Backstage Pass

Munster Raving Loony Party

Words and illustrations by Lorna Tiefholz

Meanwhile, last weekend in sunny Pineda Del Mar, the groovy, the cool, and the drunk congregated from all over Europe to pay homage to some mighty fine garage bands for the Munster Raving Loony Party - Moustache Edition.

Friday night was kicked off with free moustaches for everyone. Early proceedings were delayed with technical glitches, but this just gave everyone more time to test the mojitos.

In between beers I caught The Felines, a young 3 piece band on tour from Denmark. Their set was interesting and varied in influence, with a Meg White style beat throughout, and definitely worth keeping an ear open for. Thee Eviltones (www.theeeviltones.co.uk) a band with a singer who obviously has a love for MC5, and who wooed with some crowd-pleasing covers (if in doubt, give ‘em the Ramones) and Los Glurps (www.facebook.com/los.glurps) who were declared later as “not a band - a country in their own right”.

An all female DJ crew provided an excellent soundtrack of garage for all night dancing for the entire weekend… until the local police stepped in and demanded a 3am curfew - bah!

On Saturday I went native and skipped the pool party in favour of a large lunch, bottle of wine and afternoon siesta.

By the time I arrived back at the venue everything was in full swing and the Voladoras (www.voladoras.se) were mid set. A large pink inflatable crowd-surfing crocodile and other remnants of the pool party were flung around colliding with stage divers, and the Voladoras became my new favourite band. The Voladoras should be in a Tarantino film. They look amazingly cool and delinquent and they have a sound to match. They probably skipped school to smoke and drink vodka, listen to rock ‘n’ roll and do their hair.

I wanted to buy their record, but they only had LPs. My hand luggage allowance would only allow for 7”s and CDs to be taken home. I settled for a badge instead and vowed to order their album online.

Everything went 60s horror-film with Thee Gravemen, (www.myspace.com/theegravemen) a drum and guitar duo donned in full undertaker attire, accompanied by a black-clad ghoul dancer, closely followed by Dead Elvis, who single handedly proves that The King is in fact dead and is making spectacular music from beyond the grave with so much enthusiasm that everyone was dancing monster-style for all of his set.

The last band of the night, UK garage super-group Hipbone Slim & The Kneetremblers had everyone bouncing off the ceiling. The audience was a mass of flying arms & legs (and inflatable crocodile - which managed to keep flying all night).

I can only imagine the mayhem of Sunday’s show, including a doubtless fantastic and riotous performance from The Parkinsons. I had to bid farewell to the glorious seaside town of Pineda Del Mar on Sunday morning, humming Surfin’ Bird, and hoping that this spectacular fiesta of garage is repeated next year.