No Age, Dr. Dog and Japandroids Share Sasquatch! Travel Travails

Posted on Jun 2nd 2010 11:28AM by Jason Cohen
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While Pavement's Stephen Malkmus glibly complained onstage about the fact that they had to fly straight from the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona to the Sasquatch! Festival in George, Wa., over Memorial Day Weekend, they were only one of many bands who made that journey.

"Pavement took the Concorde, that's what I heard," Dr. Dog bassist Toby Leamon joked to Spinner. "We travelled for 31 hours. They probably travelled for about 10." Leamon wore his own band's shirt during their set, as did guitarist Scott McMicken -- only with his turned inside-out -- since all their other clothes were dirty. (This may also explain why MGMT recently added socks to their official line of merchandise).

Meanwhile, No Age -- who had a rough time in Europe after singer/drummer Dean Spunt got beat up by a bouncer while in Portugal -- got waylaid and delayed due to the British Airways strike.

"We spent all this extra money to go home to L.A. and land at 3 in the afternoon to make a friend's wedding Sunday," said Spunt. "We didn't get in until 11:30 or midnight. We ran to the reception, then had to wake up at 5:30 to catch our flight here."

But the grand travel horror prize surely goes to the Japandroids. Like No Age, they were affected by the British Airways strike, but couldn't find another flight.

"We ended up having to drive all the way from Barcelona to London," said guitarist Brian King. "Across France and through the Chunnel to Heathrow: a 14-hour drive or something ridiculous. Got a flight from London to Minneapolis, had an epic layover in Minneapolis, got to Seattle I guess about 2AM or something and drove out here. Still haven't slept."

Of course, on top of that, the airline -- King wouldn't say which one, but "Minneapolis" is a bold-letter clue -- lost their luggage, including all of the band's gear. Fortunately, Japandroids are from Vancouver, so they were able to get friends from home to bring them down guitars and pedals. "Just enough to play a set," King said.

And now they (and Dr. Dog) will do it all again for Bonnaroo -- but at least that's still a week away.