Author: Mark

Day four

Sunday December 5

Maja:

I am making a homesite for our musician friend Alex who we stayed with when we were in London recently, and who Mark has done session work for. He’s helping me with some production tips and tricks to help me be our producer and general sound engineer. It’s a great friend collaboration, where I do my part and he does his and we both get something we want out of it. Kinda like when I first met Mark and built his homesite as he mentored me through a few bass projects. And of course, both me and Ales love helping each other out since we’re friends. I’ve been quite busy recently with preparing for the tour, but we planned a little phone call this morning. Apart from talking about those projects, we also talk a little bit about us playing together in maybe March/April. We’ve not completely worked out in what way we’ll play together yet, but that’ll inevitably mean that me and Mark will take The Diaries to London as a continuation of our European tour. I can’t wait.

Mark:

Oh dear. We go out to get supplied up and maybe bring back something for breakfast, only to discover today that all shops in Berlin are closed on Sundays. We do subsequently learn that a few do open a little later in the day but for now we have no idea of that. All we encounter is locked doors and dark premises. The bizarrest part of all this is when we get to the shopping centre near our hostel and it’s totally open. But when we go in and walk around, we discover everything inside is closed. So it’s off to a cafe to pick up a few sandwiches for breakfast to take back to the hostel kitchen. Once there, we find all our new friends hanging out. Mattheus from Poland, Cintia from Croatia, Katia from Modova, and Didier. We join them and get stuck into our chicken, mozzarella and tomato wraps. Which turn out to contain just mozzarella and a single slice of tomato. Oh well. Someone made a mistake somewhere. They’re still quite good and we’re really too hungry to care. While we’re there, a guy we’ve never met called Eric turns up and is enthusiastically called over by our new friends. He’s from Ireland, seems really cool and gently spoken, and our little nascent crew has now grown a little. The guys ask what we’re up to tonight and we tell them we’ve decided to start having a look at the open mic scene. I used to run an open mic myself, have been to many more, and I know what great networking opportunities they can be. Especially to introduce yourself to a new scene; the general audience, of course, but also other songwriters and musicians you could end up doing stuff with and becoming friends with, and the people themselves who run the things. Open mics can be where so many people, connected to so many facets across a city, come together. Put on a good display and be a good hang at enough of them and you really can start to make inroads into the musical fabric of a place. Apart from anything else, throw yourself around enough and talk to enough people and you start to get to know what’s going on around a place as well. Mondays and Tuesdays are particularly good for them as not much else is going on generally, but Sundays too, and sometimes into Wednesdays. We’ve had an internet look around and have decided on a place called Madame Claude’s tonight. We’ve also identified places to go tomorrow and Tuesday, with all sign up times at 7pm. I did email Madame Claude’s before leaving Ireland but got no reply. Well, an automated reply with some info about the venue, but nothing from an actual person. So now we’re just going to go.

We take it easy for the rest of the day and then later catch up with Cintia, Matheus and Eric in the common room again and tell them our plans. We’re all going to leave around 6:30 but when that time comes they’re not quite ready. They understand that we can’t hang around as we can’t miss sign up, and say that they’ll follow along about ten minutes behind us. Cool. We head off across the river and into the dark side streets of Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. Tourists tramping the beaten path are not going to find a place like this. It belongs to Berliners. And maybe some of your more intrepid explorers. As we approach the address, the darkness of the street does not abate. Closer and closer. No lights, no sound. We even walk past it without realising. Then back again. There it is. Kinda. It looks more like a wall of flyers and posters than the entrance to a venue. But no. Definitely nothing happening here tonight. Oh. We stand there not really knowing what to do. Our friends will be on their way, we think. Or maybe not. Who knows? We have no way of contacting them. We stare at the locked, dark door for probably longer than anyone really should, but the truth is we have no idea of our next move. Then we hear, ‘It’s closed tonight.’ We turn round and see a tall figure silhouetted in the glare of a streetlight. Some kind of maintenance work we believe. ‘I saw you guys probably loitering a bit too much and thought I’d just let you know,’ he continues. OK. ‘I’m going to a gig a little way from here,’ he says somewhat cryptically. He’s not making any sign of moving away. Are we in conversation now? ‘What gig?’ I ask. ‘A friend of mine is in a band opening up for the main act. I’m walking down there now.’ That really does sound like an invitation without being an invitation. I step right into it. ‘As you can see,’ I begin, indicating to the guitar case on my back, ‘we were hoping to play the open mic here tonight but, you know. It would be cool if we could follow along to your thing. If you’re cool with that.’ ‘Yeah cool.’ ‘Great. I’m Mark and this is Maja.’ ‘Joel. Pleased to meet you.’ Introductions done, he sets off and we just fall in step with him. ‘The first thing we have to do,’ he says, ‘is go and get tested. It’s a new thing. You can’t get in anywhere without a negative test first.’ OK. We’re just following his lead. We walk for five minutes or so and come across a locked portakabin type thing. ‘Oh. I was going to do it here,’ he says. ‘I know another place.’ And off we go in a totally different direction. This time, after another ten minutes or so, we come to what looks like a teeny tiny mini tented field hospital with a desk at the open front of it and a medical type of person, who must be freezing by the way, standing behind it. There’s only one person getting tested as we arrive, and no-one waiting. That person is taking a while with their admin or whatever so we wait patiently. Joel says he has to go home and get something he forgot so we carry on here. After a few minutes, we hear from behind us, ‘Are you guys playing somewhere tonight?’ We turn around to see a guy and a girl we have never seen before and the guy is pointing at the guitar on my back. ‘Well, we were.’ I say, and mention the open mic that isn’t happening. ‘We’re out here checking out different bands,’ he says. ‘Well, this is us.’ And I give him our card. ‘Oh!’ he exclaims. ‘You guys are The Diaries? It’s you we were coming out to see tonight.’

‘What now?’ He introduces himself as Liam and his partner as Maddie and I introduce myself and Maja. Liam then says, ‘Yeah, we got talking to those guys over there at the hostel and they said they were coming out to see you and, here we are.’ I look and, sitting ‘over there’ are Cintia, Mattheus and Eric. Oh cool. We’ve managed to find each other out here, when me and Maja had already started wandering all different directions. 

Maja:

I’ve been really anxious about getting separated from our newfound friends coming out to see us play, so I get incredibly relieved as soon as we find them again. And meeting Liam and Maddie is just over the top amazing. 

Mark:

We get ourselves tested and go over and say hi, then announce to them, and our new friends, that the place we were going to is closed, and that we have new plans if they want to come along. Of course they do. When Joel gets back, I introduce everyone to him and he’s only too happy to have a few more tag-alongers. Well, happy is probably too strong a word. Willing would be more like it. As we walk, he and I chat about Berlin and things in general and he says he’s a casual sculpture. Cool. We also talk about the possible lockdowns here and if things are likely to close around us. ‘I think you guys will be fine,’ he says. ‘If you’ve already played and have anything booked in, I’d say it’s all going to continue and you’ll probably be able to play a little more.’ This is really great to hear from an actual Berliner that we should more or less be able to continue as we are, at least for the period we intend to be here for, and as long as we continue with the testing thing anytime we intend to go anywhere. Yes, it’s only one person’s view and things could change but hey, we’ve already played two shows and proved we can come here, sight unseen and make things happen. If it all closes down tomorrow, we’ll take that.

It’s quite a long walk to wherever this venue is and full of twists and turns as we feel we’re being taken deeper and deeper into local knowledge Berlin. Past a whole bunch of traffic works and onto yet another dark street. Nothing happening here. We keep walking. Then, he announces we’re here. It’s a large, graffiti covered door that you could easily walk past. But he goes through it and we follow. First, there’s still nothing. Just a thick curtain. But the boom bass of music is evident. Through the curtain and we enter what looks like a pirate ship room with soft chairs scattered all about, all filled with people huddled round in circles in casual conversation. Across the room to the right is the bar, and directly ahead of us is another large curtain, from behind which the music is clearly coming. The attendant does the corona check thing and invites me to leave the guitar in a safe space behind her. Cool. Then she says that the band we’ve essentially come to see are only on their first song. Brilliant. And we’re in. Across the room and through the large curtain. Into…a real gig venue. Totally full and packed. Of course. Everyone’s been tested tonight and been given a negative result. So the venue can be safe that everyone’s fine. No masks and no social distancing. This feels. Well, normal. Or rather, not normal at all because, for me at least, I haven’t been to a gig venue where people can pack in like this for almost two years. In fact, I can actually tell you the last time. It was The Blues Kitchen in Camden, Sunday March 8, 2020. Shortly after, March 20 to be exact, bars in the UK were ordered to close by the government, and since then they’ve only been able to operate – when they’ve been able to open – under social distancing rules, to various levels of strictness, but there’s certainly been no bands playing with audiences all rubbing shoulders with each other. So yeah, this is the first time I’ve seen or experienced anything like this for almost two years. Did I say it looks like normal? Well no, it doesn’t look like normal. Because for all that time, this has ceased to be a thing. And now, it’s wonderful to see and to be a part of.

Maja:

Well lucky you. I haven’t been to a proper gig venue since… Well I don’t really know. When I was a teenager following the ‘big bands’ around as a little fangirl. Maybe 2008, who remembers exactly? Or I actually went to a little gig in Japan because I really wanted to see ‘Sore Demo Sekai Ga Tsuzuku Nara’, that was maybe 2015, but the feeling of that was nowhere like this. This is more, to the miniscule experience I’ve had, like the gigs I went to in Sweden. Where people actually headbang and the musicians scream/shout/sing their hearts out. It feels great. And I can’t help bouncing around to the German metal we have here and now that really moves the room. 

The band is called No Romance, Joel’s friend is on bass, and Loophole describes them as one of their favourites. You can check them out yourself here: https://noromancepls.bandcamp.com/

Mark:

For all this up to now, Joel has left us to go and hang out with someone he’s come here to specifically meet and we all hang at the back and take it all in, totally disbelieving at the turn the evening has taken from what was supposed to be a gentle singer-songwriter night somewhere in the vicinity of our neighbourhood. 

They finish and our guys are on me and Maja. ‘Hey,’ says Cintia. ‘Why don’t you try to play in this period now between the two bands? It’s only the two of you. It shouldn’t be too hard.’ I’m really not sure but they all become quite insistent, especially Liam and Maddie, who we will learn are huge live music fans and regular gig goers with a really good knowledge of venues and music scenes all across America. They manage to persuade me to at least try and I head off into the lobby area to see who I should talk to. First stop is the attendant at the door to try to find out who the promoter is. She points me towards a tall guy wearing a slightly floppy hat. I go over and introduce myself to him. He’s warm and welcoming and brightens up even more when I tell him I’m with a band on tour here and give him a card. This is when Maja turns up to hear him say, ‘There’s something I’ve got to take care of right now. Let me go and do that because I want to give you a real minute or two.’ Fair enough and quite brilliant. He runs down some mysterious stairs, then returns and says, ‘I’m all yours.’ He now introduces himself as Mikey from America. I introduce him to Maja, briefly tell him who we are and what we’ve been doing, and then say, I know it’s a cheeky ask, but would we be able to play a song or two right now in the break. He very politely and reasonably says that won’t be possible because the schedule tonight is too tight, but he gives me his email address and says to get in touch with our links and stuff and he’ll gladly see if he could arrange a slot for us in here sometime in the near future. Wow. Contact and brief, impromptu meeting with an actual Berlin promoter who’s clearly really got things going on. This is beginning to feel like deep infiltration into the scene on only our third real day exploring it. With that, we thank him very much for his time and let him go about his busy evening while we go and return to our friends. 

They’ve all piled out into the bar area and we tell them what’s just happened, then me and Maja chat a little more to Liam and Maddie who we didn’t get to talk to much on the way here. 

Maja:

Liam and Maddie are a couple from America and they have a lot of friends and contacts in the music scene in America. They live on the road with a campervan, so they often change locations. And they’re really excited about inviting us over, maybe to stay with them in their van for a while, but also helping us get in contact with some of their friends to organise gigs. Which is absolutely wonderful and beyond helpful in every way. We’re completely blown back by their open-heartedness and kindness and their engagement and positivity towards what we’re doing. I’m finding it hard to put the excitement and gratefulness we feel to words on a paper. Words just don’t do the feelings justice. It’s a bit sad that we won’t be able to play live for them while they’re here though. They really seem to want to see us play. I wonder if we’ll be able to fix that in any way?

