Dead Guitars on tour with The Mission:
29.10.2011 Amsterdam - Melkweg
30.10.2011 Utrecht - day off
31.10.2011 Frankfurt - Das Bett
01.11.2011 Cologne - Stollwerck
02.11.2011 Hamburg - Gruenspan
> see TOUR for more pics and links
Carlo & Nina, Melkweg
Amsterdam - Melkweg - 29.10.2011
It’s not far to travel to the Melkweg. By train about 45 minutes from Utrecht if you take the slow train and you are not in a hurry. Because I’m a drama queen, as most singers are, I was pissed off a bit about the fact that The band was able to travel by a luxury night liner and I had to travel by train, most of the time. But I passed over that very soon and left it for what it was. It was good to have the bus parked nearby the clubs to have some privacy before and after the show anyway. I hate hanging out in backstage rooms anyway. I don’t know why all these porn drawings & hand painted decorations of sexual frustrated musicians have to be there anyway. Why draw an over-sized penis on the wall? If your own would grow faster, maybe I would understand. I still could feel the pain in my neck of the bicycle accident last week and maybe it was better to travel by train anyway. I was excited about the fact that we were going to do some shows again with The Mission. On the European tour back in 2008 we all enjoyed the 23 days in a row feeling to travel from city to city and it seemed to be an endless one. You get closer to the other band, you start to like their crew, they help you out with technical problems, you share your tour bus while theirs break down. You find their crew drinking your bear and sleep on the bench while we stole a bottle of booze out of their backstage room. It starts to become a friendship and grows out to become something special.
So here I am fucking Melkweg! I have only played Paradiso and some places like Tivoli and Ekko in Utrecht, but never done the Melkweg. As a teenager I already loved to see bands there like the Bunnymen and many others. Now it’s our turn to play there. Knowing many friends will turn up who have never seen me performing, just drinking and teaching. Some colleagues, friends from Utrecht and my wonderful family. Even Nina wanted to see her uncle perform live. Nina is my nice and 8 years old. First I met the band when I arrived and backstage I met Simon and Wayne. It was a warm embrace and I was a happy man to hug them all again. As a supporting band you always have to keep a warm distance between the other band. Unspoken rules like; "you don’t use their fridge without asking" you always ask if it’s ok to enter their backstage and have a banana or a beer and make sure that they use the showers first. All that makes it possible to have a great time together.
We were on, 30 minutes time to convince the crowd that we are The Dead Guitars and we do music. The merciless jury in front of you. Thumbs up, or down...straight into the lions mouth or the golden crown? 30 minutes means 5 songs, no encore, just get lost and see what happens afterwards. I enjoyed it very much. Wayne mentioned he saw me sending hand kissed to the girls. Yes it was for Nina who was standing in front of the stage with her little fingers inside the ears, smiling and proud like hell :-) I am in her top five directly after Nick & Simon now (you might have never heard of) a Dutch pop duo of good looking mid twenty boys singing love songs and fill 4 times in a row the football arena. It’s good to see friends and family and have a coca cola party in the band bus with Nina, eating crisps together. Went home to Utrecht. Night-liner in front of D’bs, a club nearby our house. Fell asleep in my bunk...it’s hard to wake me up, I know Will, sorry for that sugar!
Spent the next day with the band in our house, using our facilities to shower and what else you have to get done, while Willemijn boils the tea water and makes sandwiches and coffee. Later we went down town for a beer and a photo session. We all went afterwards to have dinner at Dikkertje, our favourite Greek restaurant in Utrecht and went home with a big bottle of Ouzo. While I had to work the next day the band went direction Frankfurt.
