Day 7 - April 13th - Review of show in Frankfurt at Dreiköenigskeller

1. Dreiköenigskeller, Frankfurt, Germany.

It's Thursday! Since the tour started, a few of our shows have had to be rerouted, which has thrown off the pre-promotion and resulted in longer travel times. No sweat, but next time we hope to have the arrangements set in stone in advance. Again, this is a PROMO tour/showcase tour. We had a last minute gig booked at the "Dreiköenigskeller" (Three Kings Basement) last night in Frankfurt am Main. The club was amazing and Jesse, the owner, looked like someone straight out of a rockabilly band. Black hair slicked back, plaid shirt, huge tattoos sleeves on his forearms, jeans rolled on the bottom, chain wallet...you get the picture. He was very cool though and his bar had all of these old American beer signs - Schlitz, Olympia, Colt 45, High Life, Champale, etc. AND there was a little museum-style tribute to Elvis on the stage next to us behind glass. Joe says that Jesse truly wanted to be American. I guess I could agree with that!

Good news: we were set up for a quick radio interview at Frankfurt's prominent rock station. We filmed the whole interview, which we did half in German and half in English, and they played two of our tracks from "Duck Duck Goose." They ran a contest and gave tickets to the show to some people who called in! What a cool experience.

The whole reason for the show (as we were put on the bill so last minute) was to play for Matte, our booking agent here in Germany. Matte is super cool and tried his best to get us what he could for our first time around. We think he did a pretty good job considering the circumstances, and after meeting him, we know he's a good guy. Even his girlfriend, Tina Jackson (hilarious that she's named that, but her dad is American and lives in San Francisco) was amazingly friendly. We rocked just as hard with a small audience, but that's TEAM ROCKIT style! I was surprised that the opening band, The Skeksis (from Weidenburg) brought nobody. It was actually their gig and they drove 3 hours to play there...yikes! They were a three piece with a computer/drum machine, (Mac by the way- which was cool) a guitarist, and a girl singer named Juli. They sounded uh, not so great in soundcheck, but were better when they took the stage. The singer had these wild leather hot pants, a rubber car floor mat around her waist (like a skirt), and these "cyborg knee pads" (as Joe said). WILD! The coolest thing was the megaphone she used during the show. She also wanted to rub lotion on someone as part of their act but they had no takers. During our set Joe joked that "this next song is where we rub lotion on an audience member too" for some laughs. What a card.

 
1. Looks like The Cavern Club, where the Beatles played!
2. Mark + Miller Lite
3. Team Rockit + Beck's

Again, we sweated our asses off just like at every other show Matte really liked us. I think it was so important to meet Matte for the future of TEAM ROCKIT in Europe. Matte also played in a stoner rock band called The Great Escape, his CD was good and I think they're on their 3rd CD. We're now on our way to Berlin to play with a punk band from Portugal. 6 hours away. I'm excited to play a show in Berlin!

1. Mark, Matte the booking agent, Joe, & Matt

Day 8 - April 14th - Review of TR's show in Berlin at Dunckerclub

1. Dunckerstrasse (Duncker Street), East Berlin.

BERLIN! BERLIN! Well, maybe it was great that the original gig in Berlin was cancelled, because the gig we played last night here was probably more attended and in a better area (or so the Germans we talked to said). We played at a converted church in the more rundown and formerly communist East Berlin. The venue was exactly what I expected- dark, gothic metal sculptures covered every inch inside and out, in typical fascist style. A giant metal bat hung above the stage; huge steel beasts were impaled on the wrought iron fences surrounding the courtyard.

 
1. Gothic wrought iron.
2. "Live music Thursdays."

We opened for a Portugese band called The Easy Way - they were really nice guys and we shared a lot of the gear. That's been a common theme on this tour - we pirate the gear as much as possible from the other bands we play with because ours is so crappy. Plus, they use 220 volt power here instead of the USA's 110 volts so all the equipment sounds slightly weird. Joe and Mark hate their gear. I think they're bringing their own stuff next time, which was impossible to pull off for this tour since we didn't get flight cases in time.

 
1. Dunckerclub.
2. Giant metal bat above the stage.

The other band (The Easy Way) are huge on MTV in Portugal and have the opportunity to play gigantic festivals with bands like System of a Down. I guess it goes that way when you're a big fish in a smaller pond. Supposedly, as per the bassist of The Easy Way, you only have to sell 40,000 albums to go gold in Portugal. It's still a lot, but I can only imagine how many U.S. bands have sold 40,000 just being on tour a lot, through their websites, and through small distribution deals.

The Easy Way were 2 hours late to the club and we almost thought that we were going to own the stage; but alas, their small van rolled up. I couldn't believe that they all fit in the van. They looked like circus clowns all piling out of that van. Their singer is really huge! Full credit to them for some hardcore touring conditions. They even played at Subway to Peter in Chemnitz the night before, so we had lots of storied to trade about the bar and the sleeping quarters. Danilo was their drummer and it seemed like he really know his stuff. He's originally from Brazil. We talked about Sepultura a bit and how he had attended a Greg Bisonette drum clinic in Portugal (he's a famous studio drummer that played with David Lee Roth). I didn't even know they did those drum clinics in other countries outside of Europe and the U.S...cool. The show last night was great though. Since we were a last minute addition to the bill we didn't get paid, but that was to be expected and the experience of playing in a vital area of Berlin was well worth it. It is a great place and a very cool pair of women, Beate and Sabrina, book/manage the place.

1. East German band posters from the 70's.

We did sell a decent amount of CDs - more than The Easy Way and some people came up to us saying they enjoyed our brand of "raw" rock more. I'd have to agree. We would have had 3 encores, but Joe's guitar finally gave out with not one but TWO broken strings. We were seriously out of tune for our 2nd encore song "FEAR," but they still loved it anyway. It's yet another reason why I think there is some great potential for TEAM ROCKIT here. We're off to Rheinberg now, supposedly this is to be the biggest gig of the tour: we're part of 5-band punk festival. Oh yeah, we thought we were going to have to sleep in the van last night, but luckily our driver Franz found a place for us to stay. Crazy shit though as it had to be the dirtiest apartment we've seen yet, and we thought we'd seen it all by now! All of that aside, we were happy and grateful to stay at Franz's friend Andy's apartment.