Now that there’s a few people about, we’re signing autographs and taking photos. Somehow, the pens always seem to disappear, or run dry. Next time I’ll pack twice as many. However, this loss is compensated by the fact that beautiful girls will come up and ask to have their photo taken with us. Is it ok? Yeah, right, like we’d refuse. Here’s my two favorites, the most beautiful girls at the event. (You might notice that the Wizard’s tastes run to small girls… Jowita, on the right, was my favorite.)

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Out of the blue, one girl (no photo available) says something, and her friends translate – “she thinks maybe she is too young for you.” What the hell? Where did that come from? I must have missed part of the conversation. Does that mean she thinks I’m an old bastard, or she wants me, or what? Of course I’m too old, I’m in my middle 700’s, but who cares? Not me. But they wander off.

We occupy some of our time reading patches on jackets, and marveling at how much fans have paid for those same jackets. We should have brought some over with us.

Oliver runs into us, and brings us the KIT dvds. Hey, I’m on the cover. Hey, I’m on the label. Yeah, you win, Bob says. Guess my face is recognizable, ugly or not.

I know I’m kind of rambling about, but hey, I still need to catch up on my sleep. So anyway. Backstage, there’s this cool grotto, sunken into the ground, with a fountain. And a couple refrigerators full of drinks. Happily, there’s Coke in there (although I don’t really like coke, I like Pepsi; but the formula is different and better in Europe). Occasionally you can find us hanging out with Battleroar down there. It’d probably be an even better place if it was hot outside, instead of overcast.

Hey, while I’m writing this, I just ran across the first review of Defender online… http://www.aquariusrecords.org/ .

A note about drinks in Germany – there is a large deposit on containers, usually about 25 cents each, sometimes more. Cup deposits at festivals are around a dollar. This helps a lot in recycling, and clean up; we actually tipped the guy at the hotel with Jack’s empties. I wouldn’t mind seeing a similar system in the US, but a lot of homeless guys would starve, I guess.

Ok, the day of the show: we’re getting ready, physically and emotionally, a lo! The picks show up, a few hours before we’re scheduled to go on. Bob has his standard pick, and I have thumbpicks with my face on them. The tshirts arrive at the same time; because they are from the same place (Rock Bottom). (when I get home, I find the message from them, verifying the picks will be there; but it arrived about an hour after I left for the airport.) And thanks to the RB folk for rushing these through – we really didn’t think we’d get them on time. So buy a lot of our shirts from them.

One band has cancelled; hey, maybe we can play a few extra songs, because that allows an extra hour to be accounted for. Originally we’re scheduled for 11, but now it’s 10:30 starting time.

However:

Intruder plays on and on and on. Somewhere in the vicinity of 2 hours. They break the bass drum and fix it, then play some more. In the end, we go on at around 1 in the morning. Since time is short, and Hanker follows us; we keep the set short, and waste no time getting on stage.

And no time to check the sound, either. This is a disaster, at least for the onstage sound. I only pray that it is better for the audience. On the stage, most of the problem is my bass – it’s a constant roar; too much low end and (probably) too much compression – I don’t have as much dynamic control as usual, and the sound drowns everything out. It’s hard to get to the amp; I can’t see the controls in the dark, so I roll off what bass I can at my end, and hope for the best.

Of course, in the first song, I rip the screw out of the bass, so the strap falls off. I play the next song completely strapless, then try to get someone’s attention to attempt a repair.

We have no screwdriver.

The threads are stripped.

Ok, can you tape the strap to the bass? Yes, we can do that. So we do, and continue on. Man, I am really off my game tonight. I worked so hard battleproofing all my gear before we came, and this happens anyway. And the stage sound sucks. Well, nothing left to do but put on a good show… so I stifle down the anger and impatience, and channel it to the crowd, projecting the wave of power.

And man…. This is something you always do, and it works to a varying degree – usually only a small percentage. But for about 10 seconds, it seemed like I had total control of it – I moved it around like a whip, and the crowd surged up in exactly the areas I positioned it in. It’s a feeling of great power, and I’ll never forget it – it’s the best focus I’ve had (even with all the problems.) I’m guessing it was a very receptive and uninhibited crowd, that allowed the smooth flow.

Wish I could do that all the time.

And about the screwdriver – the reason I didn’t have one, is because it’s such a pain to get through airport security these days. I usually also carry things like a gas soldering gun, too. But I always remember Bob losing his Swiss Army knife when we went to Athens, because it was in his guitar case, and they took it. (US airport security.)

But we carry on the show, and because it’s virtually impossible to hear, we have to go by feel – and drop some of the intricate notes which would usually be there. Jack not only can’t hear, there are some spotlights directly in his eyes, blinding him, so he can’t tell when we are starting songs. So as I said, we make up for the sound by trying to give a good visual performance.

Hope it worked.

Next year we’ll do better. We learn more each trip.


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