The Nibe Festival, Saturday the 28th of June 2002
"I'm the train conductor...-NO, I'M NOT!...Yes, I am!...-NO, I'M NOT!....."

Once again it was one of those concerts, where we had to get up bright and early to travel to Jutland.

The night before we discussed the morning routine: who should hit the showers first and who could sleep the extra 20 minutes?

It all came down to Bente getting up at 4.30 am and Nickie dozing off for another 20 minutes!!!

But at 5.40 am we were both waiting at the bus station, ready for a 7 hour journey to see Safri Duo in Nibe!

After 7 hours on a train we discovered, that we could have skipped the showers and just slept ´till 5.35, because now we had the distinct smell of "Bongo-girls on tour".

When we finally reached Nibe, we walked around trying to find a place to have lunch and suddenly we were lost! 90 minutes later we found that Nibe is kinda big for a small place! But now we can honestly say, that we have e-x-p-l-o-r-e-d Nibe!

It is worth mentioning, that Nibe was one of the only places in Denmark where it didn't rain this day. That just proves our theory: The sun always shines on a bongo-girl.

After running around in circles we finally gave up having lunch that day and headed for the festival.

At this concert we had backstage passes, but it took us a while to get the right ones, so we missed most of Danser med Drenge´s performance, and that was kinda on the empty side, because we had really been looking forward to seeing them again!!!!

At the festival arena we said hello to Torben, Safri Duo´s tour manager, and he was wearing the jeans we like! GO TORBEN!

Our Swedish friend Agneta and her fiancée Uffe had made a pit stop in Nibe on their way to Holland, just to see Safri Duo, so we had brought our mobile phones, so we could encircle each other. We had no idea what Agneta looked like, she is a friend from the Safri Duo News group, but she knew how we looked, since The Safri Zone is one of her favourite sites! Don´t we just love Agneta? By golly, yes we do!!! When she saw us, she said "Oh, you look exactly like on the pictures from your site!!" We are sure it was meant as a compliment. (....right?..)

But getting to the concert:

Catch had a few problems with the power, but nothing 8 engineers couldn´t handle! Torben made them stay and watch the power circuits, so Safri Duo wouldn´t have the same problem.

Just before the concert we had the opportunity to wish Safri Duo a great show. Morten was wearing jeans and a shirt with a print, we couldn´t define. According to Uffe the shirt was covered with small cars! We looked a bit surprised by the thought of Morten being covered in small cars, so Uffe invited us to go and have a look for ourselves. But there being only 5 minutes to the concert, we decided NOT to bother Morten.....with...cars.

Uffe had on his faint blue pants, a blue sleeveless shirt and a denim jacket.

It was a pretty, mighty, freakin´ fine concert and when they finished off Sweet Freedom we held our breath and desperately hoped for The Medley. And YIPPIE-DI-DOO-DAH, Torben gave the sign and The Medley was on!!!Don´t we just love when they have time for The Medley?! Yes, we do!

After the concert Uffe and Morten came to the Safri Shop to sign autographs, and Agneta did some HEAVY shopping for herself and her son Ludvig. After getting autographs on the merchandise we met up with Agneta and Uffe (her fiancée,-not Safri Uffe!), and we all went out for a celebration dinner: Agneta seeing Safri Duo for the 2nd time and us for the 17th time. Uffe joked a bit and wondered what the score would look like in 5 years time, saying that Agneta had some catching up to do, but we might have to watch our backs, ´cause Agneta is one serious Safri fan! You go, girl!

We had a great evening with our Swedish friends and we hope we didn´t bore them, when they got us started on Safri Duo trivia!

At 10.50 pm, we started our journey home and on the train it was impossible for others to sleep,..because we couldn´t!!

Instead we became seriously giddy and had this giant fit of laughter when Nickie started impersonating a train conductor with multiple personalities, changing hats and shifting gears all the time! (Hey, when you haven´t slept for 22 hours you are allowed to get a bit goofy!)

It took us 10 hours to get home, because we, again, were stuck for 2 hours in our favourite place to waste time: Ringsted. A nice town, but not at 4 am!