Frankfurt - Das Bett - 31.10.2011
After finishing my education 5 hours I had to run to get my train in time to Frankfurt on Monday. It takes round about 5 hours to get there. I organized a driver who would pick me up straight after the show to get me back to Utrecht. Julian and his brother Vincent took care of me. Without their help I would have had to cancel the whole thing anyway. I put my feather bed with 2 pillows on the back-seat on Sunday night and Julian changed cars around midnight. I arrived Frankfurt, Das Bett at 18:30 and had to do the sound-check immediately, I can’t eat before the show anyway, so I had 2 beers instead. Pete told me that the Mission were ok with 45 minutes for us to play. That makes a huge difference! You can stretch the songs more instead of running through them. It turned out to be a great concert and we really went off stage happy and close together. I was happy to see Petra’s & Micha’s little son Jan in the audience. Wonderful people. I had another beer afterwards and went straight into my car. Julian and Vincent were waiting outside already to drive down about 450 km to get me home safely. It must have been 9:15 or so. Only one time I woke up at a petrol station in Germany where I filled up the tank and had some sweets. Slept until Julian parked the car at my front door at 4:00, went straight to bed and slept until 6:15 to get breakfast and went straight to school. Education time 8:30 until 13:30. Thanks Julian, thanks Vince!
Cologne - Stollwerk - 01.11.2011
After school, run to get the train in time, same train as yesterday, this time only to get to Cologne! At least one hour less travelling. Got to the Venue, met George (manager The Misssion) He’s such a lovely bloke and a damn good manager. We have our wonderful Silke to keep all the weight off our shoulders for that. She picked me up at the doorway. There was a woman waiting to get some pictures of us signed for her son. Silke mentioned that she was waiting already for a couple of hours. Weird, her son was the same age as my students are. Guess they would laughing their heads off :-) or keep my signings to sell them on ebay ;-) It’s weird to teach in front of a class and after midday everything changes into some rock`n`roll thing. This day was the most special one because I could be part of the party after the show. After our gig I went to see The Mission, saw ¾ of the mission set and I really liked it! What party? A party that never happened because I was snoring in my bunk straight after I saw the Mission, had some beers and went to the bus to sleep. Cologne was fantastic! Great show, wonderful audience and really ace!, forgot to eat...had to sleep. Thanks Cologne! :-)
Dead Guitars & Wayne Hussey, pic by Sara W. - thanks!
Hamburg - Grünspan - 02.11.2011
Woke up early, because I went to bed that early. Peter told me that just my hand was hanging out of the bunk and everyone had to pass by carefully :-) Must have looked funny, like a hand out of a coffin. The bus parked at the petrol station Raststätte Wildeshausen, a place I used to have a break often on my way back from Holland to Germany and when I was a car salesman, to fill up the tank. Everyone else was still asleep and I went to get a coffee. Thank god that Maren checked if everyone was in, otherwise I might still be there :-) Mikey (sound engineer of the mission) was also in our bus. He came after the show to have a drink with us and stayed. As I said before, we become a kind of family on tour. Maren is a cool bus driver, she really has everything under control and is very friendly. When we arrived in Hamburg there was only one parking space for 1 bus. Silke had to phone and organize for hours to get electricity for our tour bus. It finally worked out. Went with Hermann and Rainer for a proper breakfast on the Reeperbahn. Everywhere sex clubs and vague people who try to get you in. "Hey guys family discount for the 3 of you" a guy yelled at us. Man I havn’t even had breakfast! :-) The soundcheck was amazing, a brilliant sound and Rainer got it all together. Friendly club crew and clean toilets. Had dinner with Ralphonzo, the multi coloured genius, Peter the bold bass player and Maren the bus driver in Theresa’s at the Reeperbahn. Scrambled eggs, nice one! The gig was excellent and I really enjoyed every minute of the 45 we had. It was nice that Wayne walked on when we did Isolation, to join in and do a duet with me. We hugged goodbye on stage and afterwards, then I had to get my stuff together again, because Julian and Vince were waiting to take me back to Utrecht again. Somehow this whole tour went like a rush. Didn’t have time to enjoy it as much as I would of liked to, because somehow I just felt like I only function on stage. We left Hamburg after saying goodbye to some lovely friends. Dear Lars, Daniela, Jens and Anne...next time we’ll spend more time together. Left Hamburg at 9:15 and woke up in Utrecht, went straight to bed and woke up at 8:00 AM, because I had another 5 hours of education to do :-) Thanks to all of you out there with your warm embrace, your friendship and the love for our music. It was worth doing it again! Ralf, Pete, Petter, Schaffi , Hermann, Silke, Maren, Rainer and The Mission, thanks you all guys...rock on, rock harder. Having a cold as I write to you...bless you all!
Love Carlo
> see TOUR for more pics and links
