Day 8 / Show #7 in Berlin at Wild at Heart

I had to wait a whole two days before writing this entry for Berlin as I just didn't feel up to it. Some messed up stuff happened there this time around and it took me a day or two to see how I would write about it in the tour dairy/report. First of all though, Berlin is an amazing city. We had a great evening at a bar called Access upon arriving there for our day off. It was one of those stay out until 6am in the morning nights, but we met up with Maly who was letting us and the Swedes stay at her place in addition to a few of her friends and some random Swedes that were at the bar that evening as well. Suddenly it was a little impromptu party at this bar, but well needed after close to 8 hours in the car and 3 traffic jams on the highway. I don't think the apartment we stayed in could be any more full with all 9 of us (i.e. both bands) on air mattresses, etc. upon arriving at the place we were staying. Needless to say it was still a good night.

Hanging at a bar in Berlin on our day off

The next night we played at Wild at Heart. This was our 3rd time playing there and it's an amazing place. Truly the CGBG's of Berlin. It's also in a super cool part of the city called "Kreuzberg" where a lot of foreigners live. We hit two used clothing stores and an awesome record store called "Core-tek" before loading in. It's neat to discover a few small stores before having to do the "business" of waiting around and then playing. O.K., so here's the messed up stuff. Every time we've played at Wild at Heart it's always been a super positive experience and we've earned decent money. I took the chance this time around at sort of "renting" the club per the club owner as that was on of 2 options presented to me when booking the tour. In other words, get kind of screwed by the percentage I was being offered at the door, or put some money upfront so we could take all of the door. I chose the latter based on passed experience and of course it had to be the one night that there were some other big concerts in Berlin and apparently there was a street car strike the day before. Whether that played into the attendence factor or not, I'll never know, but that's what I've been told by the people that were there. Don't get be wrong it wasn't like there was nobody there, but definitely less than when we normally play. Onward and upward though as thus is the life of touring. Good shows, great shows, decent shows, and not-so-good shows. I was REALLY into the Foobar set though as the sound was amazing and Franzy's punk friends Suzi (she's super nice), Robbie, and Steffi came out to see Franzi, but were still very cool to us. In addition we played with the band Jetset from Berlin. I liked their sound, but that was also the weird thing. They were from Berlin and usually when there's a local band on the bill, the club is well attended just due to the fact that their from the city. Lesson learned. Don't count on anything. Again, though, the sound was amazing for both bands and it was like we were jamming for a small little party. Obviously we still had fun and still rocked the crap out of the people that were there. Kudos and cheers to Dirk from Whiskey Soda for coming out as he was there many moons ago with his band when we played there and a huge thank you to Sven who did the door for us. And of course, Maly, who put up not one, but TWO bands in her apartment for a couple days.

 
Joe jamming on borrowed SG guitar after breaking strings on both his guitars
and "the touring group."

I feel like I always have to apologize for liking Chemnitz. For some reason I like the city. It's run down, it's small, it has the east German DDR flavor to it still, a lot of buildings are just empty, but we always have a great time here. You can read about our past experience here in other tour reports, but we always play Subway to Peter here. It's a cool club/bar in the basement of a building. I think maybe 100-150 people total can fit in the place, but that's partly the reason why I like it. Even if more than a few people show up, it looks packed. The Foobar guys mentioned that they've never played a place this small, but then again, this is their first tour. You kind of do your own sound there, but it's amazingly good sound for the room, which has the look of an old bomb shelter. Mario owns the place in addition to another venue in the city called "Bunker". He had sent his regards as he lives in Dresden about 80 kilometers away, but we knew we would have a great night. The beer is free and flows without stopping here. The food for the band was good. We were all in good spirits. Some of the Foobar guys are finding out that drinking everyday can lead to well, being run down (not to say that I'm not feeling a bit run down sometimes on tour as well). Needless to say they did a great set and everyone seemed to like them. After we took the stage and got some of the crowd going (damn, those strategically placed covers do wonders for perking up people's interest), it was like all was well with the world. I love looking over at Steve and seeing him going nuts while Joe climbs on various benches and plays the guitar behind his head for effect. At that point, it doesn't matter where you are, the satisfaction of playing can sometimes be undescribeable.