At 9 am we finally reached Stege. Instead of going to bed, Bente went for a family visit, while Nickie tried to get a few hours of sleep before heading off to work for the next 14 hours. Night duty doesn´t go well with being on the road.....

But hey...we´ll be out there again next weekend on yet another Safri Duo adventure!


Vig Festival, Saturday the 6th of July 2002
"Happy New Year!"

When you think about the fact that Vig is on Sealand it is amazing how difficult it is to get there, when you are two happy festival goers!

First we traveled to Nickie´s dad in Ishøj and left our luggage there. Like always dad was nowhere to be found, but he had made sure, that the fridge was packed with Cola and Sprite. All a bongo-girl needs when returning home from a Safri concert!

First we had to travel to Copenhagen, then to Holbæk, and then on to Vig. In all it took 2 1/2 hours, and of course it was nothing compared to our usual travel time, but when you consider the distance between Ishøj and Vig, it was a pretty long ride.

But we arrived and we were hyped as ever!-And this time we didn´t get lost at all!!!!

On Thursday and Friday the Vig Festival had some problems with rain, and they were kinda flooded, but on Saturday, when we arrived, it kept dry and the sun even appeared late afternoon. What is it, we say:...The sun always shines on a bongo girl!

We found, that the Vig Festival is very cozy considering that it covers a large area, and the people that worked there.....they are just the nicest and most polite festival crew, we have ever met!!!!

A big shout out goes to them; they really did a terrific job!

We had a look around the festival and there were a lot of people all in a great mood, even though the festival was pretty much covered in mud.

On this day we had backstage passes and unlike Nibe, we had NO problems getting clearance to go backstage.

We went backstage just in time to see Christian coming off stage; we have to admit, that he is kinda spiffy and appears very down to Earth.

Also performing this day, to name but a few: Bamses Venner, Klassens Tykke Dreng, Hampenberg, Nicolaj & Piloterne, Johnny Madsen, Erann DD, Gnags and of course Safri Duo!

We did some shopping in the Safri shop, which had brought some exciting new stuff, so we have to save up some money for the next concert. Of course it is also a possibility simply not to buy anything....but NOOOOOOOO!!!!

Safri Duo, who had just returned home from Berlin the same day, came on stage at 9pm. Morten was wearing his dark green pants and his black MGP shirt and Uffe had on white pants and a new long-sleeved petroleum-coloured Safri Duo shirt, brand new from the Safri Shop!

It was a great show; everything was perfect. If we may mention some of the really cool details: We are pretty sure, that they have practiced a bit of choreography for "Crazy Benny", looking mighty fine doing the same moves while playing! Also the last part of "Everything".....is just pretty God dang hot and beautiful!

-And in two of the songs 4 "Party Bazookas" blasted confetti from stage. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

After "Sweet Freedom" Morten asked if we had time for one more song?

You bet ya, Mr. Friis!!!! We had to catch a train 20 minutes later, but we can always find time for The Medley!

After the mind-blowing medley we raced backstage to thank Uffe and Morten for a fabulous day and then speeded off towards the train station, with only 10 minutes to departure.

When we arrived, sweaty and all, we learned that the train was 20 minutes late, so we were kinda worried, that we would miss our connection on Holbæk station. -Because could we afford a 50 kilometre cap-ride from Holbæk to Ishøj? Think not!!

But lucky girls, the train waited for us in Holbæk, so we were safely in Ishøj at 2am! Of course we had to leave early the next day, so did we go straight to bed? No-no-no, because then it was time for sandwiches, Cola and girl-talk!

So we got 4 hours of sleep, but we weren´t tired at all! (hmm...) We went skipping to Ishøj Station and jumped on, what we thought, was the train to Køge in order to get on the bus to Stege.

BUT SURPRISE!: We had walked to the wrong platform, and were now on the train to Copenhagen!

(Actually it is quite an impressive move, considering there are only 2 platforms on Ishøj Station: One going to Køge and one going to Copenhagen!)

Instead of feeling extremely stupid, we were delighted about the fact, that we now had time for lunch at the Central Station in Copenhagen, before jumping on a train going to Vordingborg an hour later!! Hey, we can find a positive side to everything and that´s not a bad quality.

Bente´s mum DID call us airheads, but she meant it in a loving sort of way!

