It started with a a call from Magdeburg: "Hey, guys, do you want to open for Beth Hart, the American singer?" "Er... well, I guess so." One of those dates announced just a few days prior to the gig, which meant hastily looking up our agendas and replanning a whole weekend. And for Jorge, getting yet another last-minute plane ticket to Berlin.
And so we found ourselves Friday evening rehearsing a 30-minute set and Saturday stepping into the tourbus with the iPod loaded with cool shit for the way. Quen's A Night At The Opera and some 60's pop compilation made the time go faster (not for Timo, who preferred to hang on to his headphones and listen to Velvet Revolver's Libertad).
After a while we arrived in Magdeburg and went straight to the venue, a really cool... er... how could I name it... factory hall? Killing time waiting for Beth's band to finish soundcheck we get to know their cool Dutch entourage and the venue's very own giant Currywurst, a monster sausage not seen alive since the early jurassic age or something. And of course, time for the first beers.
Soundcheck was OK, as usual. You cannot really be too touchy about it anyway, as no matter what you do, it will sound different during the show (of course, it always sounds way better when there's people in there, the musicians among you might know what I mean).
After soundcheck and before the show we had some time to kill (yes, again), so we decided to check our backstage and raid the beer and food reserves laying there. Thanks god, they had put the photocopy machine there, exactly how we had written it down at the raider (!), but no trace of a sofa, dammit. We'll have to write that down next time.
Show was... well, short, just 8 songs, and when you were getting really warm and starting to have fun, that was it, thank you, good night. Fuck! I didn't hear shit over the monitors, but judging from the reaction of the audience (quite large, by the way), they had a good time, and seemed to like us more and more after each song. Either that or they were getting drunker and drunker. God knows. We sold quite a few CDs afterwards, so it couldn't have been that bad, could it?
Sweating, swearing, and in desperate need for a beer we found ourselves again backstage thinking "That was it?" It was, so we now could enjoy ourselves, have a beer here and there, watching Beth perform, have a beer and... oh, you know what I mean.
Beth's band was really cool, great musicians to listen to. And Beth herself was a hurricane onstage, I must say, very positively surprised, even bought her DVD. She should have made a cover of 'Peaches', I was thinking all the time, the song suits her voice range so well...
After their show and quite some more beers, we were hanging backstage with the band. Very funny guys. Tom Lilly, the bass player, had amazing stories to tell, like when Chad Smith, newly arrived in L.A. called him to ask if he should take the drum position with the Chili Peppers. "Are they any good? 'Cause I'm not so sure, man". Great storyteller.
When we all where almost passing out Beth came out from the shower and finally could take some pictures with her and all that stuff for the vault (the mighty Frog Arschiv, as we call it). I remember mumbling something to her about the show, and Jorge trying to get a sentence finished (one that anyone but himself could understand, I mean), but it wasn't so easy. Put two Spaniards near a fridge full of beer and you'll know what I mean. She liked us, by the way, we were "sooo amaaazing, even though I couldn't be here during your show, but I was told so" (?) I still cannot physically understand how, but I guess that's an American West Coast way of saying "Hi, guys". Nevertheless, we were bloody amazing at that moment. At least in our drunken minds.
After loading everything in, it was time to finally go to the hotel... to have some more drinks! The bar had to close a little later than expected, with those four elements ordering beer after beer (Ramazzotti for the drummer, please) and taking very silly pictures and having hysterics all the time.
It could have been a great night's sleep if it wasn't for J___e, who has newly acquired the habit of snoring to the point where you cannot hear your own iPod at full blast, not to mention your own thoughts.
But, what the hell, we are Drogagrbus, er... Erogaisaur, ... I mean... Frogcircus, and this is what we do!! And if we want to be Europe's loudest snoring band, we fucking will!
Quote of the day:
Todd (Beth's drummer): "Hey, where's the stage? Shit, I'm supposed to be already there, but I'm lost."
Stone: "Hello, Cleveland!!"
Nämlich auf einem Festival zu spielen, welches die unverbesserlichen Uelzen'er Rocker organisiert hatten. Zusammen mit den großartigen "Short Fuse Burning" und den mindestens ebenso umwerfenden "Subsquad".
Prima Mucke, gutes Bier und fröhliche Leute ließen auf einen entspannten Abend hoffen. Wir genossen die Partystimmung sehr, mussten uns nur leider etwas mit dem Genuss der C2H5OH-haltigen Getränke zurückhalten. Schließlich spielen sich zehnsaitige Bässe nicht ganz so toll....
Zitat des Tages: "...und dann hab ich irgendwann den Gain-Regler einfach voll aufgedreht..."
Das nächste mal aber ganz bestimmt Jungs, verlasst euch drauf!
Some was recorded with my old but precious Yamaha cassette four-track (a gift from Jorge), some was done with the band during summer of 2000, with Miguelo on drums, Jorge on guitars, and me on everything else (that was during a short bassist-less period where I had to take the duties of the four-strings on stage). Funny times, and very creative ones indeed. Sometimes I miss the old fashioned way of demoing ideas, just pressing "rec" on the cassette recorder and playing and singing the first shit that came to my head. Nowadays, with so much digital recorders and the search for perfection (even in lousy demos), some of that old spark gets lost in the way, and you tend to overthink the songs too much. Shit, I think I'm bringing out the mic and the MiniDisc out again to keep it ready... (the cassette recorder died long ago).
