Day 10 – Gig in Luebbenau / Checking in at the airport

It already seemed like it was going to be the day from hell again travel-wise with how things transpired when we woke up today. More on that later, but the tour ended with a bang last night for our last gig in Luebbenau. We played a place called "Kulturhof" . The venue was deep into east Germany. Or at least it seemed like it. Very clean, but very in the middle of nowhere. We played with an opening band called LOTHAR. They seemed like very nice kids in the their early 20s. Their sound was definitely more metal and screamy, but they also brought a ton of their friends to the show. I thought the food served last night to the band was great and exactly what I was looking for. Wienerschnitzel, potato salad, and pickles. Probably doesn't sound appetizing to some, especially Joe who took one bite and was gone, but I wanted two things to eat in Germany this time around: Wienerschnitzel and Spaetzli. I got both. Franzy, yet again, did not have her Vegan food and the veggie burger they prepared for her apparently wasn't that good. Killian and I were in heaven chowing down while even splitting Joe's portion. The beer last night was Berliner and Radeberger. Both good. Man, I can't believe I drank so much this week, but it seems so normal. Get in, unload, soundcheck, eat, start drinking. Joe and Killian immediately went up to the backstage room where we'd be sleeping tonight. I talked with Franzy about the ABC show "Lost". She's a huge fan of that show as well. Weird to think punks sit around watching TV sometimes. Especially a commercial show like that. Franzy and I talked about touring, how hard it can be, would we be back soon, how great the tour went, etc. etc. I can't write enough how cool she is to us.

 
1. Where we played in Lubbenau, Kulturhof
2. Look! Promoters who actually do their job using our posters!....nice.

After thinking that everyone was a bit worn out today, I went upstairs after LOTHAR started playing. There was Joe and Killian. Hyped up and ready to rock out one last time in Germany on this tour. I was feeling like it was a long week until I saw the look in their faces. They couldn't wait to play and it was infectious for me too. We all shook hands and gave each other a hug saying it was a great week and how much we loved meeting all of those people while rocking the crap out of them.

When our set finally started, the kids were definitely a bit shy about wanting to check us out initially. After Ace of Spades they all came closer and where immediately jumping around and loud! My bass drum pedal was coming off the whole song, but I got through it. By the time we got through our first batch of TEAM ROCKIT songs and on to our second cover, the kids were slamdancing and coming A LOT closer. Franzy actually filmed a bit of our set tonight and took some cool pictures. Ingo, the promoter tonight, was very mild mannered and also took some pictures. We found out later that he was a HUGE Rolling Stones fan. Weird because we soundchecked with "Beast of Burden". That was the mood we were in upon getting to the venue yesterday. We just wanted to play more "songs" than blowing our load in a fury of punk and rock, or at least I did. Back to our set in the evening....we played a Zugabe that included the Blur song and seriously, these kids were just waiting for a decent band to come to their town as they freaked out and were extremely loud. At the end we took a ton of pictures with the opening band, fans, and even signed a ton of posters for the kids. Weird to be signing posters of yourself at a gig. We should have been giving posters away the whole time. We packed a bazillion in our luggage to take back home (they'll definitely come in handy). The one extremely cool thing that happened and when I KNEW that this was now the right constellation of people in the band was what Killian did after the set. He took the email list and went around to people to get them on the mailing list. It seems like NO ONE has done that in our band for awhile except me. It's the small things and I feel like we're all working to get the name out there. I think we got 3 times as many emails last night than from most of this tour. We met a TON of super nice kids this evening.

 
1. & 2. An amazing Lubbenau crowd for the last night of the tour!
 
3. & 4. Killian at "autograph session" after show.

And alas, the tour is over. I feel it's redunant to keep saying how great everything is, but I can break it down like his:
1. We financially did o.k. this time around outside of the crazy flight costs
2. We all got along together. This is the most important for all of us as we didn't have any huge blow ups. You know how hard it is to live 24 hours a day in a van most of the time with people you don't normally see every day of the week?!
3. We got fed every day (dinner and mostly breakfast every day)
4. We drank for free...and really good German beer to boot!
5. We got to rock out every night to a different crowd...and "crowd" is a good word as the majority of the gigs had a built in audience.
6. We met a bazillion new people everyday and had a great positive response.
7. We got to see Matte and Frazny again, part of our TEAM ROCKIT "extended" European family.
If that's not a successful tour. I don't know what is. Cheers GERMANY! We hope to see you again soon. As always, feel free to stay in contact with TEAM ROCKIT until we visit again by contacting me here: Matt@teamrockit.com