Abandoned, but cool looking building in Chemnitz...there are many of them.
 
1. Foobar walking through Chemnitz with us.
2. "Real" food at Subway to Peter with both bands.

The tradition for bands that play at Subway to Peter is to give them their money and to offer a shot of some clear booze at the end of the night. You're not supposed to smell it, but just to drink it. We know from a mile away now that it's garlic schnapps. Yep, that's not a typo, garlic schnapps (as I write it again for dramatic effect). You can only imagine what it tastes like. Because we had already had that experience in addition to a bottle for the car that was 1/2 drank on the last tour. We were able to tell the bartender to just give us Mexicaner (some version of a strong bloody mary shot) and we forced the Foobar guys to experience the garlic extravangza. I think Anders from Foobar the band threw up, but we were laughing wildly at seeing some of them go through the "exprience". No everyone drank it, but it's a taste you won't forget. As we were loading the gear out, it was pouring like cats and dogs (as Franzy would say). I hate loading gear out when it's raining, but of course we have no other alternative. By the time we left, that rain had turned to snow....snow...and it's April 11th!! Hello global warming or some really messed up stuff.

 
1. Team Rockit elf Joe meets giant Foobar Swede Jannek
2. Same photo 10 hours later (morning pose)

Back at the band apartment where we stayed which is right down the street there is a big room with beds on both sides of the room that are raised about 3 feet in the air. Posters line the walls with band scribblings of who's stayed there. Everybody was pleased with the room as it was mattresses for everyone. we talked a lot with the Foobar guys while Jannek caught everything on film. I think we've heard Joe do his Borat impression a million times, but I still think it's funny for some reason. Steve slept on the couch right out side of the room as we've discovered he's a super loud snorer. It was lights out around 4am, but I didn't feel tired. I woke up this morning early (as I always do), to see if the internet cafe would be open. No dice. It opens at one. I'm sitting here in the van typing waiting for the other guys to get up. There's something great about waking up early before everyone, brushing your teeth and doing all of the hygine stuff while still getting some work done. I rarely sleep long at home as well. Today we're playing a small indoor festival at Rabatz in Herzogenaurach. It's another place we've been a ton of times, but we're really looking forward to this one after the last few days. It's always tough to get through the weekday gigs leading up to the weekend again.

Foobar the Band live in Chemnitz at Subway to Peter (I justed we have 1000 pictures of Foobar playing and a minimal amount of our band (it's becoming the Foobar tour diary)
 
1. The one million posters on the wall in our sleeping quarters
2. Team Rockit leaves their mark, again, in the Subway to Sally band apartment

One final note though. We ran into a guy named Torsten who had seen us years ago when we played with Mark on the Duck Duck Goose tour. He's now going to school in Leipzig. It's like we've seen people grow up before our eyes. He seemed like a little kid the last time he saw us. I love checking in with old fans. He remembered the Duck Duck Goose t-shirt that he bought and wanted another one because apparently his mom bleached it on accident. We have to make more of those....

Day 10 / Show #9 – Review of show in Herzogenaurach at Rabatz (Indoor Festival)

 

1. & 2. On the way to Herzogenaurach and the neato soccerball in H-town
3. Approaching Rabatz where we played

Ladies and gentleman, the gig last night was the reason that we go on tour. Holy crap. It was a small indoor festival at a place called "Rabatz" that we're been to 5 times, or actually it seems like a 100 now. We headlined this festival as the last band of the evening and the kids went berzerk (insert hilarious German "berzerker" joke from the movie "Clerks" here). With that being said there were some other amazing bands on he bill. There were two stages, on in the big room, and one in the smaller "cafe" room. Foobar had to play first in the small cafe room just because they were added to the bill late. This gig was the reason that we came over this time and routed a tour around it. Last summer in July we played at the U-turn festival in this small city and it was one of the first totally crazy, great festival experiences for the band in Europe. I estimate that there were about 200 people throughout the night and the night before that also had 6 bands for a total of 12 over the 2 days. It may not seem like a lot, but when those kids started moshing wildly, holy crap, it was pretty intense. I'm going to try and post the video footage that Jannek from Foobar the band took of us.

