Disco Dynamite

b-br-br-break it down now

Took Friday off work as one of my vacation days (leaving me with 17 - not including the days i've taken off for the wedding and christmas).
Purpose: to go see a concert in the mountains
Open Air Gampel - a four day festival in the alps (we think). Alicia, who was down for the week, joined Steph and I on this adventure which could only be properly described via photo blog (no video mon frere's - new camera doesn't have video featured, but it is oh so nice and slr like)

The view from the train ride to Gampel

Some how we missed our stop and wound up in the train cleaning area, or like the train depot or train parking lot or something and we were the only ones left on the train. That was until a janitor dude started cleaning up the train and Alicia, who speaks French, asked him about Gampel. After what appeared to be an informative conversation, Alicia told us flat out that she couldn't understand a word the dude was saying because he spoke some strange swiss german dialect. Fearing that we would be stuck on the train forever, we had some luck when another janitor dude arrived and told us that the train we were currently on would soon be heading back and that Gampel would be three stops away.

There were a lot of scene kids on the train, all going to Gampel. Seeing them made me envious / fee old. We dressed Steph up as a scene kid by giving her my hat and Alicia's scarf. Big glasses were hers originally. So bag lady.

So the concert / festival was in the mountains - this is partial view from the main stage.

Why yes, that is a watering can. And yes, it is full of 1.5 litres of Sangria. And yes the two kids you see infront of you did drink most of it while I went to the bathroom because the first out of approximately 22 guys started to hit on them and they felt that the awkward situation could only be made better by incredibly fast alcohol intake.

Seeing as how we paid nearly 100 francs to see two bands, we decided to check out this band (who opened the day up ) My Name is George. They were quite good and we were not dissapointed. Could have been the sangria though.

Some paparazi photo journalist dude caught me off guard and took my photo so I tapped him and got him to snap a shot of the three of us with my camera. After this Alicia threw a hat on stage. It was not as recieved as the thong thrown previously (not by us) nor by the boxer shorts thrown on stage when the sounds were performing. But, interesting nonetheless.


The Sounds performance - which was well done, enjoyable, they played a lot of my favourite songs so I was happy. My only regret was a) naked guy and b) that I kept taking photos.



Oh yeah, naked guy - everyone, meet naked guy. This dude - who was beside me/us during the sounds - couldn't keep his pants on, couldn't decide if he was going to throw his boxers on stage, seemed to enjoy dancing in the nude, poking us with glow sticks and attempting to flash the band. Alicia intervened when he was getting too creepy, but he took that as an open invite to hit on her. At least he was clothed at this point.

Naked guy encouraged more Sangria (1.5 + 1.5 = 3 litres for 3 people)

Wasting time at the Nokia photo booth because they gave us bubbles and lounge seats and all we had to do was pretend to be thinking of an idea for a cool group shot.



14 year olds masquerading as 17 year olds. That demographic seems to have a tendency to hit on Alicia.


Gampel at night, waiting for Jimmy Eat World.


The crowd durring Jimmy Eat World. The same crowd that started mosh pitting and hard core dancing and squashing Steph to the point of near suffocation / trampling that we got security to pull her out cos it looked like her head was put in one of those vice things - you know where they like squish you until your brains pop out or whatever. But seriously, who the hell gets that rowdy for jimmy freaking eat world? Crazy Germans.


the Jimmy Eat World fiasco encouraged sangria purchase number 3 (1.5x3 = 4.5 litres of sangria). While drinking this batch approximately 6 guys, all with those meter beers in long plastic yellow glasses with crazy long straws like ours - and all in sombreros, came up to us and atttempted to drink out of our sangria bucket. this guy didn't have a crazy long straw like us or the others so he failed misserably. Here is Steph in utter disbelief that so many people can attempt to steal alcohol.

After the concert we decided not to take the bus but to walk to the train station to make it to the train that was leaving in half an hour. when it got down to the wire, we attempted to start hitch hiking as we were a long ways away still. A smart car stopped for us. Seriously. Since we couldn't - obviously - hitch a ride with them, we started to ask for directions when the first and only taxi I've seen since I've been out here drove by. We hailed it down and got a free ride to the train station. No sleeping on benches for us! (plenty of sleeping on the 2.5 hour train ride though)
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In other news, working hard. Keeping late hours. Trying to keep afloat.
Once next week is over, I'll let you know how its all going.
Like, actually.