Sakay na! This boat is for loserville.
I was walking on the quayside of Blasieholmshammen when I noticed a couple of people milling about at the entrance to the Grand Hotel, 30m from where I was. Then, three 50-something guys came out and the crowd seemed to welcome them. There were flashes from cameras and handshakes. Hmm, I wonder who they are, I thought to myself as I went past. This was very odd in Sweden as there is no 'celebrity' culture here. The Swedish concept of lagom makes the word 'celebrity' very alien to the Swedish psyche where no one is above anyone else. To have a sizeable crowd around you means you must be near-gods to deserve it.
As I walked towards the Gamla I began to notice the many posters with the words Led Zeppelin in the middle. Hmm, I wonder why I said to myself.
I was at the airport the following day, waiting for my flight home when I suffered a heart attack.
Newspaper article. Poster. Middle Aged men. It hit me....aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggh!
King Carl Gustav was awarding the Polar Music Prize (The Nobel Prize for Music) to Led Zeppelin that night. The three men I saw were Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and Jimmy Page. I was 30 frigging metres from them and I did not even realize it!
Someone tattoo a big 'L' on my forehead for being such a loser. I was dazed and confused from the communications breakdown, instead of getting a whole lotta love, it was a hearbreaker.
The scene of the Crime! And to think I nearly went in for high tea but decided to go to the Gamla instead. I could have rubbed shoulders with Led Zep. Hell, maybe we could have even jammed!
Shet. Oo nga naman, if I had paid more attention to the signs which were all over Stockholm. I mean, you didn't have to be that proficient in the Swedish language to figure out what it said. The 2006 Polar Music Prize for classical music went to the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev.
"The 2006 Polar Music Prize is awarded to the British group Led Zeppelin, one of the great pioneers of rock. Their playful and experimental music combined with highly eclectic elements has two essential themes: mysticism and primal energy. These are features that have come to define the genre "hard rock". - King Carl Gustav and the citation for the 2006 Polar Music Prize.
King Carl Gustav was so cool (He's way way more hip than Prince Charles). Check out the Swede babe Nina Persson's sexy version of "A whole lotta love" and Maja Ivarsson's rendition of "Rock and Roll", during the prize ceremony with the Soundtrack of Our Lives playing the music and King Carl headbanging. If the sight of those Swedish babes singing Led Zep doesn't give you a musical hard-on, nothing will. http://www.polarmusicprize.se/
Instead of joining Led Zep for hotdog and beer at Berns, I was on an airport in the middle of nowhere Sweden to take a flight to middle of nowhere England. What a loser!
This is not the stairway to heaven