Mark:

Like Mikey, they’re also from America and become particularly interested in our story. As it unfolds, they love it more and more and start to open up to us about their contacts in America. Without having heard us play, they’re happy to take us seriously purely by the fact that we’re out here and doing it. They tell us about venues they know across the States who they could introduce us to and where they could possibly plug us in. New York, LA, Nashville, and a few more places in between. They want to talk seriously to us sometime about how they could help us to really get across the venues if we want to go to America. Then, when they tell us they’re leaving Berlin tomorrow, we realise they really should at least have a real idea of what we are, so we offer to play a song or two for them when we get back tonight. They love that idea and so do the other guys. We also make sure to reciprocate their invitation, telling them they’re welcome to come and visit us in Ireland anytime. They love the idea of Ireland and of having a place to stay right in the centre of the country in real, out of the way town like Clara.

I leave them for a little while now to go and say hi to our de facto host for the evening Joel. He’s with his friends and this is the first time I’ve had the chance to really chat to him since we arrived. I really just want to say thankyou very much again for bringing us here and to tell him how much we love the place. And also to tell him that we’ve just hooked up with Mikey. He’s very pleased to hear all this. He introduces me around his little circle a little and tells me that himself and one or two others work at Madame Claudes and that we should pop in sometime and say hello. Wow. Another hit. We now know the bar staff of one of the cooler venues in town which also looks like it could be a really good place for us to play sometime should an opening become available. At the very least, this could be a great social connection to have. I know this very well from my time working in bars in London – to know the bar staff in a place is to have a shortcut to be able to easily talk to and get to know just about everybody else in there, at least the regulars. It really just makes going into a particular bar a lot more fun as you’re walking in as some kind of known entity, not an anonymous face off the street wondering what you’re doing there as you try to gain some kind of footing.

Maja:

Opening up the thick curtains to the stage room, and I once again get blown back with heavy metal screaming through the speakers. It’s an experience in itself just to be here. The music is pumping and I really like this one song that the second band, Groa, does when the singer starts playing drums with the drummer and then the bassist and singer go into the audience singing and dancing really intently with each other. I have no idea what the song is about but the feeling is incredible. It’s been a while since I’ve experienced music like this, and the metal lover in my heart is getting fed some really nice metal vibes. 

You can check Groa out here: 

https://post-dreifing.bandcamp.com/album/what-i-like-to-do-3

Mark:

Totally exhilarated, spent and all very happy, it’s time to head out and start the walk back to the hostel and the seven of us all set off together through the newly falling snow which greatly helps to cool us down after the white hot intensity of what we’ve just experienced. Myself and Liam slightly fall back from the main group and start to chat about the basics of playing. Which means – the two of us in unison – ‘You have to be on the ground.’ ‘Yes, totally,’ he says. We now enter full flow of one of my favourite topics related to this; that you can sit at home and record and Youtube and social media and stream all you want. But if you’re not getting out and playing live, or going to gigs and meeting people, you won’t make the real world connections where people can really see you, talk to you, get to know you, and decide whether or not you’re someone they really want to help either directly or by making introductions or recommendations. He continues, ‘Getting out there and really doing it is exactly what you guys are doing and it’s really cool to see.’ Absolutely fair enough. He adds: ‘We will hear you play tonight and that’s great, but I don’t think we even need to. We can just see it in you and feel your energy and attitudes and we just know you have something to say that’s going to be worth hearing. We have a really strong feeling that we’re totally going to love your music.’ Whether it all materialises or not, his and Maddie’s willingness to open doors for us in America has only come about because we’re out here and doing it from Ireland. If they were just meeting a local band, and had even just seen them play, no matter how much they liked them and their music, it’s highly unlikely they’d be talking about Stateside possibilities. But with us, they can see someone who has already made the leap, and so can be confident we would have no problem making more.

On that thing materialising or not, in the early days of Mark’s Diaries I wrote about every such conversation and possibility and time and time again nothing was ever heard from such utterances again, so I totally stopped writing about them, only returning to those subjects if and when things did start to come about. Then I could write about where those ideas came from and when the conversations first started. But right now, in the first days of our tour and, by definition, our first days in Berlin, I think it’s really cool that these kinds of conversations are even happening.

We return to the hostel well supplied with beers via an outdoor tabletop burger/kebab visit and all seven of us head up to the cavernous function room on the third floor. It’s now approaching 3am so we can in no way be loud. We set ourselves up, the guys in a small semi circle around us, looking on expectantly. Me and Maja have already decided what songs we’re going to do, and what songs could have the most impact in such a quiet setting. We’ve decided we could do a chilled out version of I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) and the new song, Insanity. The quietness and gentle natural reverb provided by this vast hall lend a new epic quality to the songs and everyone listens in complete captivated silence, not least Liam who looks totally, totally immersed in what he’s hearing. When we finish, it’s not quite to applause because, well, it’s late, but Liam and Maddie come over with huge hugs and fist bumps. Liam in particular looks stunned. ‘I had every confidence in you guys,’ he begins, ‘But this really is something special. Yes, we really hope we’ll be able to do something for you two.’ Brilliant. Just brilliant. With that, they say they have to excuse themselves as they’re up and out first thing in the morning. We have a big goodbye with them and the rest of us hang out a little longer. Here, Eric has a little suggestion and a request. Why don’t we set up and do a full rehearsal up here tomorrow that they and anyone else could come to? What a wonderful idea. We immediately agree, and come up with a rough time of 2pm. With that new plan in place, it’s time for us all to head off to bed now.

When we get back to our room, the light is out but Didier is awake in his top bunk and deep in conversation with someone in the other top bunk. As soon as we enter the room, both of them say an enthusiastic hi and we suddenly realise who the other person is. It’s Katia. Of all the rooms. We now have the two coolest room mates we could possibly wish for, although we’re a little disappointed when we discover that Katia is only here for this one night.

Maja:

Oh yay! Katia! I’m so happy she is here, I’ve really wanted to get to know her better and I really like her! Hello Katia!!!

Mark:

We ask if we can turn the light on to get ourselves sorted out, and they say, please do. They then ask how it all went and we really don’t know where to begin. ‘You guys are tired I’m sure,’ I say. ‘Let’s wait and we’ll tell you in the morning.’ ‘No, tell us now,’ Didier insists. Katia voices her agreement. They both really want to hear. What happened that we went out to an open mic at 6:30 that kept us out till way past 3am?

Well…

Day three of our European tour and we’ve been offered a bunch of potential dates in London, which could then be followed by America as we’ve spoken to some people who’ve said they could really get us started with a toe hold there. We’ve made personal contact with a promoter in Berlin and we’ve hung out with some of the bar staff of a venue that we’d already identified as a great place to get known and play at.

To that you can add that we have a very positive lead with Lenny at Fargo who we’ll be going to see in the next few days to hopefully arrange something, and we have two more open mics identified. One tomorrow and one Tuesday. Oh, and we’re going to be doing an open rehearsal for anyone who wants to come tomorrow on the third floor.

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.

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.

Day seven

Wednesday December 8

Maja:

Yesterday I performed for a total of four minutes, but I gave it my all which I can totally feel in my body as I wake up. Today we’ll go to the open mic that Mabloni recommended yesterday, so there’s no real worry to be had for the rest of today. I can allow myself to just chill and recover a little bit then go for it again tonight. I haven’t yet really got a feel for just how physically demanding performing can be, but as of now I have performed something every single day, and while it is incredibly fun it also takes its toll on the body. As the evening draws closer, I manage to feel a little bit more like myself again. 

The place we’re going to tonight is called Laksmi. Nicknamed the red bar, it is located in the middle of Kreutzberg, and after a short antigen test detour we make our way there, arriving at a quarter to seven. As we walk through the doors I am surprised by the size of the place. It’s small. By far the smallest place we’ve been in up to now. It has two rooms, the bar and stage area in the first room with seats in a L shape around the bar and the stage is right at the apex of the L. The second room is a smaller backroom with more seats. I would perhaps say that there are 25-30 seats available in total, and there’s a steady stream of people that just keeps on coming in. Just after we enter, the host of the evening greets us. His name is Mooves and we sign up on his list. He tells us that he doesn’t expect that many performers tonight, so there’s going to be a lot of time for us to perform. We may even get two slots. Great. We’re prepared and have a lot of songs ready, so it would only be really cool if that happened. He says he’ll give everyone two songs rather than the normally expected three, but with that, he expects there to be another round where everyone goes up again for another two songs each.

We sit down with a glass of water to enjoy the show, and what strikes me about this place is the thoroughly friendly feeling that spreads between both the regulars and new people. Most of the people here tonight seem to be regulars, they know each other and they all talk to each other. Except for when the show is on. Then the whole bar turns silent. You could hear a coin falling to the floor even though the bar is crammed by now. Every seat is taken, and the room is filled with the gentle tunes of first the host and then a wonderful performer on ukulele. As the show starts I realise that this is a completely unplugged event. Which actually feels quite cool. It’s nice to not have to bother with any mixing boards and cables, especially considering the minimal stage area which is just about big enough for one man and his guitar. Or maybe you could squeeze in two people. Possibly.

Six or seven performances later, it is time for us and once more we open with I Like You (Better When You’re Naked). And I am able to perform it in a way I have never done before. I feel light, energetic and it is just fun. I’m standing in front of the stage, pretty much on the edge, slightly in front of Mark, and I am almost floating with energy. I perform to the people in the room, but I’m also bouncing off of Mark. The whole room is with us. In every breath. 

Mark:

Then, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, we both step off the stage and start walking through the audience still playing. We have the bar to our left and a slightly raised seating area to our right so we have a good, natural path to follow, all eyes on us all the way. Already we can see the looks of appreciation on people’s faces like we’re giving something different and are really putting it out there. I’m in front and Maja’s walking behind singing. Then, as we reach the back room and give a quick blast in there, we turn round. Or rather, I turn round. Maja decides to walk backwards, crouched down and singing towards me. Now we’re both crouching down, passing through the crowd and both singing. To each other, eyes locked. The whole audience has disappeared to us but we can feel their presence and silence. And complete captivation. It’s like we’re having a private moment and they all just happen to be inhabiting the same space. But at the same time, we really are all in this together. This is our moment, but everyone else feels it.

In this backwards way we move up to return to the stage. Maja first, still singing, me still playing. My front foot reaches the stage and I start to step up with my back foot. I’ve totally forgotten my phone is hanging out of my back pocket. Now I feel it catch under the edge of a table which is now directly behind me. I’m already far too committed to my forward movement and I can do nothing as I feel the phone start to tip the table. Not a massive amount but enough to send a full pint sliding off to smash spectacularly loudly on the floor, in the process totally soaking the poor unfortunate man who happens to be sitting right in front of it. 

Maja:

There is now glass absolutely everywhere, including on the stage. Me and Mark both stop, because we have to do something to help, right? But as soon as we do, an urgent noise comes from the crowd as they shout, seemingly as one, ‘No, no. Keep going, keep going.’ The guy that got drenched is also looking up and nodding happily, urging us to continue. I look at Mark, and he shrugs and nods. And we jump back into the verse, exactly where we left off. We finish the song and the bar absolutely explodes in cheers and whoops.

Just wow. We just stand there on stage for a moment, and I catch a glance of Mark’s eyes as we take in the feeling and taste of the excitement in the room. During this little moment I can feel how everyone around us is filled with a shocklike anticipation. We hold onto the beautiful anticipatory silence, Mark taps out a four on the guitar, and we’re back in.

Mark:

It’s an amazing moment, but in the excitement of it all, I completely forget which verse we’re on. Do I hit the chorus after these four lines, or do we have another four to go in this one? I have no idea. I’m looking at Maja’s back so there’s no communication to be had. I just go for it. Into the chorus. And she drops right into it too. Damn that was the songwriting equivalent of red wire, blue wire. With slightly lower stakes. 

The reaction after our first song, our actual introduction to this place, is enormous. Far bigger than anything we’ve ever experienced before and we’ve had some pretty good experiences with it. Damn, this is big.

Maja:

And now off we go into the next song. Rock ‘n’ roll Tree. This is an epic singalonger and we can see almost everyone in the room moving with us. As we reach the climactic conclusion, I find myself smiling wide and I lower my body preparing for the explosion of sound that I know will happen soon after. We smash into the peak of the last notes of the song and the room blows up once more. 

Mooves, the host, gets back up on stage and jokes ‘Thank you to The Diaries. If you sit in front, you have to expect to get wet.’ 

As we make our way back to our seats, it seems everyone from here to there has something to say to us. I just manage to catch a couple of encouraging words before Mark comes with the first beer of the night, and the room returns to silence in respect of the next performer. The taste of that beer is the best feeling in the world. It tastes of success.

Mark:

This feeling of success is only heightened when Mooves starts to ponder what he will play next. He looks up at the audience and says, ‘I’m just thinking. I haven’t got anything as good as I Like You Better When You’re Naked.’ He’s surely half joking at the sheer audacity of the song’s title, but it sure feels like a stamp of approval.

