Venice canals at twilight. Photo / Federico Beccari
Venice canals at twilight. Photo / Federico Beccari
Everyday explorers recount their best travel memories to Elisabeth Easther
A wandering minstrel, Delaney Davidson has tirelessly toured the world for more than 17 years, winning a host of awards along the way. He's a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate (2015), has won the APRA New Zealand Country Music Songof the Year three times and even snared the trophy for World Champion, Saddest Song, Berlin (2010).
I've always been fascinated by stories of other lands. When I was growing up, I couldn't wait to go travelling. Dad went to India when I was young and came back with stories of roadside tailors, men on beaches selling magic seashells and abandoned hotels full of monkeys.
The first time I went to Europe, I hated travel. It all felt wrong. Travelling as a tourist, it was very hard to connect and I got restless, panicky and stuck in my head. I remember freaking out and being crushed by this lost, lonely feeling and not knowing how to deal with it. A couple of years later, I discovered touring, then I totally got travel. Touring gives you an instant connection to a place. You've got something to do there, people who like what you do come and see you perform and you connect to the place on a deeper level.
Floating silently
The main motivating factor for travel is love, and when I married a Swiss woman I went to live in Bern, the capital of Switzerland. I bought a top hat and joined a funeral marching band called The Dead Brothers.
When you bring the gift of culture to a place, people respond in really generous and profound ways; sometimes they want to show you the special things about their town. In Venice, we were taken on a midnight tour of tiny narrow canals. It was the middle of the night, we couldn't see more than half a metre ahead and we were ducking under bridges. It was like being in a dream, floating silently on the oily water.
Call the police
Kiwi musician Delaney Davidson in Russia. Photo / Supplied
When I was invited to play in Moscow, I was given a minder, an ex-policeman with strong ties to the police force. He took me to a strange barbecue by a river. It was like being in a film. There was a shaggy old dog, a pig walking around, a fat old Russian guy in uniform, his shirt hanging, lounging by a tollbooth at the gate. We barbecued some meat and a guy gave me a ring to protect me from demons. I've got a great picture of that day of me pretending to break into a police car.
I've been to New Orleans a couple of times, and the first time it felt like I'd had a curse put on me. It's embarrassingly cliched, but everything was super intense and I freaked out at the looks people were giving me. The noise of a tram as it slowed down through town, the grinding gears and screaming steel sounded like hell. I had to go away and come back to properly appreciate the place.
New Orleans' French Quarter. Photo / Getty Images
I've toured the States a couple of times with a guy called Reverend Beat-Man. We drove down the panhandle of Texas from Colorado through some swampy area to play Beerland in Austin. The Reverend was sleeping and I kept seeing these giant furry caterpillars on the road. I was hunched over the wheel peering over the bonnet to get a better look when Beat-Man woke up and asked what I was doing, but he didn't see the caterpillars and didn't believe they were there. He decided then that it was his turn to drive. But I know they were real.
Delaney Davidson and Barry Saunders are appearing in Word Gets Around at the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival on February 26. hgaf.co.nz/word-gets-around