 
1. Foobar rips it up in H-town at the Indoor Festival
3. Steve jumps on stage to sing a chorus of one of Foobar's songs

During Foobar's set, Joe, Killian, and I started up the "pit" by acting wildly and jumping on stage to sing choruses as we've now memorized Foobar's set. I don't know, I was feeling really energized and leaped off the stage while motioning the crowd to come further to catch me. It worked, even though they were barely holding up a 32 year old man weighing about 165 pounds. This spurred bunch of kids going crazy and trying the same thing. The hilarious part was the next kid to jump had to be maybe 120 pounds and we were practically throwing the kid in the air during the set. It was a good start to the evening. Smiley, the promoter always treats us well there and is a super cool dude. When we finished loading in, he showed us the location of his new bar that would be completed by May. Smiley's like the town major or something because he always finds a way to get the city/town of Herzogenaurach to pay for these cool projects. He seemed really excited about it. I can't wait to go back there next year to see how it turns out.

 
1. Mr. gentle giant himself "Smiley"
2. Check it out, I love seeing posters like this...Team Rockit right at the top as the headliner!

We also saw Thomas again who was with us during the Polish dates and his friend Georg who set up two of the 3 dates in Poland. We couldn't have been more appreciative handing him a bottle of Gin for his efforts and thanking him a thousand times. Also, his son, Rafi plays in the band Bobby B and the Monkey tree. Apparently accordingly to Joe, the kid can rip on guitar for being self taught and only playing for two years. They were the first band on the big stage and apparently had tons of people there for them. It's tought being the last band on the bill at like midnight because a lot of the kids who hang out there are like 16-18 years old and probably have a curfew of some sort. Either way, the ones who stayed really showed their appreciation.

One other band of note for the evening was Willie Tanner. It was fronted by "Kate Kaputo" (her stage name). She had long, reddish-pink hair sort of like the chick from the movie "Run Lola Run" (or "Lola Rennt" in German). Damn, that band was right on the money and I haven't seen a chick fronted band that heavy in awhile. It reminded me of Evanescene, but a little cooler. They also played to click track with some cool electrical noises during the songs. They had a nice little mosh pit going during their set and the kids seemed to really like them. They also had some nice compliments for us after our set as they stuck around till the end. It's great to see other bands appreciating each other. Apparently the sing, "Kate", has looked up a different TEAM ROCKIT on myspace and thought we sucked before we started....one can never with with the amount of bands out there.

1. You can see "Kate" from Willie Tanner in the back there belting it out on the mic.

Right after the gig and after playing for 60 minutes plus (doesn't seem like a lot, but at the energy level we deliver, holy crap can it take a lot out of you), I immediately felt a little sick. My shirt was drenched in sweat, I suddenly felt week and cold. Needless to say, I've had the shits since about 6am this morning as well. I think it's just a mild fever, but I'm getting over it now as we approach the Swiss border.

We slepted at the venue last night on various couches, it was uncomfortable, but Joe and the Foobar guys played Fussball, jammed all night, and just had a swell time. I was searching for anything to use as a blanket. We talkd about it in the car today, one sick day in the van can feel like an eternity and most of the time there's a major lack of sleep and/or good food, but it's just something in our blood to want to this over and over again and meet various people while presenting out music. I'll miss the Foobar guys and Franzy again. 2 days left, 2 ghigs left....