Safely at home (at last) Bente went to visit her mum (only to be called an airhead) and Nickie went to work.

Late at night we both came home and finally we could get to work, planning our next Safri Duo adventure!


Groen Concert, Odense, Saturday the 13th of July 2002
"Look, there´s a little rabbit!!!"

For once we could sleep late, until 7am, before starting our trip to Groen Concert in Odense on Funen.

As we were going to yet another Groen Concert the next day in Aarhus, we had booked a room at "Get In" in Aarhus.

We arrived at 11.29 in Odense and stored our luggage at the station.

At noon we were standing in line waiting to be let in at 1pm.

At 1.15 we were still waiting and at 1.30 people agreed to simply open the gate themselves and enter.

That made the festival crew get very active, very fast!

It was a fairly long walk from the entrance to the main stage, but we were first in line.

BUT THEN NICKIE HAD TO MAKE A STOP AT THE LADIES ROOM! Totally stressing Bente out, as she was looking at all the people passing her by!

Lucky for us, almost all of them went to the front row....in the beer tents, so we got a great spot in the front row in front of Morten!

-Or so we thought, because the show was being taped and the camera-operator placed herself right in front of us, blocking our view to Morten!!!

Bugger that!!!

While waiting for the show to begin, former Big Brother participant, Chris, passed by the front row, apparently a volunteer at the Groen Concert! We indeed took a liking to him during the Big Brother show, especially when he performed the Riverdance......naked. Thank you, Chris, for bringing Riverdance to a totally new level!

Dj Encore feat. Engelina kicked off the day , and Engelina wished for the sun to come out, because the weather was a bit grey and rainy.

But nope, the sun didn´t show before Safri Duo entered the stage. Then the clouds disappeared and the weather cleared right up!

Morten was wearing his dark, green pants and the smashing, white shirt. Uffe had on his "pyjamas pants", a "Rebel" shirt and a white long-sleeved shirt.

Notice Morten doing some didjeridoo moves on the right!

To our delight, they had brought more Party Bazookas to the show! Man, when they go off, it´s like celebrating your birthday and New year at the same time. They really bring a unique party vibe to the show. Love it!

The show was superb and Morten had decided to expand his introduction to "Baya Baya", now not only calling it "The Beer Song" (....), but also kicking it off by saying: "One-two-Borg!" (He would have made a great slogan writer!)....but since he sings "Higher Love" so brilliantly, in a completely out-of-this-world-hot-diggy-di-dang way,...he can call "Baya Baya" whatever he likes!!!

Having a camera operator blocking our view, we almost strained our necks, in order to see him sing! Morten doing "Higher Love"...bloody marvelous....

After the show, Safri Duo was scheduled to stop by the Safri Shop and we were happy to have bought some water before standing in line, because it took them a while to arrive, and it was quite hot waiting in the sun.

After an hour Safri Duo appeared and all us poor fans, who had been waiting in the burning sun for an hour, found ourselves being pushed aside by people coming from the water and beer tents, who had been standing in the shade, planning their attack on us "devotees".

Dang, it is hard being nice and well-behaved when that happens! Geez, some people....

Finally it was our turn and we got autographs on Safri Duo postcards and also had a chat with Torben Toft.

When it was Bente´s turn to get an autograph, Uffe asked who it was for (since we sometimes get autographs for family and friends), and Bente said:"It´s for me, Uffe", instantly hearing a comment from a girl next to her, about how Safri Duo could know, who "ME" was?

Oh, it was delightful when Uffe simply wrote the name and handed it over, saying: "Here you go, Bente," bringing a puzzled expression to the girl´s face.

Bente was truly having a great moment and Nickie wondered, why she came out of the crowd with such a goofy smile on her face?

On our way to a "snack"-tent, we were commented on, by a young guy, saying out real loud: "Oh my God, look at those tiny girls!!!", being completely fascinated, staring at us for the next 15 minutes and completely ignoring his friends. He thought we were cute, but still...just wait a minute, pal!!!!

Then Bente was stopped by a man just wanting to know, if she was aware of the origin of her tattoo? She reassured him, that she was well aware of the fact, that it was the Rebel Alliance symbol from Star Wars.

