2/11/14
– Bremen, The Meisenfrei – GREAT 1st German gig, especially for
a Tuesday!! We’d played here numerous times before on tours long ago, and it
was wonderful to be back, especially with this new Super Band. It’s a
good-sized club with a great staff, an excellent sound and lights person and a
large stage that seems to be covered with a large sheet of a hard rubber-like
substance. Times before that had been a problem with some soundpeople, since
it’s designed to absorb sound to minimize reflection, and often if someone
isn’t savvy to how this works it can make for a curiously dead-sounding band.
Not a problem this time!! Everything on stage sounded fantastic, and it was
just a delight to play when it’s that good.
We’ve got lots of great friends from
times past in these parts, who showed up VERY happy to se us…and we were happy
to see them too! I think we played a really stellar show (all modesty cast
totally aside), largely in part responding to a cheerful, rowdy crowd who were
with us from the start. Mike in particular was really in his element, and his
playing was on fire…although Bee was also amazing!! His spotlight solo on “Rip
It Hard” was especially brilliant. And I wasn’t so bad myself. Really nice when
all the elements come together and raise the thing to another level, and that
certainly happened here.
Afterwards
there was a big after-party drink-up at the adjoining bar that went on quite a
while, with Johnny, Tanya, Bremen friends Hartmut, Bjorn & Flo and myself
getting pretty celebratory along with many other partiers and well-wishers. A
LOT of Weissbiers were thrust into my hands, and wound up inside me, too. I was
a good bit overserved, but it was just so much fun. Johnny was dancing quite
festively with a pretty schoolteacher in a bright red dress, and seemed in fine
fettle himself…we all were. Mike of course wasn’t drinking, but he was having a
great time too, I could tell.
Checking out my room, minutes from my accidental lockout.
Didn’t
have quite such a good time later that night at the Robo Hotel. I should
explain that these hotels (not really called Robos) are largely automated and
don’t really have staff in them at night…you check in with a credit card at a
machine, which dispenses your key card and opens the doors. Eerie. Tiny little
rooms that seem to be made of plastic, with narrow little beds…strange to say
the least. Anyhow, I’d gotten into my pajamas (well, sweatpants and t-shirt)
and suddenly had the thought that I left a bag in the hall, so I went out to
check…and the door locked behind me. Key card in my pants pocket! Well, hey, I was
drunk. So I thought I’d go down to the lobby and see if I could get help
there…and as I left my hall, the door to that locked too. No way to get back,
or to knock on my bandmates doors! The lobby was empty…I wandered around, doors
locking behind me, till I was in a deserted staircase. Finally I found a
dropcloth some painters apparently were using and after some cursing, prepared
to sleep on the landing under it. Pretty hard floor! I drifted off…just before
dawn someone from the hotel found me and helped me get back into my room, for
which I was profoundly grateful. I actually got to use that tiny bed for a few
hours!!
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