Day six

Tuesday December 7

Mark:

We’re all hanging out in the canteen this morning when Katia announces she may have a temporary room coming up in her apartment covering Christmas and the new year. If this could be more or less immediate, and dates aren’t fully clear yet, this could be something for us and we quickly let her know that we’re interested. She says she’ll keep us up to date as things develop. If the dates do work, the plan could be to take the place and keep it until the first week or so of January which would encompass our trip to England to stay with my family for Christmas. We would be looking at returning to Berlin, possibly for December 31, and so New Year’s Eve, and then make plans for whatever’s next. 

Maja:

Today it is time for my first ever open mic. Apparently open mics are a thing, and many people appreciate attending them. Myself, I’ve never really heard of them from anyone other than Mark. Mark is trying to educate me in the ways of the music world. Educating me has become one of his passion projects. I guess that is because I just know whatever I know and not much else. So the next gap of knowledge needed to be filled is open mics. They’re supposed to be great craic, but who am I to tell you? This is my very first time. And the place for tonight is Zum crocodile, a bar in Neukölln. We manage to slip through the doors just about 7 pm catching the start of the show. Mark goes through to the host and puts us on the list, but since the show has already started it seems like we’re going to be on late. Great. Just sit back until then.

Our friend Eric is here too, so the three of us enjoy the show together. There are a lot of musicians that have gathered from all over the place. A girl from Portugal is up quite early. She has a story about how she ran into a window and wrote a song about that. It’s mellow, calm and nice. Like all the songs on the stage tonight. They are mellow, low key, calm and nice. The songs are mild, the performers are using their nice singing voices. The pitches are mostly perfect, no-one makes any big mistakes. But who would make mistakes in that environment? No-one is really trying anything special. It’s just calmly played guitar with calm controlled vocals. Beautiful, but I’ve heard it a thousand times before. Perfect to enjoy with a glass of red wine and then go on to forget about forever. 

Listening to the show and its gentle tones I start to get a strong feeling that maybe we’re just a bit too much. Too loud for this room. So I lean over and whisper to Mark, ‘Maybe we should play some of our quiter songs?’ He looks at me and replies, ‘No way. We go in hard and play bigger than the room as always.’ And then I realise what I’ve just done. I’ve read the room and I started to want to adapt to it. Just like I know that I can never allow myself to do. I need to aim to play bigger than the room. Great that I had Mark to stop me there, stop me from wasting the performance. This is exactly the place where you should play as big as you want, even though no-one else is doing it.

I am starting to feel a little bit stressed, time goes on and on and we’re getting close to 10 pm, which is the ending time for almost all live music in Berlin. They have to stop at 10 pm sharp to avoid noise complaints from neighbours, and we’re getting awfully close now. Then all of a sudden, host Conor announces, ‘And now it’s time for our last act,’ I’m convinced this must be us now, but instead he calls someone else up on stage. My heart drops, and the three of us all look at each other in sheer confusion. Are we not going to be able to play? Mark discretely runs up to Conor to check if we’re still going up, and comes back with a smile. Yes, we’re on, Conor must have said ‘the last acts’ and we heard ‘the last act.’ I’m starting to feel a little bit nervous. I’ve only had half a glass of wine since I prefer not to drink before performing, so I’m clear headed, but I’m also very conscious that I can’t shake this feeling of stress. Mark goes to tune up and comes back all ready to rock. I feel like ‘How in the world will we have time to perform?’ It’s really close to 10pm now. Conor announces that everyone will only have time for one song now, and please no introducing or talking about your song. Get up, play, get off. Another act goes on and then it’s time for us. And I feel stressed. We go on stage, connect the microphone and guitar real quick, and I test the microphone by saying ‘Hello, we’re the diaries on tour from Ireland.’ As I say the words I get interrupted by Conor counting us in. ‘One, two, three, four.’ I feel so stressed. Not nervous, but stressed in a way that feels completely unnatural for me. Mark ignores Conor’s count, pausing to do his own and then we start. But still, my legs shake. I have a hard time singing, my heart is beating so fast it can’t possibly be mine. But I am singing, I know the song and I get the reaction that the song deserves. Complete amazement from everyone. I feel how people look up at me in shock, with the expression spreading over their faces saying ‘Am I hearing this right? Is this really true? She can’t possibly be singing this…’ 

Mark:

Yes, you could say the song has a slightly gimmicky feel with the tag line of I like you better when you’re naked, but the whole place is totally into this from the beginning and they never let go. And those choruses and stops. Well, there are mini explosions from the audience all the way through the song. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this, let alone been a part of it. And when we finish, the reaction is spontaneous and absolutely enormous. Seeing the video later that Eric shot, we can see that we have finally captured what The Diaries are really all about and the effect we can have on an audience. We might have only had one song, but with that four minutes of stage time, we’ve achieved everything here we could have possibly hoped to have achieved. Tonight’s show, short as it was, has been an announcement. In the end, just getting that one song was perfect. 

Maja:

In the middle of the song, Conor, sitting on the stage behind us, explodes in a cheer bouncing his head like crazy, but I don’t even notice. I am too busy performing. By the second half of the song, the stress has reduced and I am able to actually enjoy the performance like I normally do. But it feels like such a waste that I allowed myself to get stressed. A performance takes the time it takes, and there was really no use for me to feel stressed. Even though we were the second to last act with just eight minutes to go. 

Mark:

For all Maja’s talk of stress and nervousness, I was there on stage with her, and saw the video afterwards. No sign of it. No sign at all.

Maja:

When we finish the crowd erupts in huge applause and cheering, and the last act goes on. They get a huge reaction as well, but I can’t help to think that it may have been because we warmed up the crowd for them. No-one is ever going to know that for sure, but to me, it feels that way. Now everything’s finished, it’s time to mingle. At open mics, you don’t talk when others are performing. That’s considered rude and a disturbance, so I’m discovering that it’s afterwards when you really get then chance to talk to people properly. And there is this one performer that I really want to say hello to. He is called Mabloni, and he sang two really fun songs, one about how he’d never been to the USA and another one about apple pies baked with pineapple juice. I manage to say hello, and we have a lovely chat. And he recommends another open mic tomorrow at a bar commonly nicknamed the red bar. Great meeting you, and yes we’ll check that out tomorrow. 

I go back to the table to hang out a little bit more with Eric, who’s managed to get our performance recorded. When we check it out,we see that he’s come up with the first real recording that captures what we can be. Finally, we can actually share what we’re up to. 

I walk back to the hostel with a victorious feeling spreading through my chest.