Day 11 – Gig #10 in Uster, Switzerland at Rock City

O.K. my stomach pains have gone from bad to "holy crap and I sick". I think I went to the bathroom 5 times just squirting out liquid before we left for Switzerland and the same for this morning as well as we drive to Mainz, our last gig. I've never been sick on tour, but there's a first for everything. What a downer as it's towards the end. I just hope to god I don't have this when getting on the plane. I've taken mutliple versions of Aspirin and today I resorted to buying their version of Pepto-Bismal. They don't have that here, but something similar is sold in these little packages that you open and down. It tastes like caramel. Seriously, it was the last resort to buy some foreign medicine that I know nothing about.

No on to the gig last night in Switzerland. Hagar is the owner of a small club called Rock City which is located just 15 minutes away from Zurich. I lived in Zurich many moons ago and still have an affection for the Swiss country side. Franzy sort of mentioned how Germans aren't to fond of Swiss people and visa versa. The bummer part is that we got stopped at the border for our merch. It's really weird, but they ask if you have merchandise to sell and you can a) lie or b) say you have some "promo" material and hope they don't search your vechicle as you'll have to pay tax on whatever you bring into the country. Weird, right? So sure enough, there were me and franzy pulling everything out of the back of the vehicle to show them exactly how many shirts and CDs we have brought with us. 70 Euro later we were on our way...yikes! But you get that back when crossing over the boarder again, you just have to pay 7.6% on everything that you sell. That's pretty stiff considering we're just a smaller band on tour. We also then got searched going back into Germany. Two German police guards with guns sifted through everything and anything and everything this morning. Franzy made a good point, why would a band be so stupid as to bring anything illegal over the border?

So there were only a handful of people at the gig last night, but it was a Sunday, and apparently on a Saturday the night before only 9 people showed up...very odd, but then again, it's Uster. I use the connections that I have to book the gigs and we have played here before with a decent audience in tow. Just all depends on what local support they put on the bill, but last night it was just Foobar and Team Rockit. The weird thing though is that we sold CDs to everyone in the bar who was there. We still put on our normal crazy show even though I was dieing inside with fever, stomach pains, and the chills. That's just the way it is....when the rock calls, you have to be there. Also, we still got a decent guarantee for the evening to cover our costs. Hagar really likes Joe and Killian as they're all Kiss freaks. We played the KISS song "Dr. Love" in our set and that's pretty much all we needed to win the crowd that was there. The Foobar guys are also seeming a little bit run down as well. It's their first tour, but I think they have what we have.

The high point of the night though was Joe jumping on stage to play a Foobar song with the band during their set. Apparently Joe had learned the song the night before and Dennis handed over the Les Paul faded suburst guitar to Joe as they rocked through the end of their set. How cool. We've really come to like these guys. Because we were 9 people total, the Foobar guys were put up in a Motel 6 like hotel and we stayed at Hagar's house out in the countryside. It was a like a million windy roads to get there that took about 20 minutes. We could see Hagar in front of just barreling along in his little Smart car. He has a really night house in the countryside and invites bands down to the basement to his little bar which is great. There we were: Hagar, Joe, Killian, and Franzy all talking away at Hagar's bar while Joe and Killian continued on regarding a tit for tat quiz about Kiss. I hung around for a bit, but couldn't even hold my beer up to my mouth I was so sick. It was the best sleep I had the whole tour though. Really nice beds, thick blankets, it was perfect to get me well. I must have sweated out the fever as I woke up in what seemed like a puddle around 4am and proceed to go to the bathroom every hour on the hour as the stomach pains didn go ahead. I'm feeling a lot better now, but not 100%. Hagar was nice enough to copy some KISS discs and even a DVD for Joe! The guy really liked us. It's another rainy day now in Germany on the way to Mainz. The last show, I have so many mixed feelings. This one seemed a bit harder just because I was sick at the end, but we also played more shows and visited more countries. Needless to say, we met a lot of people and sold a decent amount of merch. We'll see what happens tonight. It's always a decent gig at the Kulturcafe.