Then, as Mooves is into his song and the room accompanies him in respectful silence, a guy at the bar turns to me and says, ‘That glass smash was just epic. True rock’n’roll. That’s how you make an introduction.’ Well yeah. I guess we have. The initial feeling was one of embarrassed horror, but looking back now, it really was quite the moment and it’s probably become the huge punctuation exclamation mark over a performance I think people in here are going to remember. We certainly are. 

Maja:

Now we’re managing to talk a little with a few other people between the performers but the focus of the people around us is not on what’s happening now. Instead, we’re getting a lot of expressions of excitement for what we’re going to do with our next set. This comes up a lot sooner than we were expecting; a few people played everything they wanted to play first time round and so decline a second turn. So it’s not that long before it comes round to us again. As I walk up to the stage, a girl sitting at the bar says that she looks forward to our performance. I get up on the stage with even a bigger smile than before. But this time it’s just me. I’m alone on the stage and Mark is at the back, in the other room. 

Mark:

We kinda planned this. Or, at least I did. Maja has no idea what I’m going to do. Well, neither have I really. We said we would start with Bang Bang this time and I thought it would be fun, with the whole unplugged thing, for us to start on opposite sides of the room. And we’ve been able to really get ahead of things and start immediately following the performer before us; this concept of everyone playing again massively helped because as soon as we saw the guy we went on after last time, we knew we were up next. So it is, before the applause for the last guy has even died down, Maja has ended up on stage on her own and I’m now at the back with an expectant table full of Irish people looking up at me, as well as the rest of this back room. I have an idea. I thought we were just both going to start singing but now I’m going to try something I’ve never done before. I’m going to get a clap going before a song begins. ‘OK everybody, on me,’ I say with huge confidence, knowing that anything less will get no reaction at all. And, hands above head, I start clapping. 

Maja:

I hear a clapping begin down in the other room and it starts to seep into the front bar. I join in while also showing my part of the audience that they should clap too. At this, Mooves thinks he’s missed something and runs up to the stage to introduce us. As he does, I turn to him and say ‘Hang on, we’ve already started.’ I can see the surprise spreading across his face as he says ‘Oh, wow. Great. These guys, wow, they’ve already started.’ This comes out in a very impressed and happy way as he hurries back to his seat. During this time, the whole room is still clapping along in unison and we haven’t even done anything yet. I stop clapping, but Mark continues. And we start to sing. We can barely hear each other, but we’re letting the people around us hear us. So we walk around, meeting each other in the middle where we bounce off each other for a little while and then switch sides, me going into the back room and Mark going next to the stage, the space I’ve just left. In this manner, we sing and the whole room is clapping. Oh, except me. I don’t clap. I just sing. 

Mark:

As if it was all choreographed and perfectly planned, we hit the stage at the same time with a few bars of the song to go. I now put the guitar on and I’m ready as soon as we finish to a wonderfully joyous reaction from our now wholly interactive room.

Maja:

We now use the time in between songs to talk a little bit more about ourselves. I present our tour and say they can read about our adventures online in The Diaries. In the meantime, Mark’s ready with the guitar and we’re off into our last song Insanity. It’s a calm song, but it is very pretty and impactful.

Mark:

Again we utilise the whole room, which we feel like we own by now. We start with me on the stage and Maja standing on a stool down on the floor and dominating the room. But then again we start to move around the whole area. This is a quiet song, we’re unplugged and we want everyone to be able to hear it. So around the bar we go, giving everyone a piece. This might mean that not everyone hears everything but they all come along with us on this journey, sharing in the epic feel of the moment as we wander right from the front to the back and back to the front again. There’s even a verse where I’m at the back singing it to those guys, and Maja is at the front singing to her people. Then we meet in the middle again, then once more it’s back to the stage. And every single person in here is with us the whole time while they’re also wondering just what the hell is going on. As we finish and the applause rises up from the crowd, getting louder and louder, we stand there and take it all in. For Maja, this kind of reaction is just normal by now. For myself, across every open mic I’ve run, played at or just attended, I’ve never ever seen a new act come in and dominate and own an evening like we have tonight. In fact, I’ve seen very few established people even do anything like this. For us, this has not been an open mic. It’s been a show. Our show. 

Maja:

Insanity seems to have hit this audience like we’re playing them our favourite song that we’ve worked on for 10 years. As we finish up and Mooves come back up on stage, I’ve actually forgotten all about the time we played it at Zimt Und Zunder, and I tell him that this was our first time performing this song. It certainly felt like it was the first time I’ve ever sung that song. And he absolutely loses his mind over that fact which actually isn’t that far off being a real fact. 

As we leave the stage this last time, there’s one closing performance featuring some regulars and Mooves putting on some covers. The whole bar sings along and this totally affects the room as soon as the song ends. It all turns into one of the best parties I’ve ever been to and I feel like a rockstar and center of attention the whole rest of the evening. 

Me and Mark just walk around the place talking to everyone, and everyone wants to talk to us. It’s incredible. We meet a couple of Irishmen, and one of them tells me that he’s honoured to have shared the stage with me tonight. Wait what? Did I catch that right? Come on Mark, did I really catch that right?

Mark:

Yep. That’s right. That happened.

Maja:

Ok. So someone honestly just said that. I can’t really believe it. That seems like such an absurd over the top thing to be told. But I’m grateful, and I chat around with other people some more. Then I move over to the next table. There, I get chatting to a girl who suddenly breaks off to sing ‘I Like You (Better When You’re Naked).’ Stunned, I join in singing the song with her and then she tells me how much she loves it. Now, still singing, she starts to dance. Wow…is this really happening? Next I go to the bar to get myself a drink, and the girl that said that she looked forward to our second performance earlier on has some other amazing things to say. We talk for a while, having a wonderful time. I get to chat with her boyfriend as well who also played tonight. He’s from London and is an excellent musician. He seems really impressed as well. Then I talk a bit with Mooves who also has a lot of warm words to say. And he says he wants to introduce me to his producer friend at the other side of the bar, as well as the usual regular presenter of the open mic here; I learn now that Mooves fills in for occasions when it clashes with something the regular guy has on. Like a gig. Great. I’m happy to chat a bit more with these guys while Mark mingles around the rest of the place. A bit later the people in the bar have started to turn over and there are now a lot of new people here. They missed the show which means that the mingling part becomes a little bit harder. But that’s OK. It’s around time to leave now anyway. So we tell Mooves it’s been wonderful and start to say our goodbyes. This has all been so much. We’ve both been caught in a whirlwind in here tonight and we’ve barely seen each other since the end of our last performance. Just like it should be. Two people mingling is double the amount of contacts made. 

What an evening. This was by far our best performance, best reaction, and the best evening we’ve had since we’ve been in Berlin. All at Laksmi, the red bar. I really want to come again.

Mark:

Yep, that would be brilliant but unfortunately this is the last such event here until after Christmas. But maybe the bar itself will be open next week. It could still be pretty cool to come along to for the hang.

Day eight

Thursday December 9

Mark:

We wake still in something of a state of disbelief at what just happened last night, which can also be added to the reaction from Tuesday. One question someone asked me last night keeps swirling in my mind. ‘What the hell just happened in here?’ It was ‘only’ an open mic, but it’s the single best show I’ve ever played. The best set of songs I’ve ever played and the greatest reaction to an open mic act I’ve ever seen, let alone been part of. Now I’ve got a little distance from it, albeit only a single night’s sleep, I can honestly say I’ve simply never seen an act, new or established, come into an open mic and affect a room like that. Certainly no first timer I’ve seen has even come close and I’ve seen a lot of great debutants who’ve really made an impact. Last night was an event that I know we’re going to remember but I think people who were there are going to remember it as well.

Maja:

Laksmi sure is the best show I’ve ever played. The feel of the place, the reactions we got, and the pulse of the music we played was just incredible. Simply put, it was amazing.

Mark:

This all adds up to a big feeling of validation that we have something here which really could be something. If you have any thoughts of doing anything as an original act, in pretty much any creative discipline, you have to be able to go into a room of strangers and, with no hype or expectation, transport them and really provoke a reaction. It’s a huge ask and a big thing to expect of yourselves. But we definitely did that last night, and warmed up for it very well by what we did the night before at Maja’s first ever open mic. We already had some kind of faith and belief in ourselves otherwise we wouldn’t have come out here to do all this in the first place. But it goes to another level when your own perception of reality could be comes into contact with actual reality and they at least in some way correlate.

After having turned up with nothing in the book until the 19th, so far in Berlin, we’ve now done a performance of some kind everyday. But now with nothing else on the horizon it’s time to get out and hustle the street again. If we don’t do it today, we’re going to be backing right up into the weekend. Also, today gives us something of a buffer possibility if we get asked to return or call tomorrow to speak to a manager. We now know that once Saturday comes, all bets are off. Then you could also be looking at Monday or Tuesday before managers start surfacing again. Or so my truly extensive experience of bar hustling tells me. Tonight is optimal and we have nothing on. Out into the early Berlin evening we go. It’s snowing and the temperature is only just hovering above freezing. But that aint going to put us off one little bit. We’re hustling.

Once more we head out over the bridge that crosses the huge expanse of railway tracks, and so affording our epic view over to the east of the city, right to the iconic TV tower. Over that and around 10 minutes later me and Maja are deep in conversation and not really paying much attention to our surroundings. The person coming the other way isn’t much more alert. So it’s quite the public scene when all three of us intersect each others’ paths and we realise we’re face to face with Katia. Bang. So great to meet her like this and she reacts exactly the same way. The bizarrer thing is that for the past ten minutes we’ve been in message communication with her as she’s been asking about our interest in the apartment and we’ve had a few questions of our own. Now, after the initial excitement of this out of nowhere meeting we can see if we can just get things sorted out. Maja’s been the contact point on this so she asks what the state of play is. So far we’re booked into the hostel until the 13th so some kind of immediate turn over would be good, and if that happens, we could well be settled there until the new year when we can make more plans. But it isn’t. Good. Katia proudly says that the room is available for us from the 20th. Oh balls. That really doesn’t work. If not for this place, we were thinking of doing our show on the 19th and possibly being out of here by the 21st. Or something. We still really don’t know. But her dates, or her landlord’s dates, or whatever, just seem a bit too messy for us. We tell her we’re not completely out, but that this looks like it really won’t work for us. No problem, she says. We’ll stay in touch. Well, we will anyway and it really has been great to see her. And to have this issue come to some kind of conclusion, even if not the conclusion any of us were really looking for. We chat for a little longer, then go our separate ways, our heads fully back in the game. That game includes making our way to Loophole, on the way hustling any venue that looks in any way promising, the idea being to concentrate on the Neukolln area. But first, and this is where we’re on our way to now, we’re walking in totally the opposite direction to head into Friedrichshain and Fargo to hopefully meet Lenny and organise a show there for the coming days.

He is indeed there when we arrive, and very happy to see us. ‘No problem,’ he says as soon as we’ve done our hellos and I ask. ‘How would tomorrow be for you? Say, 9 O’Clock?’ Great. And that’s that. Gig booked. Knock on enough doors, battle through enough nos and you find these people. Friedrichshain done, we now head south to Neukolln to see what we can tap out of what we believe could be a solid hunting ground for us. It’s quite a trek and as we enter the main area of Neukolln, we see that it’s wide busy commercial streets and not many bars. Our theory? Go deep. Hit the side streets. Get right off the main beaten track. Our Berlin is not out here where the mainstream and the tourists go. It’s in there. Down secret streets and hidden alleys. Into tiny bars found only by the most intrepid. And locals. The first corner we come to we find a dark, lonely bar. Could this be a thing? I’m not sure but then Maja sees the writing on its A board. ‘Spoken word night.’ A bar that has something like that has to have something for us. Spoken word is the definition of off the main track. We go in and are immediately greeted by a friendly guy who says he is indeed the manager. He’s whispering to us, as someone is in full spoken flow in a stage through another room that can’t quite be seen from here. He asks about the vaccination thing and we then tell him why we’re here. ‘Oh, I love the sound of that,’ he says. He gives us his card that identifies him as Nanoso and continues: ‘That’s definitely something I’d be interested in and could work with.’ Brilliant. Strike one and strike one. I just knew Neukolln would be our hood. We’ve been walking a while to get here and he also says he’ll be able to talk a little more at the break so we stop and have a drink, and he also goes behind the bar and pours us a shot of something spicy and tomatoey. When the break comes, he asks us to define our sound a little and we hit him with rockpop, and tell him a little about what we’ve been doing. He gets more and more interested and says that he does music in here on Saturdays and that it sounds like we could be something that fits right in with that. He’ll be looking at that over the next few days, although we’re also sure he’s quite booked up. But he invites us to send an email and we’ll take it from there. Brilliant. He goes off to take care of business and we write and send the email there and then. Then, just as we’re about to leave, he comes back to us and suggests a direction we might want to walk in to find more bars that would welcome us, including one in particular that he recommends. Brilliant.

