Requiem for the Hellacopters (or, what an excellent road trip)

20.09.08

In which our hero and heroine drive about 7 Swedish miles each way in the small Iberian peninsula to catch the show of the year.

It really isn't that far. A good road trip is always a good road trip, especially when it's done Bonnie and Clyde style, a deux, cruising down the highway with music on, loving the life.

It never ceases to amaze me, the number of people who DON'T do this sort of thing. Each day that passes brings us closer to the end, so if you don't live today, there really isn't much point at all in waiting for tomorrow. So, when the Hellacopters (more on them later... a lot more) announced their last tour "before the fall", that is, the demise and break-up of the band, self-inflicted / self-pronounced though it may be, it was clear to me that we must attend, at the very least, the closest show to home. That meant cruising up to La Coruna or A Coruna as the Galicians call it. (It's all spilt milk to me anyways, the Galician pronounciation).
We checked into our 4 start hotel found via venere.com for a mere 58 euros and were off to an auspicious start there when I realized that for some reason even though we were on the same longitude (or is that latitude, I always mix those up!) with Portugal the clock was an hour ahead and we were late to meet the mighty mighty Hellacopters at their hotel. We showed up when they were just finishing dinner and heading to the venue - a cavernous, airplane-hanger style brand new convention facility where the sound, much to the band's concern, threatened to bounce off the metal ceilings and floor to ceiling glass windows on the right, bare cement walls on the left. At least the room wasn't square, and there was the promise of bodies in the room with happy tickets sales figures in the thousands... Nicke commented, "Funny that it takes us announcing a break up to bring people out to a live concert". Indeed - humans are always morbidly attracted to the end. But in this case, as he announced on stage, the night was definitely a party, not a funeral!

Testify:

For those who don't know them, over the last 14 years the Hellacopters have been a revered institution in rock n roll circles, and rightly so. Formed when Nicke, then drummer for Entombed, called up the Backyard Babies' Dregen for a jam with Kenny Håkansson (bass), and Robert Eriksson (drums), the band reportedly released their first 7" vinyl single on their own label, Psychout, and recorded it in just three takes. Old school. It didn't matter too much when Dregen left the band to stick with his own Backyard Babies - Andersson & co. carried on and firmly established their reputation as the heirs apparent to the MC5, arguably the best American rock n roll band of the 60s, and surely recognized as pioneers of the electric guitar and the use of distortion. As brother Wayne Kramer once told me, "you gotta play the amp" and not just the guitar - something few bands seem to do.

But I digress. Back to the 'copters show. On record, they have written and recorded some of the sweetest, most urgent guitar melodies of the last decade, and their rock n roll prowess is unsurpassed by any of their contemporaries. Everything about them exudes greatness, even their humility - you'd be hard-pressed to meet nicer individuals playing such music. The fact that they have decided to quit at the top of their game, releasing an album of relatively unknown songs by other bands that they are friends with and admire, is absolute proof, beyond their music, that these boys are meant for the history books, equals with the Stones, Elvis, the MC5, whoever. First class.

Thank you Hellacopters, RIP, respect (the rock).
N.