Day seven
Saturday March 5
Mark:
We have very high hopes for tonight. Guest listed for a 50s rock’n’roll revival show at Indra that could lead to us meeting all kinds of people. Sam, the owner of the place with all his positive thoughts could have developed a lead or two for us to look at. And in between we have the second show at Bei Theresa to play. This last one produces a quite comical moment when I look out of our window mid morning and see Tommy sweeping the front outside area. I pop my head out for a hello to the owner of the venue right beneath our window that we’ll be playing tonight. He’s full of morning’s joys and once again exhorts us to, ‘come back.’ Yep, we definitely will. He shouts up a lot more that all sounds wonderful, encouraging and positive, but the wind, traffic noises and basic language barrierness all combine to cause his words to be somewhat lost. But the sentiment all stays intact and I make what I think are the right faces and noises at the right times and he waves a happy goodbye and goes back inside. As do I.
Maja:
It’s great to know the plans for the day. Quite unusual, but great. So during the day we can just sleep in and prepare ourselves for the show coming up. And for the show for which we’re on the guestlist. This is my very first time being on the guestlist to anything which is a moment to remember in itself. I, not knowing anybody here, walked into the coolest original music venue in Hamburg and got put on the guestlist for the show the next day. I’m having butterflies in my belly from just thinking about it. Or maybe it is belly rabbits. I like the concept of belly rabbit punches more so that is what I decided I feel right now. For the one who doesn’t know about belly rabbit punches, it’s the feeling you get in your belly when you feel so excited about something that you feel all warm and tingly in your belly. And my belly is punched by all the cutest little rabbits right now.
Sleepy and a tad hungover from yesterday, the time just flies by and we need to get going again. If you think you’d get home from the bar, go to sleep and then wake up and be able to do things during the day before going to the next event when you’re on tour, you’re sorely mistaken. It’s just not possible. You need all the time you can get to rest during the day to show off the best you during the night. We’re straight up from bed to the show at Indra. It’s a 50’s Rock ‘n’ Roll show and everyone there is dressed like they stepped right out of the TV screen of a recording of an Elvis show. The girls are wearing dresses with the typical iconic make-up you’d see on Marilyn Monroe. And they’re all velvet red lips and big hair. The guys have their combs ready to time and time again fixate their big hairs into perfection. The understaffed bartenders stress behind the long bar to serve the thirsty 50’s crowd and many of them are ordering cocktails while the poor barstaff are probably just asking, ‘Why can’t they just order beer?’ There’s people swingdancing in front of the stage, where the band is nowhere to be seen, and I can’t help wanting to join them. It looks fun. It’s a scene taken straight from the 50’s. Maybe I am in an alternative universe together with everyone who thinks they belong in Grease? We’ll never know.
We say hello to Sam who is busy behind the bar serving everyone drinks, and retire to wait for the band to start. It looks like we’ll have time to catch the first couple of songs before leaving to go play our own show. Everything is timed to perfection and the band will be out any minute now. Any minute now. Did you hear me, I said any minute now. Apparently not. Five minutes after showtime. Ten minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Any minute now. No. The clock just ticks by and we start to feel itchy as we need to get going to play our own show. Finally we give in and go to the cloakroom to collect our jackets. The band still hasn’t started. But just as we’re gathering our things, the band comes on. Finally. We can catch one song at least, and then we’ll leave for our own show. The band is surprisingly ill fitting to the crowd. Everyone is dressed modern with T-shirts and they look more like they’re going to chill with friends on a Tuesday morning and hadn’t bothered to dress nicely for it than that they’re about to play a 50’s Rock ‘n’ Roll show. But the music is really good. They even have a double bass which is played with great enthusiasm. That’s so cool. I’ve never even seen a double bass before. The song is short and the crowd goes crazy as it finishes. We, on the other hand, go the other direction and leave to some very surprised faces. The girl at the entry inquires as to why is the world we would pay 12 euro to see a show and leave after the first song to which we’re able to answer in a cool fashion. ‘We were on the guestlist. We need to go play our own show now. We’ll be back later.’
