Pt. 6. “There, where life is for living. There, where food and drink are for feasting…” prompts a familiar Turkish verse about the fertile hedonism of Bitola. The city of Bitola, though nearly invisible between its green hilly arms of the Baba Mountain and the Pelajonia granaries, surprises us with its own pedestrian “Broadway” street crowded with shoppers and daytime drinkers. I like a place with noisy residents and this city certainly boasts energy. A clocktower peaks above the red rooftops, bell towers and minarets, neo-classical facades and Macedonian Chardak terraces and Bezisten covered bazaars. When the Akto Music Festival hosts guide us through the quaint streets of the city centre, Tanja laments that Skopje was unable to preserve this charm after the calamitous earthquake that shook the capital to its core. Despite our insistence that Skopje is impossibly magical, we can understand her frustrations over lost architecture and gaudy restructuring. Bitola is, after all, immediately likeable. After pizzas and pastas and a delectable regional dish of melted sheep’s cheese and pulverized tomatoes, we are taken back to the festival grounds – seemingly in the very middle of nowhere. In fact, our pretty blonde young tenderfoot driver asks us to keep an eye out for the turn-off bearing the “Sokolski” sign of the outdoor venue, all crossing our fingers in the dark. We arrive as the field floods with the sound of a Macedonian surfer-punk band energizing the hundreds of fans who have very miraculously found the location. I had not expected such a tremendous turn out. When our treasured friends in Xa Xa Xa take stage the crowd is set on fire. The people of Bitola, living up to their reputation, are busily hedonistic. Despite our earlier woes with Ninja the soundman, we careen into a whizzing and buzzing set. It feels let loose. My keyboard stand jumps metres around the shoddily constructed stage but no one minds the dizzying movements. Fans are dancing, some barefoot in the grass, and singing along with their best phonetic intentions. It is one of those nights of triumph. We feel certain we are making new fans. Building a community of devoted music lovers in this country that we so love and intend, frequently, to return to. On stage Dan jokes that we are making the right career choices to “become at least 1/8th Macedonian.” The humbly patriotic in attendance cheer on our foreplanning for citizenship. Tina, Vasco, Tanja, Grga, Nenad and Jano applaud in solidarity. My heart is so full of love for these people that, even when the hilariously hatable headliners perform their antics in tracksuits with prop ladders, my mood is unfettered. In fact, my love grows. I am warmed by the absurdity of it all. We sit side stage with a few security guards and they pluck fruit from the trees to share with us. Even the supposed “meatheads” here in Bitola know a thing or two about good living and food does seem exclusively for feasting. My favourite places on earth are those that are hedonistic but not epicurean and I could indulge in the pleasures given to us here for the rest of my life.
Pt. 7. “Most people don’t know where Macedonia is exactly, ya know, let alone Skopje, probably not Bitola and certainly definitely not Ohrid.” Our booking agent in Sweden was appropriately confused when I sent him an email earlier this year saying that we were trying to firm up some Balkan dates. The back and forth correspondence went something in this vein: me: “Grga told us about this festival that’s happening by Lake Ohrid.” him: “Where?!” me: “It’s in Macedonia. Apparently it’s one of the deepest lakes in Europe actually!” him: “Do you have fans there?” me: “No. I doubt it. That’s probably impossible.” him: “But you still want to play there?” me: “Absolutely.” him: “Perhaps Grga can help you out with that?” me: “For sure.” him: “Let me know if you need anything please. Okay? Please.” me: “I’m so excited!” him: “Okay.” In fact, this is the way a lot of our business gets done. Me bringing startling propositions to loving but more business-savvy people who are right to believe that my ideas are foolish but, because they are friends, they are happy to accommodate our whims. This is truly how I get exactly what I want out of life. Sure it might be strange to have to put your uninsured gear on a rickety wooden dingy in order to get it out to beach number four of Lake Ohrid where there is absolutely no stage on the rocky and pebbled coastline but what stories are you gonna tell your grandkids? Conditions might not be ideal for putting on a rock show but with equal measures of earnestness and technological manipulation, you can make most things happen. Plus, if you’re lucky, you can swim before you soundcheck. And we do. The water is clearer than the sky and little fish swarm around my blistered and show-calloused feet for ample feeding of dry skin. These symbiotic relationships always make my science heart/brain swell with pride. As