OK, I have slept for just an hour or two, I'm dead tired and it's hard just to keep the eyes open, but here it goes anyway, today's diary entry.
Back to the Hard Rock Berlin (third time around), and as we'd learnt something from the previous times, we decided this one was going to be a not-so-loud one, thus, we prepared an acoustic set, put on our sunday suits and got ready to rock, er, pop. It was also Valentine's Day, so as there was no way escaping the rose sellers, the kitschy red hearts and the heart-shaped pralines, we said, fuck it, let's do it, we have the perfect excuse. And so we did.
We looked like three gangsters going to a cemetery to watch their worst enemy be buried. Timo looked especially frightening with his striped suit and his double-bass, I thought, any moment he''ll bring out a Kalashnikov, a bazooka or something like that from behind it.
So at half past eight we started our show, which was our soundcheck, which was our show. You get the idea, right? A funny "sound" onstage, where no one could hear himself, but somehow we're getting used to it. We can now even sing in tune all three without hearing shit (by the way, the boys did a GREAT job helping me sing
Sometimes, thumbs up!). Middle down the gig was time for Why Cow? to be slaughtered, and that's exactly what we did with the bloody cow... First off, I put the capo in the wrong place, but as I didn't hear shit, couldn't even notice and played it all wrong. And then, around the second verse, my G string blows up (I mean my guitar G string, not a G-string thong, you dirty minds out there!). So there I am, one string missing, playing only complete fucking wrong chords the whole time, forgetting the lyrics while trying to put the broken string aside so I can continue playing, getting it all even wronger. I look to the left and see Tobi doing his thing, keeping the beat. And then I just look to the right and see Timo with hysterics and his whole head totally red from laughing and I just thought, "fucker, here I am in deep shit, and you bastards just laughing your asses off!" So that was the time that I too started laughing incontrolably and couldn't even finish the fucking song at all... Man, one thing that I love in this little band is how much we laugh, you couldn't pay enough money for moments like this.
Anyways, after I had to change the string onstage, we continued the show and played a few brand new songs for the very first time.
Vertigo and
Stroboscope. Just rehearsed once, but nailed them both. Great! We also played some tunes from Acid Jokes we hadn't played in years, like
Sand On Me and
Black Monday. It was cool to do Sand again after so long, was a bit like going back to the old days in Spain.
But enough blabber. What I'm here really for is to tell you about the karaoke session we had afterwards. We stayed at the HRC a little bit longer than we should have, and suddenly, there were microphones and TV screens with karaoke running, and so we said, sod it, let's have some fun! Tobi did a cool version of Stone Temple Pilot's
Plush and Ricardo managed to get me shouting to
Can't Buy Me Love. But the very star of the night was Serena, our manager, who decided it was time to show us who the real singer in our group was... man, did she do a show! Just before the end Tobi and me got up there again and did a sort of duet mistreating
Otherside. Next time I am at a karaoke, I just want to sing
Roots Bloody Roots from Sepultura or
Monkey Wrench from the Foos and blow the fucking place away... hehe.
What more can I say? It was fun, as it almost always is, even with the string story and having to carry almost more shit (sorry, Kram is the word) to play an unplugged than what we usually carry when playing electric. I'd like to do a proper acoustic recording sometime in the future, 'cause it sounds amazing and it still grooves...
Yours etc,
El Niño Stone (currently injecting coffee in the veins)
