På www.groundation.com för bandmedlemmen Dave “Diesel” Chachere en “blogg” där han skriver om turnè livet. Nu är detta knappast någon nyhet men i texten han skrev för cirka en månad sedan berättar han om vad som egentligen hände på URF08
Texten är klippt från http://www.groundation.com/diesel.html
“After this tour we only had a week to rest before flying to Europe. In just about a month we played in Portugal and Poland, France, Germany, Israel, London and Switzerland, where we had backstage access to see The Roots, one of our favorite hip hop bands, playing to a rain-soaked crowd.
One of the highlights of the trip was supposed to be the Uppsala Reggae Festival in Sweden. Five minutes before the show no one had seen Kelsey, our trombonist. Showtime arrived and our roadies were searching the crowd, standing on stage announcing a missing horn player. Well, we played the entire show without him and speaking as the trumpet player, let’s just say it was pretty rough. Backstage there was still no sign of Kelsey, though there were a couple of strangers rifling through our bags and purses. There were dog paw prints on my trumpet case. Hmmm… “Have a seat,” said one of these strangers. “No thanks,” I said. “No really, have a seat,” he repeated, flashing his narcotics police badge. Within ten minutes, Groundation had been arrested and was on the way to being strip-searched and having our urine and blood tested for drugs. We were released many hours later and told that we would be informed by mail whether we had broken any Swedish laws. As we were leaving the Festival, the police were again sweeping through the backstage areas, this time arresting Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Sean Paul and their bands.
Kerry-Ann, Kim and I shared the bus back to the hotel with Burning Spear’s band. They were about the nicest guys in the world, sympathizing with us, while making light of the situation and making us feel a lot better. Back at the hotel, we joined in with a group of several dozen musicians and tour personnel, mostly Jamaicans, who were discussing the big bust, and we were pretty angry.
As it turned out, the Swedish police had flooded the festival with two hundred undercover officers: more than one in every hundred people at the festival was a cop. Touring in a band one is likely to run into the police at some point, but being arrested backstage, carted away and forced to take a blood test without having done the slightest thing wrong is infuriating. Apparently Swedish law has no ‘probable cause’. At first, everyone felt that this was the last time any of us would agree to play in Sweden. But after venting our frustration, the tide began to turn somewhat.
Boycotting the festival would send a message, but wouldn’t the more powerful message be to return again the next year? To face the Swedish authorities who had attempted to stand between the Swedish people and the music they love was the more courageous choice, and it was the one that quickly dominated the thoughts and words of our spontaneous meeting there in the lobby of the Hotel Linne. I was proud to be a part of that group of musicians, sharing ideas and making decisions based on conscience and reason. You can be sure that the Uppsala Reggae Festival will have plenty of great music in 2009.”
Hoppas alla artister som råkat ut för samma sak tänker likadant som Groundation.
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