Inside the Matrix

What do you do when you want to put a killer show with everyone involved really focused? You don't rehearse, that's what you do. Everyone's so concentrated on not fucking up their parts that it will sound really tight. Tight as a nun's cunt, to be pretty graphic.

And that's what happened last Saturday at the Matrix in Berlin. Having been on leave for the last three weeks, it was a fast hit'n run rehearsal so to remind ourselves we hadn't fogotten the songs a few hours before the show and that's it. And man, we nailed it.

The Matrix (last played on Aug 15, 2003, Tyronne's last gig drumming with us) hasn't changed all that much. It's still a large disco/club under the railway which houses several rooms with different music styles, but still sucks. Five bouncers at the door with an aggregate IQ of 32 between all of them, long lines of really young kids at the door getting sent home for being underage, lousy hip-hop music, expensive drinks... you get the picture. They must be noticing something, because they have started a series of rock concerts probably to reach out to new patrons. Tino Meister of Mastermusic has donne a pretty good job of turning (at least one of the rooms) into a decent rock'n roll hole playing great music. Still, the rest of the place sucks.

Anyway, there we were, unrehearsed, as a trio this time but ready to kick some serious asses. As usual in this little band, we had way to small cars for all our stuff, a Smart, a Twingo and a Cinquecento. We have to convince someone to buy a VW van and gently ask him to be our driver/tech. And as usual in this little band, we were too early for the soundcheck (small cars drive famously fast) so we went to a lovely restaurant narby which looks directly onto the Spree river so that Tobi could have some aspargus and the rest of us could do what we do best: order hamburguers.

With a full belly we went back to the Matrix, only to find the doors closed again. They were seeing us on their cameras, but never imagined people with actual guitars wanted in there, so they thought we were lost tourists or something. Funny-sounding place (a bit like a church with domed ceiling), but FOH-tech and Pentaphon[e] singer Peter made a good job out of the mess, and we could hear ourselves. I noticed people danced when we played, so they might have heard us, too. Either that or they had their iPods on all the time. You never know these days.

It was three quarters of an hour full of solid rock, sweat and beers.

Just the way that it should be.

So long,

Stone