Archive Sunday #66

   Heading out from London, we went back to mainland Europe and drove towards Hamburg, Germany. A little north from the city was this tiny beach town called Weissenhauser Strand that was putting on this Rolling Stone festival over the weekend. I remember we stayed at this nice resort hotel that must have been at a discount due to the cold off-season. We got to the festival early the next day, and everyone was super impressed with the fresh squeezed orange juice machine they had in the catering tent. When we got to our stage to set up, Will and Ethan were delighted to see The Breeders were set to play right after us. It was a super fun show despite the overcast weather, and it's always an added bonus to catch such a great band right after we finish.

  From northern Germany, it was a short drive up to Denmark where we played the Pumpehuset in Copenhagen. I remember this was the day most of us had run out of clean laundry, so I spent most of my free time dodging people in the venue's kitchen in order to use their washing machine under the counter. Once we were sorting the clean laundry in the green room we quickly realized Will and I had bought the same brand/color of socks and they were mostly indistinguishable. I swear I'm still finding socks in my drawer that are a slightly different material to this day haha.

  Up next we had our first show in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. It was at this cool little spot called the Vera that kinda just looked like a typical row house from the outside on a street busy with bike traffic. I'm pretty sure this is where our sound guy John got so sick he had to take the entire night off. It was kinda funny because just a week or so earlier he was commenting on how the rest of us would get sick so often on tour while he never came down with anything. But yeah, we all saw him struggling as we were setting up so we told him to take the night off and get some rest. I remember after soundcheck venturing out with the guys and stumbling on this outdoor street market with a bunch of beautiful imported fabrics. On our way back we stopped at this halal spot that must have been pretty good because I still have a vivid memory of it. We also found a pool hall behind the venue and played a round to kill some time. The show was super fun and kinda made me wish all our shows were at venues this size.

  The next day we were excited to go back to the first city we ever played in the Netherlands, Utrecht. They had this huge building mostly dedicated to showcasing the arts right in the middle of the city called TivoliVredenburg. It was one of those places that had multiple venues inside and almost seemed too pristine not to have some kind of government grant funding it haha. They had this pretty great idea for keeping the green rooms and hallways fresh in such a big, busy building. Instead of worrying about people propping the back doors open when they went outside for a smoke, they had these air-tight smoking lounges that filtered the air. Grant was pretty stoked about them haha. I wish I would have taken a pic of inside the venue, because it had these great stage lights and a layered audience floor with a beautiful wrap-around balcony.

  From there we crossed the border over to Belgium to play at the venue called Vooruit in Ghent. It was part of this concert series called Autumn Falls that I think put on a bunch of shows at various venues around town that month. But yeah, the venue was this super old theater and I think it had a section that was a dedicated movie theater. I think this is the venue where the terms upstage and downstage finally clicked for me. You don't really notice it with modern flat stages, but old theater stages like this one are sloped down towards the audience. It's kinda unsettling at first, but thankfully they had an adjustable riser for the drums to at least lay flat. The show went well though and thankfully none of our gear rolled down into the audience.

   For the last show of the tour we played the second part of the Rolling Stone festival, but this time in Rust near the Strasbourg region. It's the area along the border of Germany and France that shares some cultural aspects of both countries. The festival kept with the off-season attractions theme, so this time it was held at the Europa-Park during its holiday break. When we got into the theme park we were immediately reminded of Disneyland and Disney World right down to the separate sections for different countries and even a familiar little mouse mascot. We walked around a bit to check out the park, and we met this girl while we were playing air hockey who was there for the festival. We asked her what type of people came out to the festival, and she admitted she just got the ticket from her mom who thought the Rolling Stones were playing haha. A bit later we had fun imagining that everyone there was actually just duped into buying tickets thinking The Rolling Stones were coming out.

  We loaded into this giant ballroom that kinda seemed like it was part of a cruise ship. It had these bright red carpets and these big ornate chandeliers with a temporary stage built on one side. The vibe was more for some kind of lounge cover band, but we tried to make the most of it. We had some time to explore after soundcheck, so we ventured out to the open section of the amusement park. Most of the rides were closed, but we managed to find a single open roller coaster that was still running. It was inside the Alpine section of the park and had this mountain theme. It didn't have any loops or flips, but it was actually super fun especially for not having any sort of line. I wish we had more time to explore the park, but I'm guessing we saw most of what was actually open. We played the show a little later, and I remember Will decided to throw in an impromptu cover of Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones for anyone who bought tickets to the festival just on the name haha. I don't think any of us had actually played the song before, but we surprisingly made it through. It was a bit of a weird one, but somehow those shows manage to be the most memorable. Yeah it wasn't the biggest or most fulfilling show to end the tour on, but it's definitely one of those shows we'll never forget!