Day 7 – Review of Show in Ulm / On the way to Berlin

  
1. & 2. What Ulm looks like. Birth place of Albert Einstein and home of this gigantic "Ulm Muenster" Church - the tallest church in the world.
3. Berlin calls...

Happy 4th of July! was the sentiment yesterday shared by only us in the van of course, but oddly enough we played with a band that had two Americans from Ohio. It was a midwest summit. They were called the Petty Thefts. Cool name. The gig was at a place that used to be a strip club called Eden. The window panes had old painted pictures of women in scantilly clad clothing. The inside had red carpet on the walls and fur hanging from the ceiling along with a crushed velvet ceiling as well around the bar area. It was a really cool bar with an amazing vibe. Behind the band on the stage where these box lights that lit up in different patterns and different colors. We requested to have those on when we played.

 
1. Joe at Free FM.
2. Inside of club "Eden" where we played in Ulm....nice.

During the day we hit up a local radio station called Free FM 102.6. They had already been mentioning our show, but we hand delivered some CDs that they played to help out with the promotion of the gig that evening. Klaus was the promoter of the gig today. He also owns Pufferbar where we were originally booked at. They really took care of us yesterday with a formal soundcheck, "pre" food with plates of sandwiches, fruit, and even the famous german food "spaeztli" that was made for us after the show. Joe and Killian both dug into the spaetzli after we played and said it was the best and probably the only real German food that had eaten on this tour to date. It was cool to meet some other Americans. We're only here for 9 shows, but it was the middle of the week. I could understand if you don't speak German how old it might get after a few days of not understanding people. Frank and Les where the two guys from Ohio, Cleveland to be exact, that played in the opening band. Apparently they had sort of given up on the U.S. and where making a real run at music in Europe having lived in Dublin, Amsterdam, and now Ulm, Germany. Andrew was their bass player from England. Sort of a cocky little kid, but hey, he was out there trying to make it in the music biz as well. Stefan was the only German in the band. He played guitar and seemed like a quiet, cool person. We all agreed that they sounded a bit like David Bowie. They did have some cool vocal harmonies. After their set we hit the stage in our newly purchased ties that had skulls and stars on them. I'm digging the get up especially because the ties were all of 1.5 Euros each. I felt like I played a bit sloppy tonight at the beginning of the set (the 2-3 beers before our set might have contributed to that), but by the end we were on fire. Klaus, the promoter, wanted to hear the song "Pain" from our new album. Joe messed it up as we hadn't played it in awhile, but it was a good laugh as it was part of a "Zugabe" (encore). Yet again, another Zugabe. I don't think there's been a night yet without one. I tried to talk to everyone in the bar tonight. We ended up selling a decent amount of merchandise and met some cool people in the process. At around 1:30 or 2 in the morning we headed over to Pufferbar. "Puff" is a whore house in German so the name is sort of tongue in cheek. We met Christina and Miriam who were friends with the first band. Both seemed like cool people. I actually got to use some of my Italian too as Christina came from Milan. After closing out the place, we took a cab back to the hotel we were staying at and finally got to bed around 6am. Damn, only 4 hours to sleep before piling in the van again for a LOOOOONG drive to Berlin today.

Thanks to Peter for the photos!!
 
1. Team Rockit rockin' in Ulm at "Eden"
2. Team Rockit with The Penny Thefts 
3. Team Rockit "crew" in Ulm
4. Team Rockit in a great mood after the show. (gee, look at my 14 chins...beer is not a friend to the body size)

I have to give props to Franzy. She didn't drink last night, helped us load out, went to bed early, and is ready for the long haul today. I would be asleep at the wheel today. Berlin is always very exciting and we're playing the Dunckerclub again which is a great place...We can only hope that the Trinkteufel (Drink Devil, a bar) is open tonight for the "after party" as they call it here...I'm going to be sick if I type and more with the car rocking like this...ugh.

Day 8 – Berlin Show / Drive to Halle

Ahhh, Berlin. What a cool city. We've played here on every tour and it always seems to be the high point. Some of the other shows definitely have better reactions from the crowd, but the "vibe" is always the best here. We played at the Dunckerclub which was the first place we played in Berlin on the first TEAM ROCKIT tour of Germany/Europe. It was a 6 hour ride to get to Berlin yesterday. Killian was feeling a little sick. Joe hadn't slept the whole night for some reason. We continue to smell like ass, but it was a Thursday and more people are coming out to the shows as the weekend approaches. Beate was our contact person at the venue. She was there the last time we played in Berlin and apparently has worked at the Dunkerclub for 20 years!! It's almost like she grew up there. The food was excellent. It was Kartoffelauflauf (basically cut potatoes baked in a lasagna-like way with cheese and vegetables melted on top....mmmm). Joe even ate again with us and went for seconds! I only write that because on most of the German tours Joe was disgusted by all food served for some reason.

 
1. Team Rockit chowing on "Kartofell Auflauf"
2. Sleeping quarters in Berlin

We were the only band last night so we had plenty of time to soundcheck. Our sound guys was named Max. He was a cool, young dude and was jamming out this kick-ass German dance music from "Diechkind". I definitely want to pick up some of that today or tomorrow before the tour ends. Our accomodations for the evening would be above the club in this little cubby-hole thing with mattresses. It was like a little tree house above the club that you had to climb a steep ladder to get to. Franzy, Killian, and I started with the beers. Today the beer of choice would be Berliner Pilsner. Nice. I'm telling you, no matter how much of the stuff you drink, you don't get a hangover as it's more "pure" with different rules on how the beer is made here.

