The Grand Tale of the Keep It True Festival, Germany.



Ok.
Ok.
Ok.

I’m home, short on sleep, but if I don’t write some of this stuff down, I’ll surely forget it. I made a few notes on Sunday, but mostly just one or two words to jog my memory. You know, like cat/kitchen. Chicken wing. Kiss shoe. Wet money. A few I can’t read, because I wrote them with a sharpie and can’t decipher my own meaning.

Everything is pretty much from my own viewpoint; if the other guys ever get around to writing, I’ll try to place their inserts at the appropriate points – or just give you a link to their diatribe.

This entire journal will be a bit out of order; I’ll try to rearrange it when it’s done (thank you, cut and paste.) But I guess we can start at the beginning….

The airport.

They must hate us. Look, do I really look like a terrorist, or what? Shoes off, look down my pants (I should charge for that), tear my bags apart, dump everything around, and hold me up for 20-30 minutes. Yeah, I must be bad. I walk into the line, the guy pulls me over, and yells, “Another one.” Nothing special in my bag, except a pen that lights up, so eventually they let me go again.

As revenge, the baggage handlers/andor/customs agents totally destroy our luggage again – it’s usually on the trip home. This time, they broke another switch off of my preamp unit, bent the handles on the suitcase (the ones you use to drag it behind you with), tore open the mesh pocket on the inside that holds all the small stuff – change, contact lenses, etc. So all that stuff is now spread out in the bag. Bob also has similar external damage on his; I wasn’t around when he opened it up.

A Chinese (probably; the language sounds Cantonese) girl and her Mother (also probably, I guess a lot at this stuff) are sitting next to me on the plane, looking out the window. They ask the stewardess why there bag is out on the runway, open, and hope that it will be closed before they load it on the plane.

Bob, of course, tells everyone in the vicinity that this is how they steal stuff from your bags, and nearly launches into his story of the stolen camera, film and other items from his bag, and how the airline refused responsibility and would make no attempt to recover it, or use the security camera film to find out who took it.

But this is on the way home. Same as last year, most of the damage took place coming back.

So, we’re finally on the plane. Why – do I usually get the video screens that are fucked up? This one has the jitters; at least it works. On the way home, I get to sit near the back of the plane – the seats are out of line with each other, so I have to lean sideways into the next seat to see the screen. Lean onto the person setting there, unless they are also watching, and they have to lean over too. And my legs have to go one under each seat in front of me – who thinks of these things?

Some dick.

Ok, so the flight – let’s just ignore it, and jump ahead 12 hours.

Arr, my legs…. Off the plane, let’s get through customs, and see what’s up. Tarek (from Majesty) and Oli are there to meet us; we recover our luggage (every time, we ask each other… wonder if the guitars made it this time.) They did – the cases are beat to shit, but the guitars survive.

We hop into the cars, and hit the Autobahn.

Ooo yes. We need this. I need to drive there.
At the time, we didn’t realize that we could have – all of us assumed that we needed an International drivers license, but not so. You can’t help but laugh at the Ausfahrt signs. The German people just won’t understand.

We stop at the hall, to check it out – it’s basically a basketball court. Huge. Showers and rooms for the bands, this is a nice change for us. Balconies. But you can tell, the echo will be bad unless we fill the place with people – even then, there are a lot of hard surfaces. Time will tell.

So, out to the hotel, to stash the crap. It’s a bed and breakfast kind of place, out in the country, with a beer garden outside. Georgesmuhle Wirsthaus und Beirgarten. More later, but now, we hop back into the car and head off to a castle.




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