I’d like to preface this article by stressing I am no prude when it comes to naturism. I think it’s a wonderful thing when like-minded individuals gather together to reject the stuffy convention of clothing, relish the feeling of sun on skin, and the liberation of just letting it all hang out. It’s just not an urge I happen to have myself.
Whilst on tour, a band gets to stay in all manner of hotels, the qualities of which can have serious impact on band members’ morale. Entering a shabby, pokey hole after 14 hours in a fetid van to discover that the twin bed is in fact a double, to be shared with a bass player suffering an affliction of the guts, can be more than a little irksome. On the other hand, flopping onto a crisp king-size in your own chamber and finding speedy and free wi-fi is tour manna. Simple things, I know. But important.
Most recently, however, my band Fanfarlo experienced a first. We’d played a show at a small festival a few hours’ drive from Vienna, and it had already been a long day when we arrived at our hotel, Rutar Lido: a tired-looking, faux-Alpine lodging surrounded by campsites, but boasting three stars and a large outdoor pool. We tumbled out of the van into the still-sweltering sun and immediately spotted something amiss. Or rather miss-ing: the clothes on most of the hotel’s patrons.
Doing our best to neither snigger nor gawp, we checked in and filtered into our rooms (shared and no free wi-fi). Eager to cool off, we changed into swimwear and headed over to the pool. Strolling as nonchalantly as possible past mounds of leathery, wobbling flesh, we settled into our sun-loungers, feeling vaguely awkward at being the only people there with a stich of clothing.
Soon unwinding and toasting away nicely, I was just gearing up to plop into the water when all of a sudden a squat silhouette loomed over us. In a clipped and not particularly friendly voice, this figure asserted that weren’t allowed to “be not nude” by the pool. “Zose are ze rules,” he concluded, before turning on his haunches and striding off (very much displaying his adherence to said rules). Muttering to each other our outrage, we each silently contemplated the scenario of us sat around with our respective bits on display, and ended up shuffling, self-consciously back to our rooms.
We never found out why we were booked into a naturist hotel (none of the rest of the festival line-up seemed to be), or whether nakedness was indeed compulsory by the pool (there were no signs and our Teutonic rebuker was clearly a guest). Still, had any of us been alone, or even with mates, I’m sure we would have gone nudie at the drop of a towel. Bandmates, however, straddle that fuzzy line between friends and work colleagues and, as it turns out, exposing our fuzzy bits is just a step over it. C