RETROACTIVE TOUR DIARY: TEN THINGS I LOVE ABOUT DAYS 4 AND 5 IN FRANKFURT, DORTMUND AND LIEGE
1. The way the service on Ryanair actually isn't that bad and the drinks aren't that expensive and you don't actually feel like you're going to fall out of the sky, but they make up for it by just kind of being dicks about everything.
2. And by getting you lost! We flew, not into Frankfurt, but into Frankfurt-Hahn, which turns out to have very little to do with Franfurt at all. We just got more lost from there on the way to pick up the band's equipment in Dortmund, but it gave us the chance to try the BEST DÖNER EVER in this little shop there after we met this friendly dude Thilo who gave us our drums and shit. I mean best ever, even better than from the kiosk in front of Tower Records in Shibuya and, I assume, anywhere in Turkey. There really are a lot more Türken here than there were when I was a kid and that's all to the good, says I.
3. Run-in with drug dealers in Maastricht, because Luke was using the payphone to call for directions and they drove by and got all sad and mad and bad because he didn't want to buy drugs, cuz c'mon, you're on a payphone and you're not looking for drugs? Can't you afford ein Handy (THAT IS GERMAN FOR CELLPHONE)? I think they wanted to make trouble but not enough to get out of their boom car. Later, they got a little rad.
4. Luke's amazing friend Aurora, who let us stay in her huge, wonderful apartment in the fairytale streets of Liege, before we got all jaded by fairytale streets. She is tops.
5. The band, for putting up with me while I fucked around with computer and camera shit. Thanks dudes!
6. The guy who met us to take us to the venue: "I'm in a band too. We're called 'Hollywood Porn Stars.'" Sadly, we (just gonna say "we." Easier) were not to be playing with them that night.
7. The monkish Belgian bar we snuck out to, where they drank solid Wallonian ales and I pointed to random shit off the menu, which turned out t be a shot made of some kind of flowers and then a beer-mixed-with-peach-juice and then tea, and the hairless bartender gave me this awesomely French "You're right, buddy, you better slow down" eyeroll.
8. Or like, NOT so sadly, because the opening band were these adorable teens called The Mash, and the guitar player was all tossing his hair and self-consciously trying to stand on the amp and then sheepishly backing down, and the bass player had a ponytail and a black silk shirt and was all serious and their girlfriends were tiny and sneaking much beers. They sounded like Arctic Monkeys, but captured my heart nevertheless. If those guys from Madrid had shown up I'd have pushed them out of the way like so much slightly-older-and-less-cute-lamb. Their mothers clapped loudest of all and then took them right home to bed.
9. How do I say . . . . this kind of being the first night where I wasn't all "Europe! Wheee!" and eerything got all normal and I could just hang out and sell shit and listen to the band play. They are seriously good and deserve every European tour out there. Really, you should check them out.
10. This real twitchy dude who thought so too and made me dance with him like all night long. Or maybe this French dude outside who I nailed with the van door by accident and then he screwed up his face and ran away crying JUST LIKE A YOU-KNOW-WHAT! Or the German who came out all drunk and jolly because our license plates said we were from Germany just like him and then when we weren't he got so voll of Weltschmerz. Or sundry others.
2. And by getting you lost! We flew, not into Frankfurt, but into Frankfurt-Hahn, which turns out to have very little to do with Franfurt at all. We just got more lost from there on the way to pick up the band's equipment in Dortmund, but it gave us the chance to try the BEST DÖNER EVER in this little shop there after we met this friendly dude Thilo who gave us our drums and shit. I mean best ever, even better than from the kiosk in front of Tower Records in Shibuya and, I assume, anywhere in Turkey. There really are a lot more Türken here than there were when I was a kid and that's all to the good, says I.
3. Run-in with drug dealers in Maastricht, because Luke was using the payphone to call for directions and they drove by and got all sad and mad and bad because he didn't want to buy drugs, cuz c'mon, you're on a payphone and you're not looking for drugs? Can't you afford ein Handy (THAT IS GERMAN FOR CELLPHONE)? I think they wanted to make trouble but not enough to get out of their boom car. Later, they got a little rad.
4. Luke's amazing friend Aurora, who let us stay in her huge, wonderful apartment in the fairytale streets of Liege, before we got all jaded by fairytale streets. She is tops.
5. The band, for putting up with me while I fucked around with computer and camera shit. Thanks dudes!
6. The guy who met us to take us to the venue: "I'm in a band too. We're called 'Hollywood Porn Stars.'" Sadly, we (just gonna say "we." Easier) were not to be playing with them that night.
7. The monkish Belgian bar we snuck out to, where they drank solid Wallonian ales and I pointed to random shit off the menu, which turned out t be a shot made of some kind of flowers and then a beer-mixed-with-peach-juice and then tea, and the hairless bartender gave me this awesomely French "You're right, buddy, you better slow down" eyeroll.
8. Or like, NOT so sadly, because the opening band were these adorable teens called The Mash, and the guitar player was all tossing his hair and self-consciously trying to stand on the amp and then sheepishly backing down, and the bass player had a ponytail and a black silk shirt and was all serious and their girlfriends were tiny and sneaking much beers. They sounded like Arctic Monkeys, but captured my heart nevertheless. If those guys from Madrid had shown up I'd have pushed them out of the way like so much slightly-older-and-less-cute-lamb. Their mothers clapped loudest of all and then took them right home to bed.
9. How do I say . . . . this kind of being the first night where I wasn't all "Europe! Wheee!" and eerything got all normal and I could just hang out and sell shit and listen to the band play. They are seriously good and deserve every European tour out there. Really, you should check them out.
10. This real twitchy dude who thought so too and made me dance with him like all night long. Or maybe this French dude outside who I nailed with the van door by accident and then he screwed up his face and ran away crying JUST LIKE A YOU-KNOW-WHAT! Or the German who came out all drunk and jolly because our license plates said we were from Germany just like him and then when we weren't he got so voll of Weltschmerz. Or sundry others.