Then we headed for the train station and traveled to Aarhus and had one of our laugh attacks on the train, unaware of the fact, that we had placed ourselves in a compartment, where you had to be a bit quiet. Ooooops!!!

We took a cab to "Get In" and it was really a great place, lots of plants, yellow walls and extremely nice people!

There being no TV in our room, Bente performed a shadow figure-show about two rabbits and Nickie did the encore, talking about all the fun she has with her allergies.

It was a really amusing night, which led to the discussion about, why on Earth we laugh so much, so loud and all of the time? Sadly we had to end the discussion, because we almost choked in laughter, so we went to bed.

Then this funny thing happened: We couldn´t sleep....because others couldn´t!

Right outside our window a party of 10-15 people were having a private get-together, laughing and talking really loud, keeping us awake! Getting a taste of our own medicine, we hid under the covers, because people, who live in glasshouses should not throw stones, as a wise person once said......


Groen Concert, Aarhus, Sunday the 14th of July 2002
"HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!"

The next day we woke up in our yellow surroundings and had breakfast.

Thumbs up for "Get In!" -And then it was time to "get out" (haha...)!

This being our 20th Safri Duo concert (HOOOORAAAY!!!), we agreed to take a cab to the Groen Concert and Nickie once again decided to stress Bente out, by going to the ladies room on the way to the main stage!!

Still we got to the front row, and placed ourselves a bit to the left of Morten so the camera operator wouldn´t block our view.

Just as yesterday, Big Brother Chris passed the stage, and we gave him a smile, which seemed to spook him a bit. (Can´t wait to see his expression, when we give him a big smile in Naestved and Valby!)

Morten and Uffe were doing an interview left of the stage, so we almost tumbled over the front row fence, stretching to see them.

It was a very hot day, which seemed to get Dj Encore feat. Engelina in a smashing mood. They did a great show!!

While the crew was getting ready for Safri Duo, Lars gave us a wave and a smile from stage, while setting up the keyboard. He was ready for the Groen Concert tour, having got his hair bleached for the special occasion. Looking spiffy, Lars!!!

Safri Duo came on stage looking fit as always, Morten wearing his dark green pants and a white/beige long-sleeved Safri Duo shirt. Uffe was wearing torn, white pants, the blue, sleeveless shirt and a white long-sleeved shirt.

Because of this being our "anniversary" it was a bit special for us, and the atmosphere was truly out of the ordinary! The crowd was cooking and Safri Duo played their buns off!

Uffe told the audience, that they would stop by the Safri Shop an hour after the show. Sadly, we didn´t have time to wait for them, because we had to catch a train at 5 pm. Nickie had to be at work Sunday night, so we only had time for a quick visit to the Safri Shop, handing the girls in the shop some fact files for a future project in the Safri Zone, and doing a bit of shopping, of course!

They also asked us about the Safri Zone, because people had made inquiries to the address.

So we wrote down the adress, said: "See you in Naestved!", and off we went!

We didn´t have time to wait for a bus, so we jumped on a cab.Having a nice chat, we discovered that the driver had a sister on Moen (!!!), so he knew a bit about "our" island.He also gave us a guided tour through Aarhus, making us promise to stop by his town again and see some sites.

5 hours later we arrived safely in Stege at 9.45pm.

It has truly been 20 outstanding Safri Duo adventures......and here´s to the next 20!!!


Groen Concert, Naestved the 20th of July 2002
"Is it a plane? Is it a bird? No, it´s a flying super pig!"

We were ready to leave "The Shire" (the name of our flat) at 9.45 am.

Yeah, you read it correctly: AT 9.45!!

A bit late for the bongo-girls to leave for a Safri Duo adventure, but don´t worry, we left this late, because today was a "borrowing-Nickie´s-mum´s-car"-day!

Yes, indeed this was a family adventure as we had Bente´s mum Lisbeth and Nickie´s two sisters Louise and Maria with us on tour. They thought it was about time they saw those two bongo boys in real life!

So at 1pm we stood first in line to get into Groen Concert. Waiting to be let in, we once again saw Big Brother Chris, and we pointed him out to Louise and Maria.

