Tour Diary - The Wrap Up
Hey guys. As promised, I'm writing this in the newest EU member state, Republika Hrvatska or Croatia to everyone else. It is crazy hot, as usual, and it's siesta time. I'm not feeling sleepy right now so I thought I'd wrap up the tour for y'all.
Last I wrote we were in Berlin for a coupla days off. I loooooove Berlin. It has just the right mix of insanity, dirtiness, acceptance and culture to keep a freak like me happy. I love how nearly every wall is grafittied, and not just tags; awesome bombs and street art. The people are not afraid to be as unique as they feel like. Tatts, piercings, weird fashion, crazy haircuts, the works and nobody seems to mind. Nobody looks twice. It's great!! We stayed in a hotel on Warschauer Platz, just behind Warschauer Strasse U Bahn station. Conveniently, this was an area of Berlin I would frequent on past tours because it had the best grafitti and lots of underground bars and clubs nearby. I was very happy that we could get messed up Berlin style and then stumble home without a train ride. Nice.
Remember how I said in the last blog, amazing the healing properties of adrenaline? Well, finally the inevitable happened and I got sick. Time to really test out that theory. When you are in close proximity to a lot of people for a long period of time you tend to infect each other with diseases. This particular bug had been on a rampage through the band for most of the tour. I think Ollie was the first casualty and then it spread to Jono, Richie, Felipe and then lastly me. It's my own fault really. Berlin partying mixed with rooming with Richie who was sick finally caught up with me.
I would take the bug with me on the journey to Hannover and the Maschseefest. We had played this particular festival at the very end of the last tour and it wasn't a happy time. Last year the band was fractured and many of us were in bad head spaces. The show was ok but the disharmony in the band reached a head as we readied ourselves for finishing the tour knowing we had already lost at least one member. This year thankfully we shook off the demons of the last tour and managed to have a great time. The crowd was great, the sound was excellent I'm told (Kyle, the man, learned a new EQ technique to get the 'motown' bass sound) and we played really well. We saw some familiar faces in the crowd and even some repeat attendees from other shows on the tour. Sometimes I get a little superstitious about places and I had a bad feeling that the negativity of last year would somehow resurface, just because this was an unhappy show in the past. Goes to show that superstitions are stupid because there was nothing to worry about in the end. The only thing I really had to worry about was surviving the gig because I was coughing my ass off. You know when you get one of those annoying coughs that doesn't seem to have any reason for being there? It just kinda nags the back of your throat and try as you might, no amount of coughing will ease it's relentless tickle. Well, Mr. Cough was enjoying tormenting me throughout the show and I felt a bit embarrassed to be hacking away between songs. No one seemed to notice though and we thouroughly enjoyed the evening. The Maschseefest has some really interesting food stalls and dinner consisted of a mixture of giant shish kebabs and bratwurst that was a metre long. Again, it was a free festival that European cities so readily seem to encourage. I don't know how they pay for them but I'm jealous. Very jealous!!
It was off to Potsdam on the outskirts of Berlin next. It was interesting to find out that a mere 20 kms from Berlin was a very clean, orderly town that seemed very rich. If you are 20 kms away from the Auckland CBD you are in Auckland. We sprawl so far that places that used to be independent towns when I was a boy are now indistinguishable from a suburb of Auckland. Albany anyone? When I asked a Potsdamian (Potsdammer, Potsdamite?) whether they were part of Berlin or kinda considered to be I was swiftly rebuked. Turns out Potsdam was right on the edges of the West/East German border during the cold war and they are fiercely proud of their little piece of Germany. We played at a complex that seems common in German cities. It looks like a converted factory that is now an arts centre. They had a theatre, live venues, art spaces, a film screen and plenty of games and sporting areas. The Tollhaus in Karlsruhe is very similar and I have seen it in other towns whose names escape me now. I like the concept. Turn a disused, ugly, industrial area into a flourishing artistic, youth zone. It's another thing that us kiwi's could do back home to great effect I reckon. Not enough places dedicated to the arts that young bands can perfom at and actors and actresses, artists, poets, etc. ply their trade at. The show itself wasn't huge, but the audience that did come was fully into the show. We made a point of trying to party as hard as possible in Potsdam as the next two days would be full of travel and very early starts. The result was nearly getting kicked out of our hotel, running through the streets like madmen and Paaka getting red wine all over his brand new white outfit.
Picking up the pieces the following day, we had to travel to the very pretty town of Lubeck in the north of Germany. I don't normally talk about the travel but between Potsdam and Lubeck it seemed to be nearly deserted farmland. I could be totally wrong but that's what it felt like. It's funny to think of a country as populated and dense as Germany containing kilometer after kilometer of empty fields. Maybe there still is some space on this planet?
