We had a bit of a scare along the way. We stopped to exchange some money and the van wouldn't start up. Rosetta are cursed with vans. We don't know where it comes from, but something is seriously wrong with our luck and our tour vehicles. Eventually we got the van working again, but the company we rented from was apparently no help in remedying the problem. I think next time we're in Europe, we'll rent from the German company we did last year, they seemed to have their s**t together way more, and treated us a lot better.
The kings destroy guys went to some hot springs nearby and swam, the other dudes wandered into the city, and I stayed at the van with the wifi, catching up on both the world, and on some sleep.
The dinner was exceptional. I simply devoured as much of the chicken wings as humanly possible, then snacked out on the fruit cakes and puff pastries they brought.
I was told by the promoter that I apparently (or so I understood) got some people in trouble last time we were here by what I posted on this blog. I don't know how they were affected, but I apologize only that it had such a negative effect (if any at all), but I write on here what I see. I capture my experiences and put them in here. There are certain things I omit on here to save people that are closer to me, or who I know will be impacted by whatever I would post here (though, for the longest time, I didn't think anyone actually read this). However, I guarantee, that if I have no relation to you, or am unaware of the impact my words might have on you or your social world, I'm going to post on here the stupid and funny things I see you do.
But I digress...
The people here are as crazy as I remember. It was a hot one, and really wish we had not left the fan in Hamburg. I'll probably have to go out and buy another one, but I don't know if it'll be worth it it's having only 6 or so shows to left.
I am both happy and sad at the fact that people often request encores when we tour overseas. It's flattering that they like our music so much they want more, but it's also tiring in that we put our all into the set, all our energy, and when they request the encore I feel bad because that extra song won't be played with the same enthusiasm as the rest of them mostly due to all my feeling and last bit of energy went into everything else. Since touring more overseas, we've come to adjust our levels while playing to allow for an encore if requested, but now I feel, bye doing that, we're not giving the best show possible for the regular part of the set. To wrap up, I'm not saying "don't ask for encores" I'm simply saying, be sympathetic to the fact that the music we play is very emotional and tiring to play, and playing multiple encores not only wears us out, but also degrades the quality of the delivery for every subsequent song played.
On that note, I'm also kind of sad that we requested stage dives in return for us playing another song. I don't know if people think we're joking about that, but we are not. We love stage diving. We want you to jump around, float around in top of people, and it ended up only one person stage dived during our encore of Ayil last night.
Now that I know he reads this, thanks so much to Milan for always taking care of us and for putting on rawkin' shows for us. If we tour Europe again next summer, we'll be sure to be back.
During the course of this tour I've been reading 'The Picture of Dorian Gray." it's quite an interesting read. The focus on beauty and what privileges and horrors come from it. Before ever reading it, I had only gotten the reference to it from 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' never knowing the true background of Dorian Gray. A classic story. I think I'm on the last few chapters now. It's always fun to have something to escape into, even when on tour. If anyone has any suggestions for books, I'm open to any. I love stuff like Dorian Gray, and weird sci-fi stuff. I have a bunch of Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri's 'The Divine Comedy', and a number of other random stuff I've downloaded on my iPad. Last year I read the whole hitchhikers guide to the galaxy series. Some dude brought us books in Wiesbaden too, and we're eternity grateful for that.
We're a very nerdy band. We're not the partying type, the get-drunk-after-the-show and hit-on-any-women-in-sight kind of band. We're the pack up, load out, read a book/comic and go to sleep, kind of band.
It was a lot easier task getting though the Croatian border this time. We had legit paperwork, and didn't get searched. However, it did take a good while to go over our paperwork, I guess to make sure it was legit.
We're playing the same venue as we did in 2009, but they've definitely made some much needed improvements. There actual ventilation in the main room, and they increased the size of the stage so we can actually fit it. I still think th at its going to be an incredible sweat box once we get bodies in here for the show, but right now it's quite bearable temperatures. We also found a box ventilator, similar to the one we left behind by accident in Hamburg.
There are 3 giant bags of cheese in the fridge backstage, and nothing makes me happier than cheese.