We head down there, now also realising that we’re not too far away from Loophole. It could be a good idea to casually make our way down in that general direction, hustling promising looking bars on the way. Then, once at Loophole, we could see if our American promoter friend Mikey is around and see if there’s any joy from the email we sent after meeting him at the show on Sunday. We come to the bar that Nanoso told us about and see a jazz jam in full flow. Looks promising until we see a sign in the window, which is basically a list of all the rules of the bar’s open mic night. No this, no that, no something else. Oh dear. Looks like you could fall foul in here without even intending to. What a fragile line one must walk just to be allowed to exist in this place. We immediately decide we want no part of it and continue walking. For another ten metres or so when we find another bar we could check out. We walk in and straight into the jaws of an unplugged open mic night; a guy is literally performing to our right as we walk in and is surrounded be the audience, which we now walk right through and across to get to the bar. We’ve literally just walked all over his stage. We’re met there by a guy called Peter who is happy to hear from us and who directs us to follow him so we can talk. Out the back of the bar and we enter a small theatre-like space where Peter sets himself up on one of the rows of seats. We have a chat here and he says we sound like something that could fit in here, but that we need to talk to someone else. Peter gives us an address to contact the guy and recommends that we get in touch and say we dropped by. Great. Thankyou very much, and will do. Onto the next place. We find this not too far down the same street and walk into a busy bar where the owner, nevertheless, is happy to entertain us. We are then told that the bar has stopped live music for now, but that if we were to return in January or February, there could well be a conversation to be had. Brilliant. Put this bar on the list too. We’ll be back.

Continuing on and we find another bar to go and talk to. The guy behind the bar isn’t the manager, but I get a good vibe from him and sound him out. He says this could be good, and if we want, we could come back in half an hour or so and speak to the main guy. He also tells us of a few other places would could try. As we’re there chatting, we’re told the main guy has indeed just entered the small and interesting building. We’re introduced and he listens politely and with interest at our pitch. When we finish, he says, ‘It sounds great but look around. There is hardly any business here. You’d be playing to nobody.’ Yeah, that would be a shame. But again, he invites us to come back in a month or two and try again. In the meantime, he says, we should go have a look at a bar a few doors down. This sends us back the way we came and to a place we’d disregarded and walked right past. In the window we see one of the people we were told to ask for. We know this because we recognise him. It’s Wynton from Zum Krokodil who we saw perform a few days ago. We walk in, he looks up and very much recognises us and invites us to sit down. When we give him a card, he says, ‘Oh, you’re those guys.’ He didn’t see us the other night but says he heard all about us from one of the managers the next night. ‘I heard really good things,’ he says. ‘So what can I do for you now you’re here?’ We tell him why we’re in Berlin and what we’ve done so far and he’s in some state of disbelief. ‘I really didn’t think there were any guys like you still around trying to do things like this,’ he says. ‘The fact that you’re here and have been having some results is really inspiring and gives me hope.’ Wow. This from one of the movers and well known names on the local scene. He gives us the number of the girl who organises music here and says we should make the call, although he does urge caution that we might not be able to expect anything to happen until some time in the new year. We might be detecting something of a pattern here. But hey, we now have a name and some kind of recommendation from what that person would recognise as a trusted source. He then also tells us of an evening he runs at Zum Krokodil on Sundays called The Sunday Slip which is a general open floor for all kinds of performers, but definitely also for the likes of us. ‘Come on down,’ he says. ‘We’ll get you on.’ Brilliant. An invitation from the man himself. We will indeed be there. And apart from all that, he recommends another venue to us that we should check out.

We thank Wynton very much for his time, attention and invitation. And yet another heads up. It really has been cool to sit down and really get to know one of the local musicians a little. One more friendly face to add to our Berlin adventure.

From here, we walk pretty much uninterrupted to our destination to discover Mikey is not around tonight and that it’s DJ night. We could pay the five Euro cover to stay, but we’re not really feeling it tonight. So we decide to make a beeline for Zum Krokodil to see if we can meet the manager Wynton told us about and say hello. When we get there, the place is very quiet and our guy is not in tonight. But we still do meet one of the other managers who’s happy to see us and have a little bit of a hangout, and we also talk quite a lot to the girl behind the bar. More footprints left in the minds of Berlin’s nightlife. It’s also time for another respite from the cold and this place does great Gluvine, although not tonight unfortunately. We still stay for a while and soon decide we’re done for the night. It’s been a great hustle. Possibly the most successful such venture I’ve even been on. No. No possibly about it. This is the most successful, most welcoming, most fruitful hustle I’ve ever been on. So many positive reactions. And we’ve discovered so much, created a few possible gig leads, discovered a new open mic, and so many places have encouraged us to come and try again next time we’re in Berlin. And we booked a gig for tomorrow. That gig may well be in Friedrichshain, but yes, like we thought, Neukolln is very much looking like our Berlin sweet spot. None of this is to mention that we’ve also now got a much better idea of where our kinds of venues are, what they look like, how they work, and what the people are like to deal with. 

Time to go home now, but before we do, we have one more venue to hit which we also have some hopes for – Madame Claudes. And I remind you that we met some of the bar staff on Sunday night, so we feel like we already have half a foot in the place, socially at least. But as we get closer and closer, it becomes clear that we’re now running on empty and are in no shape to make a good, lively presentation of ourselves. No. We’re done for the night. It’s very firmly time for home and bed. But what a night. In its own and different way, every bit as epic as last night. Eight hours and 15 kilometres of hustle in the snow in minus temperatures. If this isn’t dedication I have no idea what is. It’s given us a whole bunch of positive meetings resulting in more than just possibilities in the bars we visited; as a result we also have a whole load of heads ups to check out and chase down. Myself and Maja have pretty much always known that we share a very similar work ethic, but this is just beyond. I can’t think of anyone else I’ve ever been in a project with – musical or otherwise – who would have come out and done anything remotely like this tonight, and that’s without even factoring in the weather. This truly is what going out and creating your own opportunities looks like. 

Maja:

Cold, exhausting and exciting.

Day nine

Friday December 10

Mark:

For the first time since this all began, our plans smash right up against Corona with a call from my dad. He’s calling to see if we caught the news yesterday. We didn’t. There’s been a change to testing rules for entering the UK. We already knew testing would be required ahead of traveling and while in the UK, and to that end, our home testing kits were delivered and are already with my parents for when we arrive with testing due on the second and eighth day of the trip, although we’ll be out of there by the seventh day. But the announcement yesterday has changed all that. The new regulations state that you must not leave your designated residence until a negative test has been received from the test on day two. The way Christmas and the subsequent public holidays are falling, that means we wouldn’t receive a result until the 31st at the very earliest, the day we’re due to leave. Which means we won’t be able to leave my parents’ house for the entire stay. Which means it’s totally pointless going. With that, our Christmas plans are cancelled, along with the flights that had already been paid for. What now? We have no idea, but England is out. 

The day gets even better when rumours start to circulate, then get confirmed, that the hostel we’re staying in will be closing on the 16th, meaning checkout will have to be that day. At first we think this is Christmas closing, as we’ve been starting to learn in the past few days that Berlin nightlife pretty much closes around mid to late December for Christmas. But no. Plus Hotel Berlin will be closing its doors for good that day. Damn. Things just got even more uncertain. What we do know is that we want to stick around at least to play the Artliners’ gig on the 19th and then chill the next day. Which means a possible date of the 21st for leaving Berlin. For where, we have no idea.

We’ve been in Berlin for almost two weeks and haven’t done the tiniest bit of sightseeing. So far, all we’ve really seen is the main Berlin wall section and that’s across the road from our hostel. But that’s not bothering us at all. We’ve not come here to see Berlin. As much as we can in our time here, we’ve come here to be Berlin. To get underneath it. To live it. To reach the parts other tourists don’t reach. So far we feel we’ve given a decent account of that intention. To that end, we feel no pressure to get out and about and see the place. Not yet anyway. With our gig at Fargo tonight and considering how much we felt run into the ground last night, we promise ourselves we’ll take it easy today and give ourselves the best chance of a good performance.

Maja:

Take it easy, right. We got home way past midnight yesterday once again, and I think we might have overdone it with the walking. It’s like no matter how much I sleep, I can’t get to a state that feels fresh. I pretty much refuse to leave bed until maybe 5 or 6 pm when it is time to prepare for the gig. Today there’s been no energy for a rehearsal, no energy for any outings and no energy for any writing or anything else that needs to get done on a day to day basis. Today has all been about that gig, and it is what we need to do. I really have a good feeling about the manager Lenny, and really want to show him what we’re all about. 

We get to the venue well before the showtime to set up on the stage area which is right next to the window, so the people walking by can see that there’s going to be a show on tonight. Hopefully, that will make at least a couple of people come in to see what’s going on. Once we’re set up, Lenny is kind enough to lend us a monitor we didn’t know he had. Which is great. I’ve never used a monitor before. It should mean that soundwise, everything should be better than it’s ever been for me on stage, right?

Well, not quite. 

I feel drained, and I am having a hard time getting into the feeling for tonight’s show. It’s a show I really want to go well, but it’s like the tiredness is impacting even the soundcheck and I have a hard time putting out the usual charming me. We somewhat finish the soundcheck and it all sounds quite OK when we are done with it. Mark disappears to socialise with the people around and I go to recheck the setlist and psych myself up for the show. Time flies and our little group of friends arrive just before the show starts. Perfect. Psyched up, I go and say hello, then it’s showtime. 

We start off like we always do but in the middle of the first song something happens with the monitor. It could be that natural stage movement of ourselves, and simple vibrations have shifted it slightly. Whatever’s happened, all I can hear now is bass frequencies and it is making it really hard to hear myself. Impossible really. Every sound I make sounds distorted and wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it. Without any better ideas, I decide to power through. But I am so annoyed at the sound, it is hard to hear myself and it is already making a hard situation even harder. After a while I decide to turn it off. But this seems to completely put Mark off, or at least he doesn’t seem happy with suddenly having no monitor, so I turn it back on again. And the sound comes back as awful as it was before. But finally I do notice something I can make work with. As the bass frequencies come at me I’m able to link them to strong vibrations I’m feeling through my feet. I have no doubt the monitor is great and would normally be totally helpful. But it could be that its exact position on the stage, and maybe also my position on the stage right in front of it, is causing these vibrations. Which are drenching out the frequencies of the sound I need to hear to be able to sing in any controlled manner. If we’d soundchecked with the monitor earlier than we did and found this issue then, maybe simply moving it to a different position could have eliminated all this and everything would have been fine. But we got it just before we started, were delighted to have it, and didn’t foresee any problems. And now we’re mid gig, there really isn’t a lot, if anything, we can do about it. However, having identified something of a source to the problem, I now have something I can actually do about it. I immediately turn the volume down until I feel that the vibrations stop. Finally. What a relief. It’s not as loud as before, but it is now at a level so we both can hear it and it doesn’t drench my voice out with harsh frequencies. But it’s taken almost until the end of the show for me to realise all this and I’ve been battling with it all night barely being able to think about my performance at all. I try to relax and get into a good feel for the rest of the show. 

It still seems like our friends had a nice time, but it’s obvious that I need to get better at handling our equipment. I need to be able to always hear myself clearly, otherwise I just can’t put on a good show. How can I know I’m hitting all the pitches I need to if I can’t even hear myself?

I’m taking tonight as a wake up call. We need to have better equipment and I need to know how to use it better, so I know what to do when it sounds strange. 

Even though I’m not really happy with my personal performance, and this is the account of how I experienced it, we get a good reaction around the bar. It seems like people are appreciating the songs and recognising them for what they are, great songs. And I am very happy we got to play here and I definitely think that this show gave both us as a band and me as an artist irreplaceable live experience. I got to learn things today that no amount of rehearsal could ever give me. Now I know what to fix. 

The rest of the evening turns into a wonderful drinking party with our mates that were really happy that they were able to catch the show. Even though I’m having a little bit of a heavy feeling in my stomach, I am having a lovely evening. Thank you Lenny, and thank you Fargo. See you soon again.

