Sorry for the lack of updates, I thought it'd be best to do all the Poland shows in one fell swoop, so, without further ado, here is our seven days in Poland.
Day 1:
The drive was short, only about an hour or two. We got into town, and Persil (our driver) was stoked, cause this is his first time to Poland. We got the square that the venue was apparently in, but couldn't find it. We finally called and they said that it was on the opposite side of this big red bricked building. We went around and found some vehicles with trailers, we figured we'd found it. Persil bounds onto the sidewalk and across a grassy knoll type thing, polish off-roading. We start loading in and find that there is not only barely enough room for the gear to load in to, but there's barely enough room on stage for anything but a drum kit and a guitar cab.
The food they gave us was pretty good. It was pasta in a sort of 'chicken noodle without the chicken' thing, plus some veggies, and what looked l Ike penne with sauce and veggies. Meanwhile, the local band goes and asks everyone in city of ships and Rosetta if they could use our amps (not just cabs, amps) because they didn't being theirs (I guess, they assumed we just roll over and say yes, but, no way). Everyone told them no, so I'm assuming they're making arrangements to get their amps here, or to borrow someone else's.
Day 2:
The stage was incomprehensibly small. We had one guitar cab posted up on it's case off the side of the stage, and the drums barely had enough arm room. I actually had a bit more room that Rob [from city of ships], just cause we had to make more room for Matt's cab on the left side.
Polish fans are crazy. One guys asked Armine if he would sign his girlfriends breast, but luckily he did not, cause that would be weird. He stated, "I want to be able to look at it when I f**k her tonight." Creepy people.
The band that was asking for amps ended up bringing in their amps, and we saw why they wanted to borrow them, because all they had were tiny practice amps. The show went well, people were stoked, and Armine crowd surfed, and some dude even got on hands and knees and bowed to him.
Whether it was the promoter, or one of the dudes in another band, we stayed at their parents house, which is stellar, and we were treated to a fantastic breakfast.
Heading out to Gdansk now, 200 people are rsvp'd on last.fm I think, should be a crazy night.
Murphy's law states: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong...and did go wrong. Armine said, as we were getting off stage, "best and worst show ever."
It started out with the venue not having a drum rug. We ended up borrowing the rug from the first band. They had to leave right after they played, but they had members from Warsaw, and said they'd be at the show, so we could return it to them there.
Now that I think about it, I really hope we remembered to load it into the van.
To start out everything, the resonant (the front) head of the kick drum had busted through the night before, and only got worse as time went on. By the end of the show tonight, it was pretty much useless.
Secondly, one of the photographers at the show (there were many) jumped behind us to get a different or better vantage point. During out first song, she was roaming around back there taking pictures, and ended up knocking out the speaker cable for Matt's cab closest to him. The worst part about this, is that that cab already had a problem with the jack, and it had no nut to hold it in place (it was taped in). So, because of this, matt had to get his tools, borrow my flashlight, and perform surgery on the cab to retrieve the jack to continue playing. While this was going on, Dave was also having problems. His bass could no longer be heard through the amp. He checked different cables, the battery for the bass, and even inputs on the head, still nothing. Finally when Matt was done fixing the cab, he helped Dave fiddle around with things and soon enough, we had bass again.
We managed to finish the first song after that, but the crowd had gotten considerably more unruly. They advanced closer to us and our gear, and this venue not having a stage, Matt, Dave, and Armine were in real danger of having their pedals trod upon, unplugged, or broken.
During the third song, someone managed to kick something connected to Matt's pedalboard and unplug it for a second. He got it back in and we continued. We got through our second song pretty much without a hitch. However, it was our 4th song that made us realize that we were gonna have to stop before all of our gear was destroyed.
We actually got through most of the song when all of a sudden everything turned off except the drums I was playing...but that's only because I'm not powered by electricity (as far as I know). Someone had thrashed and kicked out wherever the gear was plugged into and everything died. After a bit of searching, we found the power again, but we didn't even attempt to finish to song. The crowd had been shouting out certain songs they wanted to hear, so for our last song we decided to pick the one we heard being yelled the most, play it, the get the he'll off stage.
We made it through the song with no problems, though the crowd did pick up Armine and crowd surf him to the ceiling (something that seems to be happening more and more often since we saw it first occur in Arcada, California the summer before). After that, I hauled ass off stage and went and sat on the stairwell in the band area. The crowd kept on shouting for one more, and eventually they just resorted to chanting our band name over and over again. Thankfully, Rob from city of ships came along and started breaking down the drums a little just to let the crowd know we were finished, and also, to be there if anyone got rowdy because of that, and decide to start trashing gear.
All in all, it was a fun show, though, we coulda done without all the gear problems, but you know what they say, "when it rains, it pours."
We're staying at one of the promoters house. Her and her husband live about an hour away from where the venue was. Everyone was skeptical, and Mike, our driver, really didn't want to drive for an hour. Everyone else was kinda bummed, because I think we were originally promised hotel rooms, but no one knows what happened to that. The were saying they hope it's not a squat, or that it's not a rundown old warehouse or garage that people think is okay to live in (this has actually happened to us before), and is not something to be embarrassed about.