We collect our gear from our room and walk the ridiculously long distance of all the way down the stairs to our own gig. We’re a little underwhelmed to find that there are just a few dining guests scattered around the place. Nothing we can do about that. Maybe it will fill up later. We get on with it and set up in the window this time with the thought that it might help to bring people in the door. So we start and we go for our calmer songs, because the people sitting here just look like they want to enjoy their meal. That’s fine, my voice isn’t in that good shape today so I don’t want to give everything until we get a bit more of a crowd. But we’re not getting a bit more of a crowd. One couple after the next, the people finish their meals and leave. Leaving us to play to a not so happy bar staff. It’s depressing. It really is. So we turn around and play out for the street trying to get people in, but there’s almost no-one walking around. How can that be? Everyone around here seems to be wanting to go to the nightclubs. But even as we look across the road at Beatlesplatz, there’s hardly anyone walking by there either. We have a moment of hope when this one big group of people that stops by the window and we play them an upbeat song in an attempt to get them in the venue, and they are really digging it. They’re dancing to the music, and the lads seem to love it. We can see some lively discussion as they debate whether to enter the building or not, but they reach the conclusion not to, to the disappointment of some that gesture strongly and encouragingly to us. I feel my heart sink, this does not look good. Playing to an empty bar. Soon afterwards we pack up, get a beer each on the house and drink it to the hollow feeling of a completely flat gig.
Well, not every gig is a success. According to a few stories we’ve heard this week, even the Beatles played to empty venues around here at times.
But what we do have is the experience of playing a gig that fell flat now. Honestly I think I did some of the best voice work I’ve done so far, and we’ve had the experience of using our gear and playing for real. Maybe the bar staff enjoyed us? They were at least really encouraging and nice to us.
What we also have is the fact that we played a gig. So we can go back to Indra after having done it, and enjoy the evening where people know that we’re performing musicians even if they haven’t gotten the chance to see us yet. I mean, we just played a gig, and they were there watching someone else. So that is what we do. Tonight was a success, there just weren’t that many people there. So we’ll take that, and go and show our good side at Indra. I mean, we’re on the guestlist for a reason.
At Indra the show is over and the crowd is now getting down to dancing and drinking. We sit down at the bar, say hello to Sam, buy some beers and chat to each other and the people around. Sam keeps us going with free shots and it feels really nice to just be here and decompress after the gig. During chatting with Sam, he tells us that the bars he’s involved with that we could play at are either fully booked or won’t be having live music for a while longer yet, so we’re just in Hamburg a little too early for him. But he does say that we would love to hear from us before we come next time so that something could be arranged.
Turning my attention away from the bar, I suddenly find I’m sitting next to the singer of tonight’s band and he starts talking with me. I’m not sure why. Maybe he thinks I’m just pretty or maybe he knows I’m a rockstar on tour in Hamburg having played her own show tonight. I never get to know, because he is just too drunk to make any sense of. Changing seats to the other side of the bar, we’re not in that much more luck. But at least it is amusing. There is this guy that starts talking to us and he totally hits on me so obviously that Mark goes and stands in between us. Then Mark starts to tell him all kinds of embarrassing stories just to make him feel uncomfortable, with which he succeeds. Mark gets all attentive on me, telling me he doesn’t want to leave me alone with that guy so he stays close to me the rest of the night. We even go to the toilet together so no-one will get a chance to hit on me. It feels safe that he does that for me, especially since we’re alone in Hamburg not knowing anyone. And we know that I seem to attract all kinds of guys, and that can be very scary at times.
Mark:
On the face of it, tonight could be seen as having fallen a bit flat. But really, it signifies a triumph and a real breakthrough. Everything suddenly looks different now. We might not be playing any shows with Sam or his friends, but he couldn’t have been any more positive and he really does think there could be something for us next time round. With that, we feel like we’ve established our Hamburg base, or at least a potential one. With Lenny in Berlin, we have our potential Berlin base. This basically means we now have very real toeholds in the two main entertainment cities of Germany. And with Germany being the leading musical territory of Europe, we may well have created our own set of keys for unlocking the gates to the whole continent. And we came to both cities not knowing a single person. We’ve done this through sheer footwork, determination and personality. And we still have Ireland and London to explore.