Mark:

We do very much think we’ll be in here again soon and I go and talk to Lenny to see about a follow up show maybe next week. He has some very encouraging words and loves our energy, songs and overall presence and feel. But he’s not been totally convinced by the vocals tonight and says we need to work on that a little first. We know the monitor was against us tonight but we don’t want to make excuses or seem ungrateful so we let it go. But there is a very real point here. We’ve realised we do need a monitor and we need to have one of our own that we can get used to. And once we have that, we’ll also be able to incorporate that into our soundcheck and eliminate any issues a particular setting might throw up. Lenny is very open to us returning but if he’s heard issues we could fix before that can happen, then fair enough. I think we’re going to put this down as an experience we’ve learned a lot from and something we’re now going to act on.

Day 10

Saturday December 11

Mark:

We’ve decided to stay until the hostel closes. Right up to the end. We’ve also decided, after last night’s experience, that we need to up our equipment game a little so are returning to Just Music to buy a stage monitor. We’re going to do this by taking our whole setup there to hopefully be able to see what we should buy to supplement it, and also to have a look at how the whole thing could work.

Eric comes and hangs out in our room for a while and I do something I’ve never done before – start writing a song with someone not involved in the process just happening to be there. But this feels different. I’m not picking the guitar up in hopes of fishing around and coming up with something. No. A fully formed idea pops into my head and I just know something is going to come out when I pick up the guitar. The fact that someone else is around doesn’t even begin to factor. There’s no feeling of pressure of creation. I just have this as I feel whole sections coming into focus in my mind. Before anyone knows what’s happening I’ve written a chorus and two verses, although I don’t feel like I’ve fully written them, they were just there and I managed to get them down before they disappeared. There is still some lifting and thought process going on here and Maja jumps in to help with that. Within about 10 minutes, we’re looking at something we feel could be fully put together before too long. Run has been born.

Maja:

The whole process of writing Run was one of the quickest songwriting processes I’ve ever witnessed or even heard of. It was incredible to be a part of it. Eric had just about entered the room when it started. It was clear what was about to happen. Mark got into the zone and I know when he starts getting there, the first thing he needs is silence, space, a notebook, a pen and a guitar. And a recording device because the idea might get lost as soon as it gets created. So I make sure he finds all of that as soon as possible, which is hard living in a small hostel room, and give him space and silence to get out whatever’s in his head right now. Only then am I able to help, and I do. With things like helping put the idea into shape, lyric writing, melodies or whatever heavy lifting remains. For us both, it is very important to respect the ideas and songs when they come and to give ourselves the space and respect that is needed to ultimately turn an idea into an actual song. 

We’re soon looking at a page that contains the first draft of a song. Every line has a melody and phrasing to it and the hook is catchy. A rough first take is recorded on the phone as well. It feels incredible. Sometimes, it really can be like this. 

Mark:

After a while Eric leaves for whatever his plans are and we decide to stay right where we are. Last night completely demonstrated that real tiredness has taken something of a grip and we really need to slow down. So tonight we’re going nowhere. Not even to the one gig we know is happening featuring our new friends Bodhran Slippy who we met at Zum Krokodil on Tuesday. For those of you who don’t know, this is a play on the phrase born slippy based on the bodhran, a type of Irish handheld drum which strongly features in their sound. Well, good luck to those guys on their show tonight. We’ll just have to try to catch you next time.

Day 11

Sunday December 12

Mark:

With Sunday Slip on tonight we just have to try to finish this new song. It would be so cool to have something brand new to play. And finish it we do. This means that when we take to the stage tonight we will be playing a song that only fully came together in the very last minutes before leaving for the show. It really doesn’t get newer than that.

As you may remember, this is taking place at Zum Krokodil. With our debut here last week, and given that we popped in on Thursday night, this is now our third time here. Inadvertently, we seem to have found a regular Berlin venue. And it’s bang in Neukolln.

We get there and meet Wynton and his friend and host for the evening, Liliana. Once we’re signed up, we’re told there’s another half hour or so until things begin, so we take advantage of this for a last minute run through; new songs have a habit of slipping out of your mind when you try to perform them too early in the gestation period. We’re heading off that possibility by going out into the street now for an a capella run through of it by the light of a closed shop across the road. We get through that OK and declare ourselves as ready as can be.

Liliana and Wynton have been doing this for years and it all has a slightly different feel to an open mic; it’s more of an event and we can see how epic it could be, even though the place is very sparsely populated tonight. They have a theme song which clearly kicks the evening off, then Liliana comes out and launches into a stand-up comedy show, involving as many audience members as she can. So that’s what this is about. Not just musicians, but comedians and, as she says now, performers of any kind. She also tells the audience that people use this space to experiment and try out all kinds of new and edgy material that may or may not work. To that end, she requests that this stage is respected as their safe space. Quite brilliant. She then announces that we will be playing first, so up we go for our two songs.

We’ve decided on I Like You Better (When You’re Naked) and of course Run, which we proudly announce as being as new as new could possibly be. As I said, the place is quiet tonight and there’s a slightly flat, end of season feeling to it all. We do OK and feel well listened to and politely received, but the audience clearly isn’t ready to come up to our levels of energy just yet. It’s fair to say that through the evening it never really does as we roll through the rest of the performers and Liliana does her best to keep things upbeat. But when the last person has done their thing, even though there are essentially 45 minutes of stage time left, rather than go for another round, Liliana and Wynton decide to call time on the last Sunday Slip of the year. The atmosphere all round is still a bit flat and people aren’t really hanging around. We call it a night soon after as well, but head home very happy that we finished a whole new song today, and then came out and performed it.

Day 12

Monday December 13

Mark:

I wake with thoughts of some kind of song running round my head, but really vaguely formed. There are no melodies or lyrics really, just a kind of style of something I really feel like getting on with. Once we’re both up and somewhat into the morning, I ask Maja to find me a set of lyrics from the notebooks we have; there are ten such books going right back to our earliest days in London, two of them A4 and quite a few of them full, including one of the A4s. Maja has a flick through and one set catches both of us as soon as the page flies open. Beanie Love. An idea from our first few weeks together which soon became a full on set of lyrics. We’ve always had a soft spot for this and constantly reference it in conversation. It seems it’s time has now come. I still don’t have any solid song ideas beyond a vague style, and I now ask Maja to give me a chord progression. She does so and I play around with that while reading the lyrics. Looking at this together, very quickly a chorus and approximation of three verses all pop out. Beanie Love is finally on its way.

Maja:

I am ridiculously excited about the song Beanie Love. We have used that title as a working title for the concept and lyrics that we started all that time ago. Lying in bed in the house in London. Staring up at the ceiling. Laughing. Writing. Dreaming. Crying and talking. I remember looking at the spikily painted ceiling, wondering why it was so textured. But it was a nice thing to focus my eyes on, and it has a funny name. Popcorn ceiling. 

And that was how Beanie Love started, with us both joking around and writing the fun things down. Now it has started to turn into a very happy and fun song, which is still as close to heart of the concept as it was when we wrote the very first words. 

Mark:

Once we’re ready to be out and about, thoughts turn to the new equipment shopping we’ve planned to do. All our gear is still packed up from Friday and we walk it down to Just Music where a seriously knowledgeable guy in the sound department gives us his full time and attention to see how we can be helped. We unpack all our gear, set it up, and get to work looking at how it can be improved. And it proves to be a little more than we were thinking, never more so than when we compare microphones.

Maja:

Testing the equipment at Just Music with the sound guy there is, at the same time, an amazing and dispiriting experience. It’s made me realise just how bad our equipment is. For a start, we discover that three of the microphones we have, which are all from the same set, are seriously substandard. When the guy sets the sound desk and I use our industry standard microphone after using one of the three others, I can suddenly hear myself so much better. It sounds just amazing. Clearer and crisper. A lot of that muddled feeling that I have such a hard time handling has disappeared. I can’t believe I used to go for the cheaper set because of the convenience of an on/off button. That was a really bad decision. Then we try the new mixing desk he’s recommended for us, as well as what he now says are the correct cables. For every little adjustment he makes, the sound quality just increases. By noticeable amounts, especially for me. Then he adds a little bit of reverb to my voice and a whole new layer of warmth appears making it even nicer to hear. I’m very impressed. 

I think I’ve concluded that if the sound going out to the audience is good, if the sound coming back to me isn’t right, I can’t sing properly so the sound going out won’t be so good. But if I can hear things properly, like it seems I will with this new setup, I’ll be able to sing so much better and impactfully which will mean a good performance and a good sound for both the audience and myself.

I also take the opportunity to learn a little more and ask any questions I have about the mixing desk, which increases my confidence in handling the system even more. Mark has some knowledge and experience of sound but he’ll be the first to admit he’s no expert and it’s great for both of us to get such a masterclass from this guy today. 

Mark:

The guy also brings out an alternative mixing desk, complete with effects which ours is lacking. We were thinking of maybe just buying a little effects unit to add a little more reverb or body to our sound, but this new desk is so much better than what we have and, added to the new microphone, is a revelation. So in it goes. As for monitor, we go through a few options and end up buying exactly the same speaker that we bought here last week so now we have two of them and we have a look now at how this should all be put together. To the collection we also add a bag in which to carry microphone stands, something which can be quite tricky on a trolley, not least when trying to carry it up and down stairs. And finally, we get advice on alternative speaker connector cables which again prove to be far superior to what we’ve been using. I think it’s fair to say we’ve completely overhauled our sound capability in here today in what has been a hugely beneficial exercise. But with all that, there’s one more thing to buy. Another trolley because all this new stuff can’t possibly be carried on one. So now the two of us will have a trolley to pull to gigs. But it also means a little weight has come off the one that we had, so overall the effect is to make the process much easier. And once we’ve started to use this equipment a little more, not least the monitor, we feel we’ll have a far better sound and much more control over it which will also translate to confidence and consistency of performance. To be fair, we may have been struggling with this a little more than we realised with equipment that wasn’t quite up to what we thought it was, and without our own dedicated monitor. As we happily leave the store, we feel ready to start working to hit the next level.

But, beyond Berlin, where is this next level going to take place? We have no idea. We kinda have plans to go to Prague next but surely there’ll be no point being there until at least the second or third week of January. Nothing happens in any immediate new year. We could go and chill for a while and rehearse and get our bearings but we’re not convinced. We consider going back to Ireland for a few weeks but that would involve a drive across Europe for a ferry, and then a drive all the way back out here when the time was right again. Seems a bit much. Stay in Berlin until we’re ready to move somewhere else? But stay where? Especially considering our current place closes in a few days. Katia’s apartment is still on the cards but far from a solid proposition. And of course we were supposed to be in England over Christmas until that got pulled away a few days ago.

But Maja has another possibility. Friends in Sweden are going away for Christmas and they’d be up for having us stay at their place from the 21st until the new year. This has been quietly bubbling away for a few days and today gets confirmed. Brilliant. So that’s that sorted. We already have Artliners booked for the 19th and were never considering leaving immediately the day after. So the 21st suits us perfectly. We can already see that Berlin is starting to wind down for Christmas and there’s no open mic anywhere tonight that we’re aware of. Fine. Given that we need to make the most of what we learnt at the Fargo experience, especially considering how tired we were for that show, we decide to concentrate on Artliners. We really want to be at our energetic best for that one, especially as it’s livestreamed. We’re very happy with how much we’ve been able to play and put ourselves about, so we decide to use this week for relaxing, sightseeing and rehearsing. And Diary writing and podcast recording. But we will do Zum Krokodil tomorrow, returning to that particular venue for the fourth time.

Day 13

Tuesday December 14

Mark:

It takes us a while to feel ready to record today’s podcast which we title, ‘We’re Going To Need A Bigger Trolley.’ As soon as we finish, we have to leave to get to Zum Krokodil in time for registration at 7pm.

By the time we’ve finished all our little administrative things after the podcast and really got on our way, we’re leaving a bit later than we wanted and we end up almost sprint walking to the place; if the list is full tonight, arriving just five minutes later than required could be the difference between playing and not playing. But when we get there, we find a very chilled place with only two prospective performers and host Conor. Berlin is indeed winding down beneath our feet. However, the quieter atmosphere allows us to talk to Conor and the guys a little more and we get a few questions about who we are and what we’re doing here. This opens us up to talking about The Diaries and the tour a little more, and how this all began back in London. Conor is captivated by the story and promises to give us a good introduction, saying he will also tell people about the website and the podcast. Brilliant.