We drove the hour listening to loud punk music and later some softer 80's stuff. When we got close, the other dudes were partially bummed because of how the neighborhood looked. It wasn't looking very good. But dint judge a book by it's cover, because this house turned out to be absolutely beautiful. They have a special room (more like a whole wing of their house) dedicated for bands to sleep. Because I snore pretty badly, the others find as may ways of exiling me from the rest of them. So know I'm writing this in my own private room on the first floor. Pretty swanky.
We're on to another show tomorrow in Poland of which the city I can't remember, and probably can't pronounce. More fun and crazy fans ahead...oh, did I mention I got asked by four different people if they could have a drum stick. Two of them didn't even care if it was a broken one, they just wanted something, but I told them I had to have the sticks last the whole tour, and can't five away sticks that aren't already broken from normal playing.
Day 3:
Wonderful sleep in a beautiful house in Poland. The view out back is absolutely astounding. Our hosts had bread, tea, coffee, spreads, and even devil'd eggs waiting for us when we woke up, along with listening to Jimi Hendrix, which was just awesome. Off to Poznan today. It was a 4hr drive, but the house we stayed at was an hour in the direction we were going, so I think we only have a 3hr drive ahead of us, yahoo.
Took a pretty long time getting everyone out of the house, but eventually we were on our way. We had to stop for an oil change because the engine was starting to smell funny when It was started up. It is hot today, and very sunny, in direct contrast to most of the weather we've had on this tour so far. The promoter, his wife, and their friend went ahead to Poznan while we got the oil changed, saying they'll meet us there. So now, we wait.
There were a few problems with the sound, mostly cause it seemed like the sound guy didn't know what he was doing, but overall everything went well. There was one really drunk guy that not only called the promoters wife inappropriate names, but also heckled city of ships, and told them they shouldn't bother coming back to Poland, or something like that, he was a douche.
Once we got on stage, the show went off without a hitch. Well, one hitch. One of Matt's delay pedals stopped working. We were able to finish the show without it, but he was kinda bummed. Later he was able to fix it easily without having to find a soldering iron. Armine got punished a little, and I was bummed to see that an old friend from 2009's Europe tour was there, but unable to hangout. Ola helped out with our show in Wroclaw at club Firlej, and is also a super stoked fan. I only got to talk to her briefly as she was leaving, but it was nice seeing her again.
Kinda weird now, seeing the space we're given to sleep that we had to split up with 6 dudes at the club sleeping area, and 2 had to go with the promoter to a hostel, because there definitely is enough room for all up here. Now, I know they want to be super hospitable, but we could have easily saved them the cost of 2 extra dudes at the hostel.
Tomorrow is Thursday, I (once again) don't remember the name of the city we're playing. I have to wake up early and try and find a shop that sells US to European power adapters. I've had no luck borrowing anyone else's, as they are using them, so both my laptop and iPod battery are dead. Only my iPad remains, and I only have a little more than a half charge. Here's to hoping.
Day 4:
Awoke much earlier than everyone so I packed up and headed downstairs. I put my backpack and jacket in the van and went on to try and find an electronics shop that sold US to European adapters. No luck, but when I got back, for some reason the door into the room where we slept (which I had to walk up four flights of stairs to get to) was locked, with no secondary entrance. So I went back downstairs and figured I'd sit till people woke up and made their way down.
2 hours later, sitting on the steps at the bottom of where we slept, and I finally hear familiar voices.
We wandered around for a while, had some pirogues and coffee, and I finally found an adapter, totally stoked. I also picked up a backup snare head. We finally started out, and ended up stopping at a truck stop. Got a hot dog, got something to drink, and Rob ended up stealing a polish version of the animated Pocahontas. It. Is. Really. Awful. Quite possibly the worst animation I've seen in a very long time.
We arrived late as per usual. There were already a lot of people waiting as we loaded in. The stage is huge, and normally it would make me nervous, but from our previous encounters with really tiny stages, I've come to love stages that don't thrash my elbows against the back wall or bass cab.
There were some various feedback problems with city of ships set, which I think is attributed to the lack of competent sound guys in Poland, whatever. Everything during our set seemed to sound okay, from my point of view anyway. Something we've come to expect from our oversees touring is encores. Hate planning for them, but an encore just feels like a let down when you blow all your energy and the flow on the main set, then you're asked to do an encore. So, we've been planning on holding a song back to allow for an encore if needs be, but we don't force it, I try to get off stage after the last song as soon as possible, and never a second encore. I learned that the hard way our first show ever in Wroclaw in 2009. We did 3 encores, and I was ready to die. So, we save a song for last and I hope that I haven't blown all my energy.