 
Joe jumps on stage with Foobar to play the last song of the set at Rock City

Day 12 – Gig #11 in Mainz at the Kulturcafe (back in Germany)

Alas, the final gig of the tour came and it all ended on a super positive note. We had played the Kulturcafe at the University in Mainz twice before and it's always a decent gig at the very least. There are over 35,000 kids that attend the University in Mainz so just by the law of averages you're going to have a decent crowd that wants to check out rock music. Even on a Monday night. We all still seemed a little wiped, but were pushing through as we knew this was the last gig and wanted to remember every second. The Swedes beat us to the venue this time, although they were not stopped at the German border and searched thoroughly as we were. Seriously, we're talking 3 German police looking through everything in the van a few times on top of opening every bag we had. Would we really be that stupid to try and pull one over on them and their big guns? The food at the Kulturcafe was decent with some sort of noodle/cheese lasagna concoction and we met the promoter Cornelius upon arrival. A bunch of waiting, loading in gear, and about 3 hours later, the crowd started to arrive. It was the first day back for the "summer semester" so they weren't sure who would get the info regarding the Monday night concert series (although it had been running forever). They pulled out all of the tables this time which was a first as it was normally a weird vibe the other times we played there with the kids sitting around drinking.

 
Joe next to our hanging propoganda & Cornelius, the promoter, and I.

Foobar's set was great as always. I asked to introduce them as I wanted to explain there were two bands for the evening and that this was the last night of a twelve date tour (o.k. 11 gigs, but 12 total days). We were very thankful to meet Foobar and would miss them a lot as it was amazing how well we got along over the past 2 weeks. I listened intently the last night to remember the experience of the tour and they seemed to get a great response from the crowd that was there. People were pumping their fist in appreciation during their set and bobbing their heads along to the music. Joe and I were also standing in front singing along to their music. There could always be more people there, but for a Monday it really was a decent crowd.

 
Foobar live in Mainz and the audience

I had to crap one more time before going on stage as this bug or whatever I had just wanted to continue to have it's way with me. When we finally started, we ditched opening with a cover and just went balls out TEAM ROCKIT. It seemed to work. We did throw in the AC/DC tune later on in the set, plus Motorhead in there in the middle, and then the traditional "Song #2" by Blur that we always end with. Our songs with a combination of tunes that they knew seemed to win them over quickly. We had two "Zugabe"s (encores) and we ended with "The Joker" from the Steve Miller Band for good measure (please note, we're not a cover band, but in Germany when most people don't know our band, we whip out the covers often to find a common ground). Jannek was video taping us and some long haired dude was taking photos all over the stage. We found out later he worked for a local publication. Out of the blue this black dude handed Joe "something to smoke" during The Joker and it was like a classic rock moment with him handing it off to Steve in mid song and then doing a little call and response thing. It was the perfect way to end the tour....as a party. We also came to find out that some of the people had seen us before when we performed twice before at the same place. That is wild when people come up to you referencing other CDs that we've released. I love that.

We hung out awhile after the gig to sell some merchandise and talked with some people that stuck around. One guy paid for a CD in U.S. Dollars. It's not that weird, but he had this whole story about saving the $5 bill for seven years and how the money was "pure" because it was before September 11th. He seemed a little drunk, but it was profound coming out of his mouth in broken English. His friend, that was a girl, sort of roller her eyes. She was studying Spanish at the university and was getting ready for a semester abroad in January of 2009. There always seems to be a handful of "holy crap that was amazing" people that stick around and to those people we're truly grateful. After a tour like this, when I look at the emails we collected, and count up the merch we sold, it's amazing to think your "art" or whatever you put together is sitting in someone's stuff thousands of miles away. Sure, a little trite, but I'm in one of those moods on the plane back to Chicago right now.

Two new fans in Mainz and the guy who paid in US Dollars

We also went for our final "Doener Kebab" next to the swanky hotel they put us up in for the night with the Swedish dudes. They love that stuff and we'd eat anything at that point as a goodbye meal. I took about 30 minutes to eat mine in the room watching CNN and drinking a coke. It was like having that small amount of time to myself was amazing and although I could keep touring for another month, I am looking forward to a little couch time after this one. We signed CDs for Foobar and they did for us as well (I don't get that really, but I guess it's a European thing to have your CD signed by the artist). Shit, we knew these guys and lived with them already for a couple weeks! A signed CD would have nothing on the experience that went down. After everyone hugged each other we started packing for the plane ride home. There's a science to the whole packing process that we have down pat now. Another tour and European adventure..

 
After show fun with food and the swanky location of our hotel

And in closing....I wouldn't say this was the "best" European tour we've had to date, but it sure was good and potentially the most interesting one while getting the chance to: meet Foobar, play in Poland for the first time, book the gigs myself this time around, and even have a traveler with us for a few dates. Two weeks always seems like a month when we tour, but I always learn something super important on each tour to make things better the next time around. Hopefully the next tour diary will be us in Sweden with Foobar! To be conitnued.....

 
 

The photos from arriving at the airport to landing in Chicago again, plus a picture of my two favorite Road Dogs...Team Rockit forever biatch...

As always, feel free to stay in contact with TEAM ROCKIT until we visit again by contacting me here: Matt@teamrockit.com