tour report - berlin

i woke up in berlin to see other tour buses pulling up next to ours. so, the venue where we're playing (columbia halle) has two main halls. we're in the A hall, and apparently franz ferdinand is playing in B. we didn't actually see any of them, but we did enjoy tricking janosch and da5id into walking into the wrong hall, only to get turned out by the security over there. oh, the things you'll do for a laugh on tour...

the venue was pretty massive, but the sound in there was quite strange. mesh had to spend extra time trying to get things sounding right. aaron split off from us to go check out what's left of the berlin wall, taking a train to checkpoint charlie. i'd seen this the last time i was in berlin, so i wasn't really interested. in the meantime, da5id wanted to get a haircut, so we set off in search of a place to do that. luckily we were in a very cool neighborhood, and there was plenty of cool stuff to see, just wandering around. sandra was able to make a recommendation, but the place was closed. we just happened to find another place, and da5id was able to get his haarschnitt.

so, sandra was leaving the tour in berlin, we had to do something special to say good-bye. usually, when we're involved in something like this, it involves some horrible prank (like when we covered haujobb in fat ladies panties, or threw deli meats at velvet acid christ). however, at some point during the tour, sandra had said "i always wanted to be a keyboard dummy onstage", and we were like, "well, here's your big break". it was pretty cool, she pretty much became a different person altogether up there, lots of makeup and wigs and everything else. it looked great!

so, we soundchecked and immediately understood the problem with mesh's soundcheck...the room acoustics were kind of terrible from the stage perspective. add to this problem, the worlds worst soundguy...i mean, i don't want to complain too much, and almost every venue has had a very cool, very professional soundguy. not so in berlin, which just happened to be one of the most important shows for us. this guy was not interested in making us sound good, accused us of having bad equipment, etc etc. we were not happy with the soundcheck at all, but what could we really do? as the support act, you can't complain too much, and if you do, you're going to get even less. so, we just tried to stay professional and work with the guy to try and get a decent sound. finally, the guy just said "your soundcheck is finished" and walked away from the desk. wellll, ok then...

janosch came back from his soundcheck and said "this soundguy is not even a person, just a monster...he doesn't want to do his work", which pretty much summed it all up. meanwhile, stefan herwig was hanging out backstage, and we chatted him up a bit while getting ready for the show. he told us that the dudes from de/vision were in the audience for the show as well, and to do a good show.

we tried. i promise, we really did. in my mind, the berlin show is one of the best performances of the tour. i think we had good energy onstage, aaron and i hit all of our cues, da5id put on a good performance, and we had sandra playing keys, which makes it at least something different. the german superfans thought the show was great! unfortunately, as we expected, it apparently was one of the worst sounding shows for us on the entire tour. the audience was totally unmoved, but while i was onstage i sort of wrote it off as the same as any audience in a major american city (they don't give a shit in new york or los angeles, either, you know?). we couldn't really tell what was happening onstage, since the acoustics were so bad to begin with, but after the show stefan told us that the mix was almost entirely guitar and vocals, which is never a good sign...those are the two elements that should be pushed furthest back in the mix, in my opinion! apparently the backing tracks were barely a part of the sound mix, and of course, the backing tracks are doing the majority of the bass synths, and drums (the two most important parts of the show!)...

backstage after the show, stefan told us that the show was terrible, and the de/vision guys thought we were shit. awesome, just awesome. how could it get any worse? all that was left to do was to go drink, watch mesh, and try to put on a happy face for anyone that would actually buy anything from us. surprisingly, sales weren't utterly terrible, but they also weren't great. this was sandra's last night of the tour, so she said goodbye to everyone and headed home after load-out. i don't honestly remember anything after this point.

you broke my heart, berlin. the tour won't be the same after this show...maybe we can make up for it in the future...

we would like to thank sandra for all of her hard work and help on the tour, and special thanks for performing with us under less than ideal circumstances!!

and a big FUCK YOU to the soundguy at columbia halle-a for ruining what should have been the greatest show of the tour!!