Day five 

Monday December 6

Maja:

Why did we tell our friends that we would play for them at such an inhumanly early time as 2pm? Why? This is what I’m trying to get my head round as we both attempt to wake up at noon. We finally manage to crawl out of bed and into the shower at around 1pm, and I am in no way fit for any kind of performance. I am exhausted. My voice seems to have found a comfortable spot somewhere around the bottom of my endlessly crammed suitcase, and it certainly does not want to find its way back to me. I’m slightly out of it as I stand letting the hot water scald my shoulders in the hope that the heat will somehow wake me up. Disappointingly, it doesn’t seem to work. But I have made a promise, and there’s no way I’m not keeping it. Promises are meant to be kept, and I just need some clothes, along with some concealer to hide the big dark bags under my eyes. Mark has already started moving the gear up to the function room, setting up for us. When I emerge, Cintia and Mattheus are waiting for us. Eric is nowhere to be seen, but there’s no point waiting around since we don’t know when or if he’ll be here. Cintia is working, using the function room as an office, with her computer and advanced looking house plans scattered all over a big table. She works as an architect, and I am sure she’s a brilliant one judging from the professionalism and dedication she is showing. She knew she’d be working during the time we planned this, but was very clear last night that she wanted us to come and do this and that she wanted to be a part of it.

So I guess that we’re going to be a little bit of an entertainment break and perhaps background music while she works. Great. And Matteus is a fellow musician; he is currently busking around Europe with his saxophone. Both of them are very eager to hear us play, which they’re going to. But today we will also be using it as a little rehearsal, since we’ve barely been able to rehearse anything since our arrival in Berlin. Great. They help us film, which is really cool, and we go through a lot of our songs playing them as if it was a set, although we allow ourselves to restart songs a few times so that we can hopefully record a better performance video. But there is something that is bothering me. It’s holding me back. Incredibly so. And that is the sound of the function hall. It is so empty that the amplified sound bounces all over the room, and I hear myself as echoed and probably distorted from all directions, making me completely lose control my own sound. It feels awful, and no adjustments I am able to make help with this problem. After trying to adjust everything I can there’s nothing else to do but to give up. Balls. 

This is as good as it gets. I’ll just have to do it anyway. So I sing, and we manage to fight ourselves through tiredness and echo, performing and practising most of the songs in our set. After about an hour I’m so tired I can barely stand up. So we end there, and I get to chat with Cintia, Matteus and Eric, who managed to arrive in time to catch half of the show. They seem to have appreciated it all, and the song ‘I Like You (Better When You’re Naked)’ seems to have stuck in all three of their brains. It’s quite incredible that they like the songs enough to really remember them, or at least one of the songs.

It’s really nice sitting and chatting with them for a little while, but I am way too tired to be any kind of company, so I soon excuse myself and go back to bed. I’m good for nothing today. Mark is kind enough to take care of the teardown and pack up of the gear as I intend to spend the rest of the day sleeping. I did the rehearsal/mini show today, and I’m incredibly proud of myself for having done that, but now I need to repair a little bit from these intense last couple of days. 

And how did the recordings turn out, you wonder. They were all just noise. The echo made them completely useless. Oh well, we tried. Now we’ll rest and hope to get something decent recorded soon enough. Good night. Tomorrow is a new day, and I’d like to be my usual bright self for any performance that just might happen.

Mark:

It really can’t be any surprise that events have caught up with us today. A week ago Maja was in Sweden and I was in Ireland. With that, we had our individual preparations to finish then we both left our respective starting points on Tuesday, Maja’s epic journey continuing deep into Wednesday, the same day I had my mad walk of around 20 kilometres. Then Thursday was the walk out to buy our gear and walk back, with the weekend then beginning taking in Friday’s hustle and gig followed by Saturday’s gig then the big night last night. Is it any wonder at all that we’re finding it hard to even move today?

Almost as soon as we’re ‘awake’ which is somewhere around 11, we decide there’s no way we’re doing the open mic tonight. 

Once we are up and upstairs to meet the guys, we encounter rumour again, which is soon confirmed. After our little brush with pre-pandemic world yesterday, it’s back to reality today as we discover that Berlin is to ban dancing in nightclubs from Wednesday. Despite the encouraging words we heard last night, Corona and its attendant restrictions may yet close in around us in Berlin and end our plans.