Saturday 27 October
Meet up with 100 kids. Gino and Sid distribute cameras whilst I play banjo with for the kids on the bus and in the theatre foyer. Theatre starts and we pop down to the boat to pay for Sunday’s cruise. Return back to the theatre in time for the show’s end and bring the kids to a disco which was held some concrete structure. It was the first disco ever had in the place. It was newly done up on the inside. The false bottles behind the bar were priceless. Actually they were dead cheap but they gave us a laugh.
Many of the kids know how to breakdance. This is impressive. There’s some food and then kareoke. Many of the songs are in Serbian. Great to hear the voices. Unpredictable vocal sounds and unpredictable melodies. Electrifying.
Leave the kids to it when the balloon-modelling clown arrives. Pop by a football stadium with a significantly heavy police presence. We asked them if they minded us taking their photo. They were hesitant but after a few ‘Och gone ahead’s they did surely. Well one batch of them did. The rest just would look at you and hold aloft one single side-to-side finger. That was enough.
Go to the Belgrade’s Annual Book Fair. Serbia’s a big place for the smoking. Clouds and clouds of the stuff in the hall. Everyone selling a book has a fag in their mouth, hand or pants.
Back to Mirko’s and have some grub.
Off again into town. We decide that I’ll play a gig in the same place I played last year. We get through the doors, see an empty stage and tell the first guy we see, a waiter, that we’d play here no problem. And that I am Cormac Heron, the banjo player from London and yes surely I’ll jump in a taxi, pick up the banjo from Mirko’s and come back and rock out on my banjo. The waiter loves the idea and enthuses it upon the assistant manager who asks if I am serious. “Of course he’s serious!” explains Gino, “He plays the banjo!” offering further confirmation of the whole weirdness of the thing. The assistant manager asks that I follow him and I tell Gino to stay put. Eventually we all arrive at another bar in the building and the manager approaches to hear what the assistant manager has to say for himself this time.
The assistant manager begins his spiel. The manager turns to me and simply says, “No!” Gino asks him what does he mean no and that this is Cormac Heron from London. The manager looks at Gino and Gino then picks up the air-banjo, looks at the manager, takes a deep breathe and then says aloud, “Ding! Diddle-ling! Diddle-ling! Ding! Ding!”
“Out! Out!”
We’re walking down the road and decide to hit a gig Sid fancies but the building is closed down. Try another jazz gig but the bouncers are meats who are able to explain that “No room”. I enjoy the language barrier with them as they are just aching to pound some poor unsuspecting bastard. We wish them a pleasant evening and hope to catch them again sometime. Gino befriends some student guy who has less luck than us with the meats so we all go for a drink.
First places after a longish walk through the replacing of pavements weren’t happening much and then when we found a suitable place Gino found the loitering of the bouncing staff too intolerable so we were on our way again. (Why not? We were on a roll). Eventually found one place, had two drinks and then headed home.
Tomorrow we gotta do all this again.
