European Tour Diary 2018: Day 11 Goppingen

A transvestite sits on a bench in the main walkway of the commercial strip of Stuttgart.  Oversized women’s sunglasses, a sundress, and boots.  He is strumming the basic melody of “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” while juxtaposing the lyrics to “Like A Rolling Stone” in an effeminate voice.  Passersby ignore the open guitar case with seed money meant to entice a hand out.  It might be the worst busking attempt of all time.  I am sipping an espresso leaning on an outdoor table in front of a café.  I am looking at Google Maps.  I am on a mission.

I have many things I want to accomplish in Stuttgart today.  There was a plan afoot last night in the van to meet up and do something that sounded dangerously like “brunch”.  I avoid “brunch” as a personal policy as I don’t care for buffets, cheap sparkling wine, or people that love “brunch”.  I also know that this alleged “brunch” will be a Fool’s Errand.  Without strong leadership and vision, the amount of dicking around the combination of Leo, Sugar and Antje are capable of cannot be overestimated.  They had said that they were planning to eat at 11am.  There is no fucking way that will happen.  I remember last tour when the three of them got lunch at 6pm.  I am going full Lone Wolf today to avoid that madness.

By the time I get an email around 4pm saying that they are almost ready to leave Antje’s apartment, I have already eaten two meals.  I have also gone to the art museum, browsed the art museum bookstore, strolled the farmer’s market, been to three wine shops, tried on lederhosen at an upscale men’s shop, bought a bottle of scotch for Oliver’s hospitality, walked through Oktoberfest, had another coffee, wrote a blog post, sold some TV advertising, contacted the pressing plant to deal with a problem on “American Songbook”, visited my friends Andi and Anji at their music shop, discussed German microbrewing culture at a specialty shop, bought a book on German local breweries, bought chocolate, and then went to my favorite upscale supermarket (whose name I can never remember) which is like a German Dean & Deluca.  There I buy a favorably priced bottle of Roederer NV Champagne to drink at tonight’s gig.  I then head back to Oliver’s apartment to get ready for the gig tonight.  I’ve really had a terrific day so far.

Oliver and I walk to meet the team at a café by the train station.  As expected, they ate “brunch” at 445pm.  Their progress was delayed even further as Sugar stopped at several shops putting together an outfit.  She has jeans with crazy screen prints on them, a jacket with leopard pattern arms and a T-shirt that she somehow found that combines the word “Sugar” with “Stuttgart”.  The whole effect is to make her resemble one of those Japanese girls that look like they are 9 years old while still maintaining adulthood.  She does appear wildly happy though.

We slowly extract the group from the café to head to the train station.  During the walk to the train I hear grumbling about how the day has gone so far.  Leo got cranky because he couldn’t get anyone to realize the goal of getting food.  The girls had gotten cranky at Leo because he was so intense.  It had been a disaster, exactly as I had known it would be.  The gazelle continued to walk to the station while the cheetah confidently strode ahead with a chilled bottle of excellent champagne in his mic bag.  Leo starts to tell a story about the time “Greg, Ken and The Land Sailor abandoned us at a train station” that I clearly recall as “Leo/Bobby/Sandy not getting on a train we plainly told them to get on and the doors closing on their faces”.  Land Sailor looped back to get them in about three minutes to find them walking around the station yelling “Oliver!  Oliver!”. 

We take seats on the crowded commuter train amongst people heading home from work.  Leo is using his “outside voice”.  It is making the Germans very tense as he is wildly breaching the mass transit protocol of “we’re all in this together, so let’s quietly get this over with and not bother each other”.  He is completely violating their idea of personal space and custom.  He is also 100% oblivious to this.  The final straw is when he falls on the floor when he does not consider the seat automatically folds up.  A man gets up and leaves the car.  A mousy girl sitting next to him stares straight ahead as if to will this breach of etiquette away by mental focus.  Thankfully we arrive at our stop.

The plan was that we will take a train outside of town to rendezvous with Christoph and the van at the gig.  The show is at his father-in-law’s bar, a small grungy pub that reminds me of The Beer Mug in Erie.  We had to differentiate this from our normal Stuttgart show as it is so close, so we have decided to do a set of punk rock material mixed with all new stuff we just started working on that hasn’t been played on the tour.  This will either be fun or a complete disaster.  The bar is adorned in two major points of focus, 1. The Stuttgart soccer team and 2. Motorhead.  At almost every club we play on this tour, there is a shrine to Lemmy somewhere behind the bar.  He has become the new Johnny Cash.

We cram into a small space in the back room.  We set up on the floor, Old School style.  Christoph’s kids are here as are many of his social circle.  He must have twisted some arms to make them come out on a Monday night to see a band that many of them saw two nights ago.  It’s a total friends and family night.  We pose for a picture in the front window to join the gallery of “stars” that have played here like Antiseen and Joe Buck.  I open my Roederer Champagne and demand appropriate glassware just to tweak Christoph. Antje and Sugar see this and hone in.  We have to play early as the bar is in the middle of a residential area.  Let’s go.

The set is fun.  Some of the new stuff sounds great, some not so great.  It’s the first time we’ve ever played “I Don’t Care”, “How Do?” or “Ward C” in front of anyone, so the crowd cuts us some slack.  We bomb through the punk stuff.  A guy standing on a table in the back of the room suddenly falls on the floor.  A drunk girl in the front wearing a creepy silver dragon necklace becomes belligerent.  The PA isn’t so good, the room is too small, it’s too crowded, and we are too loud.  It’s everything a rock show is supposed to be. 

       

After the show the super drunk dragon necklace woman wants to take someone home.  Anyone.  Most of the bar receives and then declines her offer.  Her friend pours her out of the bar and out into the street.  Christoph and Antje appear with a sack of doner kebaps which we devour like angry raccoons.  I hadn’t even noticed how hungry I was.  I buy a Motorhead themed shirt from the bar, only after leaving discovering it is too big for me.  I must remember to find someone that is an XL who would appreciate it.

We make the short drive back to Stuttgart in the van.  Oliver and I get dropped off by Goldmark’s and make the short walk back to his apartment in the quiet of the sleeping city.  It was a good Monday night.