(Warning - face masks and gloves are advisable when approaching this blog! - Ed.)
This one definitely gets marked down as weird culminating in mass illness. So apologies if this blog is a bit on the unexciting side as not feeling too clever right now.
Mark, as usual, turned up on the Tuesday night showing symptoms of getting a flu. It’s strange ‘cus everytime we go away, the fact that he’s not at work and can relax a bit means he gets ill. There’s a warning there fella. In true rock ‘n’ roll style, as we are discovering, Mark does not heed warnings………………………….
The journey over was unspectacular, which is what we like as we’ve had our fill in the past of road chaos and breakdowns designed to thwart our ambitions. Once in Germany, as we we’re playing up north, we headed for a music shop we know to check out some stuff as we are suckers for a bargain you know…… and Foxie bought 2 guitars from there in the past…..including his yellow metal monster, the ‘Showcaster’ you may have seen him use at some gigs including Beautiful Days.
The shop, called ‘Musik Produktiv’ is (was) basically a music warehouse packed with goodies, or at least it used to be. About 18 months ago we arrived there and the night before it had had a fire. Quite sad. Well, since then, it’s had a bit of a makeover and rebuild but it seems that they forgot to re-build half of it and consequently a lot of the instrument sections and specialisms have gone. Now they seem intent on stacking them high, not setting things up properly and selling expensive with more emphasis on the cheapo budget ranges. Prices are now more then here in the UK which is a real turnaround. Still, they have a nice café and nice cakes…ohh I get a feeling of deja vu here, has this been said before?
Gaz did find a new drumkit tho’:
The first gig was at the ‘Muckefuck’, yes we know it is a strange name, means coffee or something but the owner, Bernd, is a nice guy who always ensures excellent hospitality and beer. For a Wednesday night gig it was great, plenty of people and a great atmosphere, it was just what happened after the show that created a bit of a stir. Now then, going out getting pissed and having a fight is a particular English problem and very rare in Germany as they drink to enjoy and socialise not fight. It was somewhat of a surprise therefore that when we were chatting in the bar after the gig some clown was causing a ruckus and turned on Mark. Mark got a punch in the face for no reason at all and a fight ensued. Realising he was out-gunned the German guy decided to do a runner to avoid further punishment. Mistake for him. Mark had to finish what the other guy had started and was joined by 2 of the bar staff wielding clubs who chased this guy down the street. Not pretty at all. Bad end to an otherwise excellent night.
Some friends of ours from Muckefuck:
The following day (Thursday) we set off early to find the boat we were playing on in Bremen. Now Bremen is a cool place we find and the idea of a gig on a boat on the river was excellent. Unfortunately, the turnout was low so the gig was unspectacular in every sense of the word. It was nice however to see Frank and Sonja, two of our good friends from the area, turn up for the gig and get what was, more or less, a private show, if you include the handful of other attenders and staff. Good job for us then that the owner loved us so much he offered us a slot as his resident band on the Bremen Street Festival in July 2010 when they tow the boat into the main bit of town. Now that IS cool. Nice folks too who run the venue!
Gig on a boat anyone:
Friday saw us back at the Schlappor which is a bit of an institution and stuck in a very long village running at the side of a canal ala Holland style. This gig is famous for late nights, Jagermeister, dope and the fact that everyone, bar-none, smokes. Oh and Disko Deckers across the road which Gel found he just had to go into a couple of years back ‘cus he got so stoned and ending up paying the price for up to a week later….of course he would never do that again would he? The thing about this gig is that if you do not smoke, the intensity of all these smokers in one room without any air-con or extraction can be fatal, even Mark found it too much as a smoker. You just have to see it to believe it……… it cannot be explained adequately. The smoke is so thick sometimes you cannot see the back of the room, it’s like a fukin stage smoke machine gone mad. The gig was good nevertheless, good crowd with the usual guys and gals joining us on stage to blast out a few of their favourite Bleeders songs on backing vocals……and even Frank and Sonja came along again, nice.
Frank gave us a load of flyers to promote the Levellers gig in Bremen in November, which we agreed to dish out in Oldenburg at our next gig (Saturday), which we did, despite being under the suspicious eye of the Club Cadillac owners, ha ha. Job done.
Back to the Schlappor….Something must have affected Gel so bad he decided to re-visit his drunken past here, and ended up at Disko Deckers until 10 am in the morning, long after the rest of us had downed too many ouzo’s thanks to Heiner and his good lady Claudia at the place where we were sleeping. Getting to bed at 5am was early compared to Gel’s excess ha ha. And boy did he regret that…Gel the disco king, boogie on down brother Newey. It was obvious by Saturday morning we were suffering from too many late nights, lack of sleep, too much booze but more importantly poor diet and exhaustion with all the travelling, it seems we all have swine flu or something similar. Coughs and runny noses, aches and pains and feeling as rough as a dying dog with worms.
So, you can imagine we were not feeling at our best for Saturday’s gig at the Cadillac in Oldenburg. This was a Halloween special with our good friend Marco’s new band ‘Off Limits’. We blasted through a rocking set with Gel staying in one spot all nite as yes he felt that ill….. but Mark had a few vodka’s to sort himself out so he could jump around. Foxie reverted only to the herbal teas and dare not touch any alcohol in an effort to get through the gig without collapsing. Gaz, ploughed on fired up by Jever beer. Each to his own as they say. We went down well, had a bit of a singalong going off, had the crowd dancing so it was a good nite all in all. Meet the crowd here:
Sorry the photo is a bit crap but it was done fighting a smoke machine on a rubbish nokia (yes, advertising brand but only to demonstrate their poor phone cameras ha ha) and it took 4 or 5 attempts that had the band and crowd in stitches at Foxie’s antics when trying to take a good shot – it took about 10 minutes and you don’t expect a comedy slot when seeing the Bleeders do you?
This was a Halloween special and the Germans love their theatre. It took the boys and girls from ‘Off Limits’ 2 hours to get into make-up and dress code. We hope you like the effect:
Note, we English do not do the dressing up thing in this band too well so we hope the Germans forgive us (-:
Needless to say the journey home was terrible as it was like a doctors surgery in the van with all that coughing and stuff. We were glad to be back home! Now the boys are all off work sick, ouch and this blog is done, see you soon.
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