After the gig, the bar becomes a dance place, but the music was really cool rock. Imagine Germans swaying around to "Killing in the Name of" by Rage Against the Machine and even The Breeders!! I went on tour with the Poster Children as the opeing band for The Breeders and it had to be the most people I ever played in front of on the west coast. Totally different vibe. I feel like I'm A LOT closer to the guys in this band though just because I've seen this thing grow over the past 5 years while pouring, blood, sweat, and money into it. Suzi, Franzy's friend (and now ours) came to the show as well. She's been there every time that we play in Berlin. She's super cool, smart, and very hot. On top of that Maly came to the show as well. She was also there the last time we played in Berlin in November of 06' (check out tour diary #3). After the show was over we had to wait until all of the music was done as we were sleeping upstairs. So the whole "TEAM" (Joe included) hung out dancing around to great rock music. Steve, Franzy, and I drank the night away. It defintely was one of those "wow, we all get along together great" moments. I'm happy to be on tour with these guys. After our bass player situations, you never know how things will turnout, but this seems to be working fine.

 
1. Suzi and Franzy in Berlin.
2. Franzy and her first love...

Upon waking up this morning, we had breakfast with our meal ticket from the club at a really cool place called "Wohnzimmer". That translates to Living Room and they had all of this neat, old 50s like furniture in there for people to sit on. It had to be the best breakfast we've had to date. It was the normal bread and cheese, but no meat and tons of different kinds of cheeses along with a plate of vegetables and tzatziki sauce. It was like we were back home eating good, healthy food. After that we hit up the one t-shirt shop we're familiar with that sells cool shirts with odes to the communist times in east Germany on them. Joe bought a cool jacket and some shirts. We all bought something. My shirt says "FDJ" (Freie Deutsche Jungen, Free German Youths). Apparently this was the group of young kids that was for the communist movement back in the day. Crazy stuff to think the wall only came down 20 years ago. Upon leaving the store, the owner said "he had a piece of Germany" to give us. Shit, that could mean anything. A bullet to the head? A good beating? It turned out to be a bottle of beer with tequila in it for each one of us (very nice). We headed to the internet cafe for an hour after that and now are sitting in the car on our way Halle. It's a Friday. There should be more people at the show and it's at another University. Rock on...

 

1. & 2. Cool gothic churches in Halle
3. Killian in the streets of Halle

Two words sum up how cool and crazy the crowd was last night....HOLY CRAP! I feel like I have to fast forward right to the gig as it truly was a packed rock show. We played at a place called Unikum in Halle. Halle has a population of about 240,000+. It's even bigger than Ulm and the streets look like a traditional old school German city. There are a lot of empty buildings in the town as well. It's in East Germany so there's still a little bit of that "DDR" vibe going on. Unikum was a small place and I was a little concerned when walking in. Crap. We would playing a small cafe where we would have to potentially turn down a ton. But NO, they pulled out all of the tables and the opening band, The Driffters, was blasting out old metal songs during their sound check. It cracks me up that young kids are STILL playing Metallica covers all over the world. Killian and I walked around the city and found the middle of the town with this huge church and a symphony was set up for an outdoor concert that evening. We also hit the local Best Buy-like store. I'm looking for the CD from a band called Deichkind that the sound guy Max was playing in Berlin (I finally found it today by the way at Mediamarkt). Joe crashed out in the band room across the street. It actually was quite nice with a huge air mattress and 2 other mattresses. Mirko was the owner of the venue, but he looked really young. I couldn't believe it was his bar. He set us up right away with a case of Beck's (those huge beers in the glass bottles). We actually had time to rest a little before the show. And, the best of all was that the room had a shower! You don't know what an awesome luxury it is to take a shower on tour. It will be my second one of the week on this tour.

 
 
1. Crazy fans in Halle
2. TEAM ROCKIT with Mirko (owner of Unikum)
3. Matt with new fan Patrick
4. Hottie in Halle

My american friend Stacey and her husband Glen showed up at the show as well! I've written about them in previous tour diaries (check out tour diary #2). I went to high school with Stacey and her and her husband moved to Dresden 4 years back. 4 years. Wow, that's a long time to not be in America. I can only speak from personal experience that after 2 years, I was ready to get a dose of the U.S. of A again. It was a great surprise to see them again and they had driven 1.5 hours to get to the show! Now THAT's super cool. Imagine hanging out with your band, American friends, and unlimited beer. Good times...

1. Stacey and Glen return to see the "Rockit"

Today we woke up after a good amount of sleep. I got to take that wonderful shower I was waiting for. We hit the internet cafe after loading out the rest of the gear (another thing that's cool....being able to keep your gear at the bar after the gig..seems common here). We prepared our bags for the flight home tomorrow as well with all of the extra posters we're bringing back home. Wow, tomorrow we're going home. A lot of mixed feelings, but this tour DEFINITELY was one of the best one's ever for us in Germany. One week here (or 10 days with 9 consecutive shows) feels like a month.