Day 7 - November 30th - Review of TR show in Berlin at Wild at Heart

1. Wild at Heart, Berlin, Germany.

I think we're on a roll now and are starting to feel like we're tearing ass! We played in Berlin last night at Wild at Heart, a well known club in Berlin. It did look very cool with flames painted on some of the walls and typical rock-looking bar people (i.e. long hair, tattoos).

The club was located in Kreuzberg in East Berlin which sort of reminds me of the East Village in New York. Cool shops, many bars and cafes, etc. It's sort of a weird deal here because the band before us, Nine2Five, brought a ton of people to the gig and apparently they didn't really get paid, since they were the "support" band. That seemed unfair to me as they brought most of the people, but I guess that's what they do for bands that come from out of the country who have a lot of costs. It would never happen like that in the States, but I've decided not to fight things like this and just go with it. It keeps feeding the dream-like scenario we keep living on this tour.

Franzy had a couple of friends come out that included Suzi and Janina. Franzy seemed very content that they were there and they were cute punks. Suzi had super red hair and Janina was in the typical black punk garb. Both of them came from the small town of Schweinfert which fueled the joke that we've had on the whole tour regarding "schweineficker" (again, pig fucker). We've decided that all schweineficker come from the town of Schweinfurt. Needless to say we were practically crying with laughter about this, and Joe made more t-shirts in German that he wore on stage, including the "I have Bird Flu" shirt, (that also meant "I Have AIDS") which made every German who saw it laugh out loud. The other thing that I just found hilarious was that Janina had been to the States, but had only seen Rochester, NY and Niagara Falls. I mean she was two hours from New York City, but just didn't make it there. Who goes all the way to America, 2 hours from NYC, but doesn't stop to see it? Rochester must be AWESOME.

1. German punk chix Franzy, Janina, and Suzi

We felt "on" last night as the sound was great. It reminded me of the sound and club size of CBGB's. I felt like the drums were tuned just right. We tend to win over people. For instance, there was this old punk lady hanging out with some people at the door. She stared us down as if we were too-squeaky-clean American boys, but by the end of the night, as we launched into "Beat on the Brat" from The Ramones (we play that because we were on that German Ramones compilation) and she was right in front banging her head and going nuts. How could she not go nuts? We rocked!

 
1. Joe shredding a solo
2. Mark @ Wild at Heart, Berlin, Germany

After the gig, Franzy and TEAM ROCKIT convinced Suzi to come with us to a bar called Trinkteufel (Drink Devil). This bar was amazing. It was all decked out as if it was the most evil place on the planet, or some kind of Halloween shop. It looked like the people there fit in just fine and were part of the scenery. After about a million "Mexicaner" drinks, (which were like a shot of bloody mary, but stronger) we met the guy spinning the rad rock and punk tunes. His name was Marty from a band called Front Kick. He originally came from Spain and had "neurotic" tattooed on his stomach. It was weird because we had just heard about his band earlier that evening, apparently they are quite popular in Germany. Maybe we'll play with them the next time around in Berlin. At around 4AM we called it a night. We had made a million jokes, watched Franzy and Suzi make out, and had complemented each other a 1,000 times on how great we played.

 
 
1. Franzy gets lucky with Suzi.
2. The bar Trinkteufel. Reminds you of hell don't it?
3. Every bar needs a GIANT SKULL WITH HORNS.

Marie, who works with our booking agent and had set up this gig, was very cool. She might be doing some press work for us for the new record. She had given us the keys to her apartment for the band to sleep there. It's so crazy that she barely even knows us and just gives us the keys to her flat so the band can stay there while she slept at her boyfriends'. We woke up at noon to get to the club to load our gear out and are now on the way to Freiberg. It's hard to imagine that this will be over in 3 days.

1. Message from Marie the promoter

Day 8 - December 1st - Review of TR show at Dipol in Freiberg

I ALMOST DIED LAST NIGHT!! No joke. After loading into Dipol, the club we were playing at last night in East Germany, I had a really bad allergic reaction to Franzy's vegan bread spread that Joe and she were chomping away at. When I say "bad" allergic reaction, I mean REALLY bad allergic reaction. My face was getting red and Joe & Mark asked if something was wrong. I tried to play it out as cool as possible, but as my throat started closing, I had warned them that if something did happen, they should call an ambulance. This had never happened to me before! The next thing I knew I was running up the stairs to the bathroom while puking at the same time and making disgusting noises. After an hour the swelling and redness went away but for awhile there it was looking pretty serious. It gave everyone a bad scare, but Mark & Joe said I had to write about this in the tour diary. It's those crazy, weird experiences (like almost dying) that make a tour special!

1. Matt in happier times, moments before almost dying

Going on to the more positive stuff about the gig. Mark, Joe & Franzy all thought this was the best gig of the tour so far. Kids were moshing and dancing violently through our whole set. I could barely see from behind the drum set because of the lights. During the first song of the gig, smoke started to POUR out of the ceiling. We all thought the building was on fire! We kept looking at each other like, "is this normal?" We were 2 seconds from abandoning the stage, and we all kept thinking about the tragic fire in Rhode Island at that Great White show a couple of years ago that killed over 100 people. Apparently, the joke was on us because they had installed a smoke machine above the soundproofing egg cartons on the ceiling, so the smoke dissipated through the egg cartons, making it appear that they were on fire. That's got to be against some kind of fire code! Freaky.

 
1. & 2. Mark and Joe @ Dipol, Freiberg, Germany

Dipol is a club sort of in the middle of nowhere in the basement of a seemingly abandoned building. Apparently, it's sort of illegal for them to have shows down there and have a bar with bier, but they do it anyway. Greeeeat. We were the last show for a while because they were having problems with their neighbors regarding the loud sound.

The promoter, Jacob, was pretty cool, but probably the most mellow stoner dude I had ever met. He rocked. He prepared us soup and sandwiches for dinner. Joe & Franzy weren't so into it, but Mark and I ate up. It was in a soup pot big enough to feed an army. It all seemed very East German with the club being underground, freezing a bit, the soup, etc.

 
1. Franzy and Matt eye the giant pot of soup.
2. Dinnertime!

We had Americans at our gig tonight as well! Stacey Debuhr, a friend of mine from high school, came to the gig tonight with her husband Glenn. This was totally unexpected. I forgot she had moved to Dresden with her husband. It was great to see them there. They have such a different life in Germany and I'm glad to know people in the 1% from high school that ended up doing something really cool, like living in another county. After the show, we talked a lot about how Germany was and the Americans they met here. I was very glad they came. After they left and the club started filtering out, we jammed again! The sound guy said he wanted to record us fucking around. We proceeded to get on our instruments and jammed to Stones, Hendrix, Who, Kinks, etc. It was great as we were a bit lit to begin with and Franzy got on the screaming cool German punk stuff. I got on the mic as well and let some kid who had a "Get Lucky in Kentucky" hat play the drums. It was a cool moment to be jamming after hours in an illegal East German underground club.

1. Matt with old friends from Chicago!

Eventually we did get up stairs and go to sleep. Joe stayed up with Jacob to smoke something as we listened to Kyuss before going to bed. I can't believe how big Kyuss and stoner rock is here. I hope that club doesn't close for too long, we'd love to go back.

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TR Tour Diary #2
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