the sun sets, it cuts a fluorescent pink wound in the sky before the eventual bruising of purple and yellow floods to the edges while kids reel in their last fish for the day. None of us are talking much, made speechless by the surrounding beauty. Tina sits beside me on the beach, sighing with joy, and, though this most hard-working beauty loves her job, she confesses that the show’s cancellation would not bum her out. “I feel so calm. I could sit here all night.” But Tina is no slacker. In fact, once nearly 200 hundred (!) kids from the surrounding area, have made their way to our beach, she delivers the strongest performance I have witnessed. Every show, she has mesmerized me but on this particular night she throws herself into the crowd and in an utterly preposterous act that could not be forethought, she buries her microphone in the sand while singing into the ground. I have never seen anything like it before. It is my favourite Bernays Propaganda concert yet. I am blown away. When Dan and I take stage, we enlist the crowd to include Albania amongst those in attendance because we have been staring at its hilly lakefront all day. Despite political tensions between the nations, our fans are inviting and we pretend we are performing for one united borderless world. Perhaps we played just loud enough for them to hear us anyhow and, who knows, maybe they liked it. Let’s just say that they did. Certainly, the Macedonians did. They were our best riot yet. Again, I will reiterate that it might not be the most fiscally smart or career building or fame generating decision for a relatively unknown North American band to play shows in small beach communities in small countries where our record has no distribution but I can tell you it was one of our best ideas yet. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I felt loved and lucky. And connected to what it means to be human. Privately, I went swimming out in the Lake as far as I could manage and looked back across the moonlit waters at the dancing crowd and knew my life had worth. And then sopping wet, in my underwear, I climbed back up the sand and stones and corralled the masses to join me for a night dip. Naked couples made out on the beach while we all swam like sharks in circles around each other devouring the most delicious company on earth. Seriously: what are you gonna tell your grandkids you did in the Summer of 2011? I know what I will. I’ll get out the Atlas if I have to.
Pt. 8. “I don’t understand what you’re doing actually.” Bersant says it lovingly. Twice in four months this tightly tee-shirted Kosovan gentleman has made it possible for us to play in Pristina yet he doesn’t really understand what type of music we play or why we wanted to return. “The only international acts we get here are Busta Rhymes and Deep Purple but I don’t understand what you’re doing actually.” He pauses. “I really like it.” A make-shift stage has been set up for us in a concrete courtyard in the shadow of the Grand Hotel, Yugoslavia’s largest old communist in-tourist lodgings. It is a pretty terrific setting. A juxtaposition between the grandiose and ram-shackle perfectly befitting for our band. We are told that legendary raging disco parties were held in the basement of the hotel and now sharply dressed waiters mill about, overstaffed, in the bowels of our more modest event serving us pizzas and beer. Days earlier we had crossed through Kosovo and become aware of new fighting between the Albanian and Serb communities. Heavy fighting in the North East had made us wary that our show would even be achievable. We read about the border being over-run by angry Serbs fighting the border post controls while refusing to recognize Kosovo as an independent country. The grievances and injustices on both sides were not lost on us. Indeed both communities are being disturbingly mistreated. With heartache we asked some of the returning fans we’d made at our last concert just how bad it was currently. “It’s bad,” said one. “But, of course, it is often bad.” These are the comments that force you to run to the broiler room/backstage and cry privately. Which I did. But because my heart feels just this enormous sympathy for these unbelievable hardships that I put on my shiniest lipstick. I want to help you feel joy. Even for forty-five minutes. This world is fucked, but I am in it with you in this small and perhaps pointless way. It is the only thing I know how to offer you. But, trust me, I do this with love and not unknowingly of your peoples’ pain. When I see you dancing, I feel my greatest pride in life. I mean that. And you are unbelievable and beautiful. You make my world more meaningful even if it becomes less understandable as I go. Like Bersant said to us at the beginning of the evening, we might not understand exactly what’s going on but we really really really like you.
Falamanderit from the bottom of our hearts. You will change the world, you make mine better.