. Return soon, Travis, record that album fast. (Oh, and get a hair cut Frannie, please--looking like that bloke out of Cast is nothing you should aspire to.)

Stefan Hartmann

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/ Club/9580/

He-ey!

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