Nach ihren ersten Erfahrungen in Hamburg besuchten unsere Lieblingsschotten von We Were Promised Jetpacks Münster, Köln und Wiesbaden…
DAY 3 – Münster (Gleiss 22)
Today’s drive from Hamburg to Münster was quite a long one so we all got settled into the back of the van and watched a few movies. The layout of our van means that only 5 or 6 people can see the TV. Unfortunately I got to the van a wee bit late and had to sit in the rubbish seats with no telly. While the rest of the people in the back watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I set up the laptop and watched Law Abiding Citizen. A bit of a ridiculous film but it was an entertaining watch! When that was done, I took control of my Leeds United football team on Football Manager 2010 and played that for a good few hours; I’m top of the league half way through my first season. Yes!
We had played in Münster once before, back in September. Germany is a great place to tour because promoters generally have their shit together. Everything is made as easy as possible for the bands. They meet us at the van and help us load our gear in and have a parking space right there for us. The amount of hours we’ve had to spend looking for parking places near venues in other countries is ridiculous. The most satisfying thing on tour is to get a cracking parking spot. LOL. Just like in Hamburg, we were greeted with a brilliant selection of cheeses and hams and tiny little rolls. I ate too much and couldn’t eat my tea later on… my mum would be disappointed if I did that at home, so I settled for a nice bowl of soup. It was ace.
The show went well and it sold out which was nice. We played the same venue as last time and there were more people there this time around, which means progress. Drank a nice bottle of spiced rum and some beers then headed out to a bar with some folk we met in Münster last time. Steel ended up chatting to a drunken middle aged mess of a man and brought him back to our hotel under the false impression that there would be girls and alcohol there. He then decided it would be a good idea to put this man into his hotel room and shut the door, where Mike and Paul were sleeping. I got a Dürum kebab and went to bed happy.
DAY 4 – COLOGNE (WERKSTATT)
When we got to the van today, there was a grievance that had to be sorted out. 4 people wanted to play Pro Evolution Soccer while the rest wanted to watch The Rock, starring the one and only Nicholas Cage.
We have a rating system for Cage movies, they can only be rated between 8 and 10 out of 10. For example, The Rock is a solid 10, Face/Off is a very respectable 9.5 and his newest film Kick Ass is certainly a 10. Looking at the lower ranked Cage films takes us to Windtalkers, which is as low as we can go at an 8. Ghost rider does slightly better at 8.1 but only just. I’m sure you get the point.
Anyway, to settle our dispute, Adam asked both groups to guess how much he thought a big elephant weighed, no particular kind of elephant, just a big one. The pro evolution group, including myself, guessed at around 150 stone, and The Rock group guessed 250 stone. Adam thought it was 240 stone so we had to watch The Rock, which is a great film so it was fine. However, after looking up the real weight of an elephant, we found out it was actually around 1200 stone… so we were all idiots in the end. James thought it was 80 stone, so really he was the biggest idiot.
During our soundcheck Jamie walked into the venue with a look on his face that I have only seen once before. He had been in the van having a nap and when he got up, he locked the door and jumped out, leaving the van keys inside. The other time I’ve seen that look, was when our tour manager Andy did the same thing in Liverpool a few months ago. Philipp phoned a breakdown service to rescue us and about an hour later, a man turned up with a little kit to break into our van and a big long pole to open the door. All of this happened right at the moment doors opened so there was a queue of people waiting to get into the venue watching us break into our own van. They must think so highly of Scottish people.
The gig went really well tonight, the crowd were fantastic and seemed to all be having a great time. Philipp got us a lot of alcohol so we all had a great night. It was also my dad’s 50th birthday so after a few whiskeys we decided it would be a great idea to phone him back in Scotland and get the whole backstage room to sing happy birthday to him. It sounded like he liked it.
After the show we headed back to the hotel to check in and myself, Burnie, Adam, Sean and Paul decided that we had been spending too much money recently and settled for a night in the van with a few beers we had left over from Münster and a couple of games of Pro Evolution. It was lovely.
Day 5 – Wiesbaden (Schlachthof)
When we arrived in Wiesbaden it was lovely, the sun was shining and it was roasting hot. So, after load in, a few of us sat outside in a park right next to the venue with a nice glass bottle of coke. I’m pretty sure Schlachthof means slaughter house and you could tell that’s what it used to be. A massive dingy room had been converted into a 1200 capacity venue and next door to it was a smaller one. We were playing in the smaller room and during soundcheck I thought my ears might explode, it was one of the loudest, most lively sounding rooms I’ve ever played in. Excellent start, the louder the better.
Our backstage was great tonight, a big room to the side of the stage where we were fed some great food. We had the choice of breaded fish or pasta with a mushroom sauce. I’m pretty sure everyone had both. There was of course a fine selection of cheese and ham accompanied by tiny rolls as well. German promoters don’t let you go hungry.
The show was great. I thought that maybe when the room started filling up a bit that it would lose the great lively sound it had during soundcheck. Luckily it didn’t and when the sound is really good on stage, everyone has a lot more fun. Both bands had a fantastic time playing here.
The venue itself had a bedroom for the bands to stay in where 7 of us stayed for the night. Mike, Philipp and Andy went to a hotel not far from the venue and the rest of us were locked in for the night. Luckily though, the owners left the whole inside of the schlachthof open for us to roam about. We stayed in the backstage room for a while, dancing to Al Green and watching documentaries about a Scottish young offenders institute (pretty much a prison for people under 18). I highly recommend looking it up on youtube. In fact anyone not from Scotland probably won’t understand it, we were struggling a bit at times.
A bit later in the night and a few of us decided to go exploring the pitch black venue. James thought it would be a good idea to go in just his boxer shorts and a t shirt… bad move. All of a sudden, when we were at the side of the stage he crumbled to the floor in pain, claiming his legs were bleeding. We found a trolly on wheels and put him on our make shift stretcher, before taking him back to the bedroom where we discovered all he had done was graze his shins a little bit. Big girl’s blouse.
We ended the night with myself, Adam, James and Jamie making a brief appearance on chat roulette, which is always interesting. We saw too many penises though and decided it was time to go to bed.
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