We definitely shouldn´t have done that, they went totally nuts, screaming and taking so many photos you could make a flip-book! Poor Chris took it with a smile and gave them some kick-ass autographs!

When we were let in, the sisters speeded to the main stage!! (they even overtook Bente, who normally has a wicket pace going for the front row!)

So we all got a spot in the front row, right between Uffe and Morten.

But of course, Dj Encore feat. Engelina were the first performers and they did a great show. Dj Encore was acting a bit cheeky and made all the girls scream.

Then Safri Duo entered the stage and just like us, mum and sisters caught the Safri Duo fever!

Uffe was wearing his torn, white pants, his nice "Rebel" sleeveless shirt and his white long-sleeved shirt. Morten had on beige pants and his black MGP-Nordic shirt.

From the stage, we must have been an amusing site: Bente was, as always, standing with TWO cameras taking pictures of what seemed to be every movement coming from the stage. Next to her Nickie was reminding her of special parts of the show, so she wouldn´t miss some great shots. Next to Nickie, Louise and Maria were standing with a camera each, taking pictures of e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Lucky for Uffe and Morten the concert was in daylight, or else they would have been completely blinded by all the flashes!

The show was a complete knock-out and our 3 festival-companions made it pretty clear, it wasn´t the last time, they had seen Safri Duo live. Louise and Maria were ready to join us the following day to the concert in Valby, and we said: "yeah, wouldn´t that be nice...and pigs might fly out of our butts!" They didn´t find that amusing at all, but WE had a good laugh!

Before playing "Sweet Freedom" Uffe announced that he and Morten would sign autographs in the Safri shop from 5-5.30pm!

And we thought: "Say what?! Is he drunk?! How many autographs can they do in just 30 minutes?!"

We are sure, that Safri Duo had a really good reason for only showing up for 30 minutes...but still there would be a lot of disappointed fans at the shop today.

So there being 70 minutes ´till 5pm we got in line in front of the Safri Shop.

When Safri Duo arrived, Louise had her camera ready and made Uffe and Morten put their heads together for a snap shot, got Bente to take a picture of her and Morten and when she was on her way out of the queue, she went right back and took more pictures!

The next logical step was to have Uffe and Morten make a human pyramid for the ultimate snap shot.

She took more pictures than us! She made us all proud!

Maria takes home the price of getting an autograph on the smallest object of the day: A tiny plastic shark, she had got from an ice cream, she bought in Bilka. It was about 5 centimetres long, 2 centrimetres wide and didn´t leave much room for autographs, but we had said, that Uffe and Morten would surely write on it, and they did!
So she was a happy fan!

Anja and Tina in the Safri shop returned the fact files we had given them in Aarhus and we also gave one to Torben.
While waiting for him to return it, we were actually recognized!!!! A lady asked Nickie for her name and when she replied, the lady said: "Oh, so it IS you, from the Safri site?!!"
She used the opportunity to ask a question about Safri Duo´s tour plan and said, that we had a lot of great info on our site.
It was totally cool.-And nice, that the first Safri Zone response from Safri fans to us personally was positive and not someone, who wanted to kick our butts.

Then Torben returned the fact file and he hadn´t mentioned us at all for being "a royal pain" for bugging him with silly Safri questions! What a relief!

Then we had the pleasure of meeting Line (our very own G.I.Jane from Kosovo), who didn´t get to Naestved in time to see Safri Duo!!! Lucky for her, she had a rendezvous with us the next day in Valby!

Shortly after we met Jacob, our hospitable pancake-baking/couch sleeping friend from Vordingborg, who wasn´t there for Safri Duo (say what?!) but to see Junior/Senior, Swan Lee and Superheroes.

Then we saw a bit of Big Fat Snake, while waiting for Louise and Maria, who were going nuts over Thomas Troelsen from Superheroes. We didn´t mind waiting, because we were checking out Anders Blichfeldt of Big Fat Snake, who is kinda sassy!

And then it was time to head home, but we had to make a quick stop at a gas station to buy some more film for our cameras......better safe than sorry.....

We were home at 10pm and were hyped and ready for the next Safri Duo adventure only 16 and a half hours away. (But who´s counting?)

The Safri Zone

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