Warsaw & Wroclaw

Day 5:

Warsaw-

The drive was fairly short, but it being around 80 degrees fahrenheit and crammed into a van with 8 other dudes, it gets a bit crazy. 

We had sandwich fixings waiting for us when we arrived, then we loaded on the stage and sound checked. 

We were offered dinner, but none of thought it was a good idea to eat before playing or we'd get sick. So I had a salami and cheese sandwich, and we did our pre-show exercises.

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Even before playing it was already extremely hot and humid, and I was sweating buckets. So I knew the stage while playing will be the ultimate heat. Luckily though, we got the fan this year. 

The polish fans are always some of the craziest fans. They went bonkers throughout the whole set, and for our last song in particular, there were much anticipated stage dives. They even all sat down for the quiet middle section of Wake, and then blasted back up for the finale. Poland is always crazy fun to play. 

We slept in the hostel next door to the venue. It was extremely hot still, with very little air movement. I chose to take my shower in the morning because I end up sweating through the night, so taking a shower at night was futile. 

Day 6:

Wroclaw-

Still hot this morning, and very humid. We made a stop off at a Tesco, which is like a grocery store combined with a small mall-like structure. We got some breakfast for ourselves. I had sushi, and it was nothing spectacular, but it was nice having an all inclusive meal with fish, veggies, rice, etc. 

Now on the road to Wroclaw. Still hot, but we hit a bit of rain clouds, and I think we saw that it's going to be cooler in Wroclaw. This is our last show in Poland for the tour, and in the city, and at the same venue we first played ever in Europe in 2009. So a bit of nostalgia, and a mess of good fun. 

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The show was awesome and crazy, and we had a lot of fun. People seem to be down with our new 'no encore' policy, but you have to understand, we do it not because we don't about the fans hearing the songs they love. It's about curating a set that we think fits the crowd, and then playing it to its fullest intensity up till the very last hit. When we are requested to do an encore, all our energy has been already spent on our planned set, and now you're getting a half-assed attempt to muster whatever energy we have left to poop out another song, and we felt that instead of that scenario, we'd just plan for s longer set, play the songs to their maximum intensity, and leave the crowd with an awe inspiring performance rather than ending on a low less energetic encore. 

Sleepy bye time at a pretty nice hostel in Wroclaw. Off to Vienna tomorrow.