He holds back starting the evening a little as people are slow to arrive, but about 15 minutes after the intended start time, he does get up and do his thing in the spirit of just getting it rolling. But soon after, people do start to arrive in greater numbers and the potential list fills up and it is really looking like this could again be something tonight. When the time comes to introduce us, Conor stays very true to his word and really gives us a big lead up, showing that he totally gets our story and that he’s fully caught onto what we’re doing. We have three songs. We’ve debated this quite a bit and have agreed on Insanity and Run, but then what to play as a fourth song? We simply have to do I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) everywhere we go. But then where does that leave Rock’n’Roll Tree? We kinda have to play that too. Insanity and Run go great and then the choice of third song comes in. Almost without thinking I just launch into Rock’n’Roll Tree. Maja looks at me across the stage like, ‘Are you sure?’ I am. And it’s started now. Cool, is her reaction. And we’re in. Fully committed, right to the end. The growing audience erupts as we finish and Conor comes bounding over to us to do the whole presenter thing. ‘The Diaries, ladies and gentlemen,’ he exclaims. ‘You will be seeing them next at Wembley Stadium.’ Well, yeah. That’s the attitude we’re performing with. Nice to see it’s being caught onto.

The rest of the evening goes by with some really high quality performers, and when it’s all over, plenty of them stick around for the post show hang.

Maja:

It’s been a great performance and there’s really not that many people around. It’s right before Christmas, in the height of covid with the new Omicron variant just starting to spread around like a tsunami of doom. It’s on everyone’s minds, and people are staying at home for both of these reasons. That means that the few people that are actually here are the regulars and a few other brave souls whose paths crossed with Zum Crocodile. We’ve also played here before, so the regulars very much remember us as that crazy act that literally shook the place with our performance. All of this leads to people all around being very easy to approach and talk to. So I get to have a great chat with Connor the host, and also with Mabloni the Apple Pie guy. Connor invites us to his performance this Saturday, but honestly I have no idea if we’re going to make it. I really want to go, so I make sure to ask if we can buy tickets at the door since I’m not sure if we can make it. I’m met by understanding and maybe a little ‘Yeah, I’ll make sure that you can. It should probably be OK.’ Great, thank you very much. I really hope we can make it. I also chat a bit with Mabloni. I really like his performances, and in my mind he is the apple pie guy that has never been to the USA. A combination of his two performances from last week, and they’ve really stuck in my head. I like the guy and I even buy his CD so I can listen to those songs myself. It’ll be fun to have something to listen to in my car for some of my long drives. 

I’m quite happy with both my performance tonight, and with how much I was able to chat to people. 

Day 14

Wednesday December 15

Mark:

As we’ve established, we really feel we’ve been seeing the Berlin the tourists don’t see. Getting right inside it to almost become part of the place and, actually, part of what tourists do come to see, which is what the local entertainment scene has to offer. In that, we really do feel like we’ve penetrated to some level of depth.

Maja:

It’s more like we’re living the true Berlin. We’re getting into the nooks and crannies of what Berlin is, far away from the beaten tracks we imagine most tourists would see. We’re living the nightlife in deep covid territory, where you have to get a nose swab everyday before you’re even allowed in the door of the venues where you’d want to go. That’s the Berlin we’re used to, the Berlin filled with hope and creativity perfectly imperfectly stalled by a pandemic. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to see the tourist Berlin a little bit too. It is after all a city filled with historical meaning which seeps through every corner of every building, every gust of wind and even the people walking the streets. 

Mark:

Well today, we are going to hit the tourist trail and we want to do it while it’s still light. First destination: The famous Christmas market in Charlottenburg. There are quite a few of these around Berlin, but this one is right at the centre of Kurfurstendamm, or the Ku’damm, the city’s most prestigious and possibly most attractive shopping street. At its centre is the Kaiser Wilhelm Church which was bombed in the second world war and left unrepared as a memorial. This is a spectacular setting for our market today, which is built all around the church, so sits literally in the shadow of it. The market itself is a wonderful display of traditional stores left and right all the way around in a large circle and we take in the whole thing before opting for German currywurst followed by a hunt for something on the sweeter scale, which we find in the shape of a skewer of candy coated grapes which are every bit as much fun to eat as you might imagine. The stores themselves are all wonderfully photogenic and we take it all in as we wander around, marvelling at the church and savouring the general fairground attraction feel.

When we’ve looked around all we can, it’s back to the car and a drive around this historic centre as we go all the way up to the Brandenburg Gate past the Victory Column roundabout, and then up past the Tiergarten and the T-34 tanks of the Russian war memorial. 

Back ‘home’ and we start to think about taking a trip out. The open mic at Laksmi isn’t on tonight but we think it could be good to go and have a hang out there and maybe see if there are any friendly faces. When we get there, it’s not just the open mic that’s finished but the whole place as a sign announces it’s closed for Christmas. Oh well. Next destination. Which is a lovely looking bar across the road that we already had our eyes on. A place advertising itself as a craft beer specialist. We really do have to go and have a look. Once inside we find very welcoming bar staff and set ourselves up at the bar to have a look at their selection and start working our way through it. As we’re talking to a few of the guys, the bar manager comes in from the back of the place and says hi. He catches that we’re talking about music and introduces himself. So we introduce ourselves as Mark and Maja, The Diaries. ‘Oh,’ he says, taking a slight step backwards. ‘I’ve heard of you guys. Apparently you made quite the impression at Laksmi last week. The landlady was in here talking about you.’ At this our bartender friend looks at us with a little more interest. ‘That’s really got me intrigued now,’ she says. ‘I will have to check you out.’ And through all this, we ourselves are very much taken aback. Once again, this does not happen. We take it as a sign that we’re developing at least the tiniest little slivers of reputation around here.

Maja:

Wait what? did the bartender of a bar we’ve never been to know us? 

I’m feeling giddily happy, and my chest can’t contain the excitement that just keeps on flowing out of me. What an unbelievably fantastic night. 

Day 15

Thursday December 16

Maja:

Thank you Plus Hostel Berlin. You’ve been great. I wish you’dn’t have had to shut your doors. Now we’re going to have to leave this awesome start to our journey and find somewhere else to call home. 

Mark:

We’ve booked our next hostel, Industriepalast – that’s Industriepalast – for two nights with the view to staying for the duration if we like it. Before then, we take our time getting ourselves together and leaving today. Check in for our next place isn’t until 2pm and checkout at Plus is 11am. But with it being the last day of school, as long as there are employees in the building, no-one really cares what time we leave. We make it out a little after 12pm and the guy at reception tells us we are the last guests in the building. The last guests ever to be at Plus Hostel, Berlin. The place Maja has found is right across the road which is a little more of a trek than it sounds, but still. It isn’t far. So we do it all on foot in two trips. Arriving there, we tell the receptionist that we know check in isn’t until 2, but we had to be out of our last place by now, so could we please leave some stuff here and come back later. We’re told yes, and then the guy is stunned at the amount of gear we bring in to be stored in their little lock-up on the ground floor. We leave him to contemplate all that while we head out for another little tourist day to fill the time between now and check-in. Destination for today: Alexanderplatz. This is the central zone of old East Berlin and home to Berlin’s TV tower and it’s a good solid walk away.

This walk takes us right along the almost mile long section of Berlin wall from the East Side Gallery, stopping for the first time to actually take some pictures of ourselves here. Yes, we are in full tourist mode. We reach Alexanderplatz and just have a general walk around, surprised that there really isn’t a great deal to actually see here but it’s still cool to have made it to the base of the tower we’ve been looking over at for the past two weeks. A wander round the area for a while, stopping for lunch in a sushi restaurant and it’s time to make it back to check in for real. We return on one of the spectacular train routes that cross all over the city like a kind of inverse tube system. Here, it’s all above ground so that as you walk around the place, trains are constantly rushing over your head, or high to the side of you around 20 feet up. Now we’re riding one of those trains and taking in the full panoramic city view they always provide. We arrive at the hostel around 5pm, reclaim all our stuff and take it up to the room we’ve been assigned and choose our own beds – mine on one side of the room and Maja’s on the other. On a chair next to her bed, Maja’s finds a suitcase which she casually picks up and moves next to the one other bed in here that someone has already claimed. OK. So we have a room mate. Cool. There could be more to come as this is a six-bed room with three others yet to be spoken for.

But we don’t think any more about that. Today has taken it out of us again and, on our respective beds, fully clothed and on top of the covers, we both soon fall deep asleep. A half hour or an hour or so later I’m woken by the door opening to our room. I’m on the right hand side of the room looking down a small corridor towards the outer door. Inside this corridor to the left from where I’m looking is the bathroom. Into the room now comes our new roommate and would-be companion. That’s how it works in hostels, right? Everyone’s sharing bedrooms and kitchens and toilets and showers. People are on their own or in groups and most of them are on holiday or at least in some kind of holiday mode. Whatever their reasons for being here, it is by definition a shared, communal environment and everyone gets along to get along, occasionally on the way meeting people who become good friends. At the very least, you generally go for a friendly disposition and more or less expect something from that genre to come back at you. Right? OK. Let’s see how this plays out.

I look up, look down the little corridor at the figure scurrying into the room and, wanting to create something of a welcoming environment for someone entering their previously private room to now find it occupied, take the initiative and say hello. I not only get no reply, but this person glares at me with deep malevolence and silently continues down the corridor. ‘Oh,’ I think, slightly taken aback. If she’s not happy at me being here, wait till she sees the other bed. She’s fully in the room now and Maja’s also awake. ‘Hello,’ Maja offers. Again, silence. This person seems to have come in here under the impression we’ve broken into her very own private house and are sleeping on her couch having helped ourselves to her leftovers from last night, possibly kicking her dog while we were at it. Look missy, this is a shared room containing six beds. Or did you not quite get the concept when you booked in? ‘Don’t you speak?’ I ask at some attempt to break what is strangely starting to look like tension around here. ‘I have a zoom meeting,’ she barks out into the air at something or someone out there. Fine. ‘And where’s my bag?’ she snaps sharply. Maja points next to this girl’s bed and without acknowledgement she goes and picks it up and puts it somewhere else.

Did she say she has a zoom meeting? In here? In a six bed room in a hostel? I do hope she’s not expecting us to sit or lie here in silence while she conducts that. Or at least, if she did have that hope, it may well have been accommodated with just the slightest of courtesies anyone should be able to expect in this kind of setting. But no. Sorry. She’s just been plain rude and ignorant. Actually, try downright hostile. So when she does actually begin a call for which she clearly expects silence to be observed from her underlings, minions and general inferiors in life, I go across to lie down with Maja and the two of us begin to talk. Not loudly or overtly, just normal bedroom level that we somehow deem ourselves the right to have. We really haven’t read the rules or received the memo. Charm girl makes a big show of telling her zoom contact she has to go somewhere else, loudly packs up her computer and, in something of a pique, huffs out of the room, leaving me and Maja breathless with a mixture of laughter and total confusion. We stay there for another half hour or so until the door opens again, our new best friend walks in, sees us there, glares in full, eviscerating disapproval and turns and storms back out again. 

She’s back around five minutes later, this time accompanied by a friend and the pair of them start gathering all her things. This ‘friend’ is actually an employee of this place but I don’t discover that until later. I make the clearly stupid mistake of trying to say hi to him and get the same silent treatment she dished out. Not to be intimidated at all, I get up out of bed, dressed only in underpants – yes, very deliberately but I do immediately get dressed in front of the two of them – and I say to him, like I said to her earlier, ‘Do you not talk either?’ He turns to me in with what he hopes is a withering look and snarls, ‘I don’t have to talk to you.’ Whatever. I wonder if all the staff in here are so courteous to guests. Along with Maja I just watch them pack up and leave while the girl says something about having a train to catch. I can’t help myself here and go all faux friendly, wishing her a very happy journey and telling her we will miss her greatly. Oh, if only I could adequately capture in words the gravity of the eye roll this attracts. I’m sure some kind of head muscle must get pulled executing such a manoeuvre. Well, she’s gone now, she ain’t coming back and really, the very best of riddance. What a horrendous person. And what a terrible, unprofessional employee. Unless she told him something about us that really didn’t happen. So, to repeat, what a totally horrendous person it’s just been our misfortune to have to have been put in a room with. Well, she’s gone now to continue to be miserable to herself and inflict that misery on any other unfortunates she happens to encounter today and the rest of forever.

Maja:

I wish I could say that Mark’s account was over the top, that it didn’t happen quite like that, but I can’t. Every single word is true and even expressed quite lightly compared to how it really felt. So I’ll write my account of the situation as well.

Entering the room there were things scattered around everywhere. Wet clothes hanging in the entryway, underwear in the shower, bags and small stuff on every little surface in the room. Clothes on every chair except for the one next to another bed which had a suitcase on it. And of course padlocks on all suitcases and on the locker. Clothes hanging on the rail to her bed meaning no-one could really use the bed under hers. And of course, her things completely dominated the one table in the room. And in we come, with all of our luggage that we’ve struggled to carry all the way up to the room. When we’ve finally got everything in, the only thing I touch of hers is a suitcase on a chair next to the bed I’ve chosen. I move it across the room and put it next to what is clearly her bed. Now I wish I’d taken all of her stuff and put it on her bed and poured a bucket of water on it. That would have been appropriate for her level of rudeness and hostility. Maybe.