On a side note, I've been interrupted 3 times while writing this backstage in Warsaw by people wanting autographs. The idea of autographs freaks me out. Two girls came and sought me out in the dressing room, one wanted me to sign her pant leg. I think that is in the running for weirdest autograph given along with that dude that asked me to sign his beer can in 2009.
Day 5:
We stayed at a hostel last night somewhere in Warsaw. The digs were nice, but we were woken up early this morning telling us that we had to leave (11am checkout) even though we were specifically told that there was no time we had to be up. There was no breakfast, but we ended up at a nearby mall and we got coffee and some sandwiches.
It's raining again, but this time it's a little bit more welcome, mostly because the last few days have been so hot and humid. We're now on the road to the next show Chelm (no idea in the pronunciation, only a couple more Poland shows.
Poland is one of those places that can seem completely normal one minute, and completely absurd the next. Take for instance, the empty hall we entered for the show, waiting for people to arrive. People were off, doing their thing at various tables socializing, and for the most part, the whole room just looked like a restaurant where all the patrons were in terrible need of a waitress. The hint of the band starting up as Rob starts checking the mic brings everyone from the woodwork and start to surround the stage (at a good 5ft cushion between them and the stage), and now the room is filled up with crazy polish kids of all kinds. Some of these people don't look a day over 15 or 16, but are standing around drinking beers, laughing and enjoying, there's even a couple dudes here in army fatigue pants, and jack boots.
So Armine ended up spitting in some dudes face tonight. Some skinhead dude was taunting him and being extremely annoying, so he did (what we're going to refer to as the 'reverse Henry Rollins') the only thing he could think of, and that's to spit in his face. We later were very worried about while we were loading out about being jumped by the dudes skinhead friends, but nothing ended up happening. We're staying at the promoters house, it's small but cozy.
Day 6:
Weren't able to get the wifi working last night, so everyone is itching to contact girlfriends and such. On the road to Lublin, only an hour drive, thank god. The 'showers' here are basically bathtubs with shower attachments, but with no shower curtain, so the water gets everywhere if you're not careful.
The room we played in was almost as big as the stage we played on in Szeczin, really tiny. At one point people pushed up so much, that they ended up pushing Armine into the drums, and knocking them over temporarily in the middle of a song. We played well, kinda. I messed up a couple parts just cause I couldn't see Matt too clearly for certain changes, but I think it went okay considering that a photographer was also preventing Dave from clicking his pedals, and sometimes stepping on them herself.
Tomorrow is our last day in Poland, in Łodz, which is actually pronounced like 'woodge' which always confuses me.
Day 7:
Dave was throwing up when I tried to brush my teeth and change. They said he tried to fall asleep on the floor last night, but was dragged away by one of the dudes that lives here, and apparently slept in the room with the French band.
We're having breakfast and watching the new Meloncash videos on YouTube (We've been following this dude on YouTube called Meloncash who is an amazing dude, so check him out. We've been watching his videos, and listening to him while in the van, as well as quoting him all the time. http://www.youtube.com/user/meloncash spread the word).
About a 4hr drive to Łodz ("woodge") today, in the rain, and we still have to load up the gear.
The rain wasn't here when we got to Łodz, but there was a 4 story load, ugh. The room we're playing in is like a giant studio (more like an artists studio) apartment, columns in the middle and everything. There are 3 other bands on the show besides us and city of ships. There is an electronic act, the openers who played with us a few nights ago, and then a solo acoustic act from England that was actually really good, but reminded me of radiohead a bit much. It took about half an hour to look for a drum rug, and we ended up just pulling, nay, ripping the rugs off the back of the stage and put on the floor. Lots of weird people here, and lots of drunk people here. City of ships seem to be having some electrical buzzing problems, hope we don't have the same.
We have a hostel setup for tonight which means wifi, at that point I'll try to write a summation of our polish shows, and post this blog. I enjoyed myself mostly, but some of the other dudes are saying, "get me the f**k out of Poland now." we've had some hard times here, and many of the places we've played can be equated (quoting Armine here) "...to some of the worse parts of the US."
Right now we are listening to a weird 3-piece jam band from (if I heard correctly) Austria in a room full of only 7 people, not including our entourage. Very unimpressed. We only played 4 songs out of respect for having a band playing after us, and a ton of people were bummed because of it. To round out the night, some dude told Eric (from city of ships) that, even though he was appreciative, he said our time in Poland was wasted. Eric later repeated this information later to us as we were packing up. Some random girl, who we later found our was a girlfriend of one of the members of that god awful last band, then proceeded to misinterpret what he said as his own words, walked by us and said sarcastically, "sorry your time in Poland was wasted." Eric tried to explain to her that she didn't understand the context in which he said it, and she just walked away saying, "whatever" so he replied, "I'm sorry you interpreted a strangers comment wrong and attempted to make them feel bad. You're drunk, go die in a car accident."
And that ladies and gentlemen, is our time in Poland. We're at a hostel tonight, then it's a horrible 10hrs to Slovakia tomorrow. I'll continue with regular updates from now on, I just felt the entirety of Poland need their own entry.
Good night.
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