The venue in Lubeck was my kinda place. It was more accustomed to catering for punk bands than to fusion music and the grungy feel and atmosphere brought back some nostalgia from my youth. It looked like it was an abandoned building from the outside and initially we thought we may have the wrong address. The walls were covered in grafitti and it looked like the construction had been improvised from scraps of wood salvaged from a junk yard. Inside was not much different until you saw the stage and bar and realised it was a living, working venue. We were treated exceptionally well by the promoter and staff, the club's chef fixing us tasty treats on a regular basis and a charcoal BBQ for dinner. We were in a good mood come showtime but nothing could have prepared us for how well were received by the audience. You can never tell how many people will show up to these kind of club shows, especially if it's the first time you've played there. We lucked out in Lubeck and had a packed house. The crowd was maybe the craziest bunch we'd played to on the whole tour. They were up for it from the first song and didn't leave us till the very end. The confines of the room mixed with a lot of people dancing their tits off equalled mega heat. Paaka sweated through two T-shirts, Riduans shoes looked like he had left them out in the rain and I was dripping so much I could slip over in the puddle I was creating under my feet. It was awesome!! We gotta chalk Lubeck up as one of the most enjoyable places we've ever played. I truly hope we can come back next year. It'd be nice to actually look around the city too as it's a UNESCO world heritage site. We saw bugger all this time.
Like I said, we had really early starts the next two days and one of the reasons was we needed to drive to Kortrijk, Belgium for the last show of the tour.
As on all of these trips the last few days can be quite emotional. So many experiences get packed into such a short period of time. We share the good times and bad, arguments and laughter, but no matter what the negative aspects are, it's always sad to see it end. Fortunately for everyone, this tour had almost no negativity. There was the odd sickness and injury but all in all we got along great and could share in this fantastic journey in which we played to thousands of people. The journey to Kortijk was tinged with a bit of sadness because we knew in a matter of hours we would all be parting company.
It was a fitting farewell in many ways. The festival put us up in a nice hotel with extra rooms so a few of us got to sleep individually, always a nice perk. They also put on an excellent restaurant meal where we got to enjoy our 'last supper'. The show itself had a large audience but most of them appeared to be waiting for the ABBA tribute band on after us. It was ok though. We've learned now that Belgian audiences can be quite reserved so if they do any movement and cheer between the songs you're doing alright. The crew were cool too. A big shout out to the young crew guys we met that have a still unnamed band. We wanna see your stuff on youtube and soundcloud boys!! Keep us in the loop. The final packdown took place in a melancholy mood. It was all different because the van had to head back to Berlin and some stuff was getting on a plane. Just that small change signalled the end and it was hard not to get teary eyed. Once everything was packed and ready to go we basically had to hug and say goodbye to everyone. We were all scattering like leaves on the wind the following day so there was little time for drawn out farewells. Paaka, Darryn, Felipe and Kyle were leaving to NZ from Amsterdam where Ollie and Finn would hang out for a while. Richie and Jono would make the long journey back to Berlin to return the van. Riduan was off to Barcelona while I would drive Scott and Mariela to Brussels to catch a flight to Argentina. I would have to return our rental car (2013 Ford Mondeo station wagon, diesel, 950kms to a tank, best car ever) to Cologne before my train journey to Munich and then ultimately onto Croatia.
Sitting here reflecting it is hard to believe now how tight we were this year. You see the same faces everyday and you want to see them. We are like brothers and sisters and even if some people will not be able to tour again, they will always be our family, just like everyone else that has been part of the B2KDA machine.
I want to sign off by thanking everyone who has helped us on this journey, particularly Scott and Mariela our managers and Stephanie our German booking agent. We would never have been able to do this without you and I know you're gonna help us climb to even greater heights next year. Also to all the promoters that booked us, crews that helped us, volunteers, other bands and musicians; thankyou so much for making this trip such a great success.
Lastly, a huuuuuge thankyou to the fans, especially our extra special, loyal ones, Shelly and Reka. You make us who we are and we love you. We want to spread our music to greatest number of people as we can and everyone who has read this blog, become a facebook fan and shown our CD to friends is extremely precious to us. We won't let you down. Next year is gonna be even bigger. Watch this space!!!
Personally, I've really enjoyed writing this diary for you. I hope you've enjoyed reading it. I'm not gonna stop writing but the topics will change as we're not touring anymore. Please leave comments and questions because it'd be great to write about things you'd be interested in reading. Topics for discussion are more than welcome :)
So, onwards and upwards. I will hopefully see all you lovely people really soon. Hold the B2KDA flame high. Batucada...... Ae!!!!
Much love, Alex and B2KDA