Well, I can understand that during covid she might not have been expecting company in the room, so I was very respectful moving about in the area. Not that I did much, because both me and Mark immediately fell asleep of exhaustion after moving in our luggage. Then when she comes back I wake up to the sound of the door and Mark saying hello. She takes a couple of steps into the room and I say hello. I mean, it’s a new roommate, let’s be friendly. But I am met by the most horrifying stare of my life.  She looks at me with such vile disgust that you would have thought I’d killed her cat. They are eyes of pure hatred. I am completely taken aback. It feels awful. Her first words come out in a forced, spiteful, accusatory bark. ‘Where’s my bag?’ I point to her bed where it is clearly visible. If she’d not stopped to be rude she would have walked right into it. She then sits at the table, takes out her computer and announces that she has a zoom meeting. Oh, OK. What kind of strange behaviour is this?

Why would you check into a six bed dorm room expecting to be alone? Why do you think that this is your office? How can you hate someone just for being allocated the same room as you? How can you now expect me to respect your meeting when you treated me with hatred? When I was asleep in MY BED?

I have no idea what this woman thinks when Mark comes into my bed a little while later and we talk to each other for two reasons. One, to simply annoy her if we’re to be totally honest, and two, to genuinely try to lighten up the terrible mood that she brought into the room. I’m glad we did, because she keeps looking at us like we killed her cats and dogs and everything else that she holds dear. If she knows how to hold things dear, that is. Come on, we’re not even doing anything bad, I think to myself as she keeps making distraught noises. These soon stop as she makes a big show of giving up, tossing her computer back into the bag and storming out of the room. 

This makes me and Mark start to giggle. Wow. What a jerk. I’ve never experienced such horrid, completely undeserved behaviour. It actually makes me want to get up. Absolutely shaken, we walk around the room, talking about this horrible experience in disbelief. Well, she’d been doing laundry, and we kinda need to do some as well. So I take a shower and start to hand-wash a couple of our items, hanging them all over the room as she did. Just to annoy her when she comes back. I make sure that we take up just as much space as she did so that it feels a little more fair. It’s not her room to own, and she is not allowed to mess with me. Nah ah ah. No way. I’m getting my revenge by pettiness. I’m doing laundry, which I needed to do anyway. And I’ll move her stuff a little bit to the side to fit ours in. Which is completely normal behaviour I normally wouldn’t think twice about doing, but it is certainly going to tick someone like her completely off. After moving around for a while, I’m starting to feel tired again and fall asleep next to Mark only to wake a little later to a similar experience all over again. 

What I hear is the door opening, and then slamming shut but no one enters the room. A couple of minutes later she comes armed with a male companion of sorts. We try to say hello, but are met with absolute silence. This is making us both angry and I can feel a sense of helplessness bubbling up inside of me combined with frustration. Mark approaches and asks the man, ‘Don’t you talk either?’ He abruptly says, ‘I don’t have to talk to you.’ What in the world is happening? How can you behave like this? These people seem sober, and there is literally no explanation for what’s happening. I don’t understand. I feel underdressed and vulnerable without anyone caring about what had happened from my point of view. Once again it happened when I was asleep, and I’m not especially quick up. They soon remove all of her objects with which I am helping and pointing things out and there’s been a word about her catching a train. I wish her a nice trip and am extremely polite. What a ridiculous lie I think as soon as I hear it. Well, OK. What a horrible experience. After they’ve left we’re alone again. Well, at least it’s nice to get rid of her, we agree.

I go to the toilet and realise that the hostel hasn’t even filled up our toilet paper. We’re out and I need to go to the reception to ask for more. When I get to reception, I recognise that very same guy who was in our room just now. I ask him for toilet paper and then I take the opportunity to try to inquire about what just happened. He looks troubled. I tell him that we literally did nothing and that she just came into our room while we were sleeping and was really rude. And then she just moved out. As I ask ‘What happened, what did we do?’ he just looks at me with disgust and says, ‘I’m not supposed to talk about this but that is very different to her story.’ And he gives me a toilet roll and refuses to tell me anything more. What a jerk. It seems like she has made up all kinds of lies to this man about how awful we’ve been, and now he refuses to show any interest in our side of the story. I can’t defend myself. I can’t even get to know what lies she told about us. There is nothing I can do, and it feels awful. I hate this unfriendly place. This is the most unprofessional kind of behaviour being shown by a member of staff of the hostel. 

Going back up to Mark, I completely distraughtly tell him what’s just happened, and that I  really want to go somewhere else. But at least now we kind of know that no one else is going to come and stay in our room. Why would they put someone in here now after believing whatever horrible things that girl says we did?

Day 16

Friday December 17

Maja:

We’re really tired today, but we now have the room for ourselves so we’re able to sleep and get as much rest as possible. We need to make ourselves a little bit fresher in preparation for the gig on Sunday. I don’t really fancy a new move so we decide that this place is going to have to do until the end of our trip here in Berlin even though it is unfriendly and we don’t really like being here. So, while Mark is having a stretching session, I go out to buy some padlocks in case we get any more horrible roommates. We try to let go of the anger and frustration we feel and just go about our day. Part of this is that we really need to rehearse for our gig at Artliners on Sunday. We rewrite a part of All Kinds Of Wonderful as well. I’m impressed that we’ve managed to get so far as to run through a couple of songs and even do a rewrite with such an uneasy feeling in our chests. 

Right. Time to endure and actually try to make the best of the situation. ‘Mark, can you go down to extend our stay for a couple of days?’

Mark:

All lightness and innocence, I go down to reception today to extend our stay. The place has been quiet as anything, we know Berlin is on its last days before closing for Christmas so this is a mere formality. But no, I’m told when I make my enquiry. Sorry. The whole place is booked up. You have to check out tomorrow. There’s just no way. No way at all. This girl has clearly accused us of something quite unforgivable and without even the slightest attempt at discovering our side of the story – we wouldn’t have a side, there is no story – management has decided to just kick us out. Oh well. We’ll take that as our little side order as rock’n’rollers on tour. Being asked to leave the hotel. That’s how it’s supposed to go, right? I could say we now go and smash the place up like you’re supposed to as rabble rousing musicians, but there’s no need because the management here has done quite a good job of doing that themselves. Nothing is quite right in the place. So many things are just a little bit broken or a little bit off. Like the reception area itself. Dark and dingy and very unwelcoming. Silent staff almost whispering to each other as they sit darkly awaiting the next intake. And, as it goes in hospitality, the mood is set by the staff. So the guests equally wander about in cowed silence, barely speaking to or acknowledging each other in this air of benign repression. Maja homes in laser like towards the one huge indicator of everything that’s not quite right about this place – Industriepalast incase you’d forgotten. There’s a pool table here and no-one’s used it once since we got here despite the fact that the balls sit invitingly right there in reception. The pool table is the one sure place where strangers everywhere find common ground as they good naturedly challenge each other and then get to know each other. But no. As we’ve discovered. Here at the Industriepalast, strangers aren’t allowed to talk to each other. Even the employees will duly glare at paying guests with total hostility and state, ‘I don’t have to talk to you.’ Do you really think we actually wanted to stay here beyond our booked time? For the convenience of it, sure. But for every other reason, we’re really quite relieved that decision has been taken out of our hands. Onto the next place.

Day 17

Saturday December 18

Maja:

We need to check out today, and so we need another place to spend the night. I found another hotel/hostel where I booked a double room for us so we’ll eliminate the risk of drama and so we can enjoy the last couple of days here in Berlin. It’s called 36 Rooms Kreutzberg and check-in opens at 3 PM. Perfect. Checkout here is at 10 AM so I leave Mark in the reception while I go fetch my car that is parked a couple of minutes away. As I return, I find Mark and our friend Mattheus sitting on the sofa chatting. Oh, how nice. He is a saxophonist playing all around and has just returned from Hamburg checking in to Industripalast as a replacement for PLUS hostel. We have a great catchup as he helps us load the car full with our bags. It’s crammed with equipment and there’s only space for two in there so we have to say goodbye. I hope we’ll meet again soon.

Me and Mark now have time to drive around for a while until check in, so we do and enjoy the views and history of Berlin from out of the car window. It’s a spectacular city.

A little after 3pm we arrive at our new place and drag all of our luggage into the hotel and to the bottom of a staircase while I go to check us in. I tell the receptionist that we have a lot of luggage and she gives me a worried look as she explains that they have no elevator and the available room closest to ground level is on the third floor. Oh my. I guess we have to carry everything. I get back out to Mark and tell him that we’re on the third floor. Ok great he says as we start to carry our bags up the stairs. We leave most of it waiting at the bottom as we start with what we can carry. We go up one flight and there’s a door. Then two more and there’s another door. Then two more and there’s a door saying floor one. Then two more and we’re at floor two. And then after the last two we’re finally at floor three. Our floor. We’re both sweating and panting. This can’t be true. We’re not on floor three, we’re on floor five. They’re only counting floors with bedrooms in their numbering system. And there’s no elevator. 

I don’t even know how we manage to get the luggage up to the room but we have to, so we do. 

Well in the room there’s barely space to stand next to the double bed. But it’s nice to be by ourselves and we enjoy it briefly before heading out for a bite. 

When we return back home we feel excited about the gig at the Artliners tomorrow, and the move here has been tiring so we look forward to a good night’s sleep.  

Well.

That doesn’t really happen. 

The waterbed mattress is way too soft and moveable, every movement Mark makes tosses me around like a leaf on a pond, which in turn increases his movement and so on, and so he wakes up too, and it just isn’t possible for either of us to relax that way. 

And curse the room that’s too small to even lie down on the floor. The reception isn’t staffed until 10 O’clock in the morning because of covid, so there’s no hope of a room exchange until morning. There’s nothing we can do. 

Mark:

I’ve never seen Maja as desperate as she is at three in the morning. She’s not slept for one minute and can’t see any way she’s going to be able to. Desolate isn’t even the word. Rather than enjoying a relaxing night, she’s fighting back tears and the tears are winning. What the hell can we do about this? To be fair, I’m feeling it a bit as well but I think I’m more or less OK with it. But she definitely isn’t. In an extreme move she decides to sleep on the floor. In a hotel. She doesn’t do too well with that either and I soon say that I’ll sleep on the floor and she can try the bed without two of us in it making shaky movements; we can’t even both sleep on the floor because there’s only room for one person down there in this tiny room. That only works just a little more with Maja just about making it solo on the bed. But not really. She even leaves during the night, saying she’s going to go and sit in the kitchen and try to write so she can at least get something out of this night. 

Eight in the morning rolls round and we’ve both been totally awake all night. And after taking it all easy for the past few days to give ourselves the best chance to freshen up for our show tonight. Well, this has been just about the worst preparation possible.

Maja:

I don’t get any writing done. I’m far too stressed for that and just end up watching Youtube videos to pass the time. When the clock turns around to morning and neither of us sees any kind of possibility of getting to sleep we feel more and more desperate. How will we be able to pull off a gig without being able to sleep? How will I be able to sing and put on a show if I’ve not been able to sleep? I have no choice but to accept this reality.

Day 18

Sunday December 19

Maja:

I am watching the clock for when the reception opens and when they do, I go down and beg them for a room change. To a room with a real mattress. We don’t get that, but the cleaners do offer to change mattresses, giving us one from another room. Perfect. That was all we really wanted. It also means we don’t have to carry everything again to change rooms. Problem solved. Now we’re going to be able to sleep tonight, but the damage is already done, and we are going to have to perform with me having spent the majority of the night rolling around sleepless and sitting in the kitchen watching youtube. I just hope I’m able to put on a show. 

Mark:

So much for taking much of the past week off to rehearse, chill and make sure we were fully prepared and ready for tonight’s show. It’s almost 11 O’Clock in the morning and we still pretty much haven’t slept yet. But we do at least have an acceptable bed now and we fully intend to use it. I must say here that we attach no blame to 36 Rooms Hostel. The waterbed was in the room in all good faith and I’m sure many people love and venerate them. We’re just clearly not among their number and we only discovered that when we were given one to sleep on. In fact, when we first discovered it was a waterbed, we were a little bit giddy over the novelty and thought it was a great idea. Until last night happened and we got to see and experience the thing up close.

We have to be at Artliners by around 5:30 which is a 40 minute walk away. Mercifully we don’t have to take any of our gear; this is our first fully organised gig complete with stage, full sound setup, sound engineer, host, and lineup of other acts. And it will all be livestreamed. Which means that just about everything on here is a first for Maja, including playing on such a raised stage. Everything we’ve done in Berlin we’ve either hustled ourselves or it’s been open mic. She’s never played an organised gig before.

