Bristol Airport. The Jesus Bolt’s first gigs abroad. Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and back to Serbia. Last time I was here, heading off on a solo tour six months ago, I endured a seven hour delay resulting in me missing my first gig in Berlin, so our flight simply being on time is cause for celebration. Nebo, our agent/tour manager (Rock Svirke Agency) meets us at Pula Airport in his familiar people carrier and we are off. Gerard
As usual I spend the flight taking sole responsibility for keeping the wings on by concentrating very very hard. I unfurl myself from the crash position to disembark and we meet Nebo at Pula airport Croatia. He’s an enormous Serbian bloke. Norman Beaker the blues guitarists who also works with him, calls him Hagrid.
Nebo drives fucking fast. I am a nervous passenger. Starkie has advised me just not to look. The first time we appear to be facing impending death, I explosively shout FUCK, which he finds hilarious. I explain I drive a Honda Jazz. Very slowly. I was in the garage with it once in Bristol getting a new tyre put on and a bloke started chatting to me. He said “it thinks about it doesn’t it? When you accelerate?” And I say “yes, yes it does, it thinks about it”. “ Its an old man’s car really” he says.
Nebo is not an old man. He is not driving us in an old man’s car. We drive through “stork village”, where virtually every house has a stork nesting on the chimney, finally rolling up at Ethno Village Stara Lonja a gorgeous place in a nature reserve where we’re due to spend the first night. We are greeted by “Hairy Boy” who is a tiny furious terrier. He was a stray who the owners rescued. As soon as we’re across the threshold he decides he doesn’t want to kill us after all and becomes our best friend. We eat incredible food in an outdoors open plan sort of barn with a roaring open fire. We’re staying overnight in a fantastic suite of rooms; theres lots of carved wood and billowing white linen curtains. I am faintly panicking that someone somewhere might think we’re more important than we actually are.
Hazel