Now, this 5:30 arrival time is fine. It gives us a leave time of 4:50 or something like that. Normally that would be a perfectly relaxed schedule but not at all when you’re essentially getting to bed at 11am. We set the alarm for 4pm and when it goes off it really feels like we’re being forced to get up in the middle of the night, or at the very least it feels like a horribly early morning alarm call. Ridiculous. All we have to do is get up, go for a walk and play a gig. Hardly Monday morning blues contemplating heading off to the factory or the office. But at the same time, it’s not at all the preparation we were hoping for what we consider to be the biggest and most important gig of our whole time in Berlin. And the last one for this trip. We really have felt that everything we’ve been doing has been leading up to this, we did our very best to prepare for it, and now we’re barely able to get out of bed to face up to the walk to the place.

But we do, and our very first stop once we’re out on the street is to find a shop and stock up on energy drinks. Now we’re ready.

When we arrive, we finally meet Yvonne, our contact there, and she’s delighted to see us and says we’re there in perfect time. We are also greeted by Tom Lee, the host for the evening. No-one else is here yet. They start to trickle in over the next half hour. The members of Primark The Band, Berlin based but from the UK, the sound engineer, and a few people Tom will be playing with tonight. He will be opening the show, compering it, and playing the final set of the night after the two guests have played, the guests being ourselves and Primark The Band. We’ve got the most simple setup so it’s decided we’ll play first, once Tom has done his opening thing.

Primark The Band do their soundcheck, then it’s our turn. Up to now we’ve done very cursory soundchecks based around Maja singing nonsensical stuff while I strum random chords, just to find our levels. But in the past few days we’ve spoken about this and decided we need a different approach. This concluded in us deciding to use our own songs for soundchecks in the future. We’re able to do this now because we now have enough songs in our repertoire that we won’t play all of them in any given gig. And also because we’ve kinda left A Listing behind having admitted that it just hasn’t really hit the spot anywhere. That and All That I Can Be. But A Listing is a particularly good soundcheck song because it contains so many dynamics. We get a little worried about this when Primark The Band is soundchecking as they keep getting asked to turn down. This is The Lazy Sunday Session afterall. The difference between them and us is that they have a much fuller setup of electric guitar, bass and drums, but even so, they don’t seem that loud. When we get up, I suggest to Maja that we launch straight into the hardest part of A Listing to see where that fits into this venue’s volume requirements. We smash it out as loud as we can and no-one says a thing. That’s a really cool discovery; where a full band would be told to turn down, at our loudest we’re still perfectly OK.

Soundcheck over and everyone can chill now and just wait for showtime and for the audience to all turn up. By the time that audience has turned up, we’re able to see the capacity of this place in Corona times. I’m sure it’s been totally filled out on plenty of occasions, but that can’t happen anymore. Instead, everyone has to be sat down which means a few tables around the dancefloor at the front are occupied but that’s it down at stage level. Everyone else is behind the camera, which is on the centre of the dancefloor, and in the main bar area, all seated on stools around tables, or sat at the bar itself. This means that only the people at the front get the full effect, and in the past that probably meant a lot of people. But these are the times we’re in and it’s great that we’ve just been able to keep playing, right the way up to our very last scheduled show in Berlin.

Just before it all starts, we’re thrilled when our own little social gang turns up to do us proud. Cintia, Eric and Mattheus. They’re all here and we find a lovely table near the back to all hang out around. Now we’re ready. And here’s Tom to kick it all off. 

He’s a very seasoned performer and has toured all over the world, so it’s no surprise that he delivers a very slick, polished set which is still perfectly rough enough to feel lively and edgy. When he’s done, he announces that it’s time for The Diaries from Ireland on their European tour, here for their first show in Artliners.

Maja:

It’s time. I step up on stage with a slight feeling of nervousness and excitement. This is hands down the biggest stage I’ve been on so far, and to be honest with you, the only real stage I’ve been on apart from some school performances and similar things I did as a kid. On our other shows there have been stages at times, but nothing as dedicated and fancy as this. It’s very raised, there’s not as much space to move around in that you might think, and the stage lighting feels scorching hot on my skin. I position myself as far forward as I can and I’m struck by how far away the audience feels. It’s a peculiar feeling and I’m not sure if they can really hear me that great all the way over to the other side of the bar. I’m feeling a little isolated up here on the stage with all the light on me. This show is more for the camera that’s filming the live feed, and cameras have a tendency of not giving especially good feedback in the moment. But we’re on and it’s time to put on a show. 

As we start it’s clear to see that the crowd is getting into it more and more, and we get some great reactions to songs such as I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) and Insanity. The crowd is really getting into it, and it feels good to perform. I’m not really used to hearing myself in the way that this soundsystem works; I can hear myself clearer than I’ve ever done before, so that ought to be good. We have a sound engineer managing the sound so I don’t have to, which is one less thing for me to think about. Overall it is a fun stage to be on, and we get through our set without too many issues. I have a timer next to me so we can keep an eye on that and not run over our allocated time, and everything is going quite alright. The set holds and we’ll have time for all of the songs we plan to play. The crowd seems to be moderately into it, which is as good as you can get when you’re the first band out and the crowd is still sober and very far away. As we finish our third to last song, Tom tells us “One more song guys” and our hearts drop. I can see it as clearly in Mark’s eyes as I feel it in my chest. Couldn’t you have warned us when there were two left? Then we could have just gone for the two last songs in our set that we had left as big finish songs and scrapped the third to last song. But that didn’t happen. We’re here now and we need to finish off this show. Me and Mark look at each other and in that moment we both know and say simultaneously, Rock ‘n’ Roll Tree. And we just smash it out. It’s intense and fun and I let out all the last energy I have in me. 

As we take our gear down and Primark The Band get up on stage we get some really heartfelt compliments. The bassist Meray says to me directly that she loved our show, and I just melt inside. Thank you so much. And then the night as rock stars begins. It feels like everyone is here, and we sit with our friends from the hostel that have come all the way to see us tonight and just enjoy the atmosphere. People talk to us and it feels great. After a while Mark comes and drags me to look and see behind the bar and points. ‘Look at that,’ he says. I do but I have no idea of what I’m supposed to be looking at until Mark says, ‘See they’ve pinned our card behind the bar.’ Oh yeah, they have. And he continues ‘Have a look and see what other cards they have pinned.’ Ehm, no I don’t. There are no other cards there. I look confused. ‘Exactly.’

Day 19

Monday December 20

Mark:

We wake to a whole new Berlin. It’s over. All done. We’ve finished.

Maja:

All done. Yes. Amazing to prove that we can do this. Amazing to know it can be done. Amazing to have this experience.

We have done Berlin. Incredible.

Mark:

No more gigs to play, no more hustling to be done, no more rehearsing. It’s day off today and then we’re off tomorrow to go chill in Malmö, Sweden over Christmas and New Year during which time we plan to consolidate our sound and set and decide and plan where to go next. Prague has the nod right now, but we’re well aware Covid Europe could yet close in around us. Let’s see how it goes. For now, we’re just going to make the most of our last day in Berlin, which means going full tourist.

We get on a train and head out towards the Brandenburg Gate. 

Maja:

I just stand there, at where the wall once was in front of the mighty Brandenburg Gate. To think that this very spot once upon a time was impassable. I look over west Berlin all the way to the victory monument seeing the tank road that Hitler built. I have my back towards east Berlin thinking of the times where west was the ultimate unattainable free country for the easterners. It feels immense to think that it was impossible to pass through this very place that I’m standing on right now. Here people walk through east to west and from west to east all the time right next to me. If you didn’t know about this place, there’s no way you would know the importance of this very spot I am standing on. So I walk back and forth on the line where I imagine that the wall stood. I don’t feel like I can cross to the other side just yet. I want to think about it a bit more. Breathe in the feelings of the place. It’s almost like I can taste the importance of this very spot. And I breathe in, look at the monument and then I decide. It’s time for me to go to the other side. And I walk into east Berlin.

Mark:

As well as a walk through the gate, we decide we might have a look at the Checkpoint Charlie museum. But we haven’t done our Corona tests for the day. No problem, there’s a mobile test centre right there. With that, we go and do what will from now on forever be known as the Charlie Swab. Negatives produced and we head into the museum where we discover entry is just short of 15 euro. Not gonna happen. No worries. This whole place is a living, breathing museum so we go check that out instead, including a large outdoor space full of stories of escapes from east to west in the days before it all came down in 1989. The stand out for me is the story of an unnamed 20 year old who totally seized the day and the moment in a way few people could ever imagine and I think he’s instantly become my new hero. Almost a posterboy for The Diaries. Just jump. Just do it. Sometimes the window of opportunity opens and closes so quickly that by the time you’ve decided to climb through it, it’s already gone. Things really can happen in the splittest of split seconds, and then disappear as though they were never there and that’s that. Well, this guy was just going about his daily business and walking past the checkpoint when he noticed a bus was slowly going through and all the guards were on the other side of it. There may have been some hesitation and deliberation but if there was, it clearly couldn’t have been much. With zero planning and nothing on him but the clothes on his back and whatever may or may not have been in his pockets, he fell into step beside the bus and simply walked into the west, hidden from sight as the bus slowly made its way through the checkpoint. The ultimate lesson in opportunism and willingness to take whatever’s on the other side when you get there. Sometimes it’s enough just to get there and take care of everything else later. We’ve been walking around Berlin for the past few weeks and of course, like everywhere else, it’s full of people of all ages. Whenever I meet someone of a certain age, I wonder what life was like for them in the days before, during and after. And I also wonder if any of them have their own stories of escape. And while I’m here, it’s worth wondering if this guy still lives in Berlin and if we’ve been in his presence, if only for a fleeting instant while crossing each others’ paths in the street. This is exactly what I mean. Surrounded by history.

Mark:

It’s almost time to go home, but there’s just one more thing left to do. Go swing by Fargo, see Lenny, fill him in on what we’ve done and tell him our plans. When we arrive he’s busy catching up on admin but he’s enthusiastic and we say a quick hello and tell him that we wanted to stop and say hi and bye before leaving tomorrow. But we also wanted to say that we will be back sometime in the next few months, and back with more experience. He’s delighted to hear it and we leave him to get on with his bits and pieces while we go and hang out a little deeper in the bar. While it’s only a Monday night, the place is still busy with enough of a buzz to keep things going. Me and Maja take our time to warm up, realising only now just how cold we’ve been pretty much all day. Strange how you can feel perfectly comfortable with all this sometimes and then feel it so intensely as soon as you stop. We were only planning on having the one and saying hello but it soon becomes clear that we really don’t feel like braving the outside world again anytime soon. Jackets come off and we settle into the evening, which includes reliving some of our favourite parts of our time in Berlin and reflecting on what we’ve achieved in the two and so weeks we’ve been fully active here. This includes four full shows, two hostel shows and four open mics. And that’s before you consider the whole load of hustling we’ve done which has opened up venues for us to return to on the other side. And we haven’t even begun to explore the Irish bar route I so carefully put together on the night I was alone here before Maja arrived. So we have that to explore as well. We’ve not done too badly on the tourist stuff either. Yep. I think you can say we’ve done Berlin as much as we could have hoped to have done it. And we’ve done all this during a Corona time when many people were doubting our wisdom to even come.

After a while, Lenny closes his admin bits and pieces and signals us to come over and join him. We do, and now we make a cosy little threesome right at the corner of the bar which we now see has a sign: ‘Fargo ultras only.’ Wow. Welcomed to the inner sanctum. We sit there and chat with Lenny, who regales us with his Berlin bar stories and his own musical adventures – he’s a guitar player, so we were right that he had a good feeling for this stuff. As we wander deeper into the evening and he also hears more about us, our short and intense history and our plans, every now and then a Fargo regular stops by to have a hello with him, and then says hello to us and we end up in conversation there as well. This is how it works. Once you’re in a bar and chatting to known people, everyone else around will start to give you the time of day and more as well. And when you’re hanging with the boss, well the kudos and instant acceptance are only that much stronger. This is only the first time we’ve ever really sat down and spoken to Lenny but it feels like we’ve done it loads of times. The vibe is so comfortable. After a while longer, he says, ‘You guys are going to go out and get a lot more experience I can see. You’re going to come back to Berlin stronger and better for it. Call me when you’re back. I think we’ll be able to work something out.’ With that we suddenly feel a far deeper connection to Berlin and to Fargo. We also feel that we could really do something here and that it really could be a very cool musical home for us. To have this kind of welcome now is remarkable and beyond what we could have hoped for when we set out. For us, the coolest bar in Friedrichshain, which is the most happening area of Berlin. And here we are, deep in it. If we thought we might have created a Berlin to come back to before, we truly know that we have now.