26 Aug 2014

German trip part 2



mmmmmmm tasty

Wow, we had an unbelievably awesome time in Mainz, not sure how we're gonna follow that really.
But here goes anyway.


It's good that  we have a satnav, cos  getting out of Mainz was a nightmare. . . . . and it's bad because it took 20 mins to find a signal. Drove around and around about 7 times before we finally found a way out, and then we were on the road to Dortmund. Before we left, we decided that a 'small B&B' was really not gonna do it so we booked into the band hotel for the next 2 nights. Hah, guys, you cannot avoid us! And so much for a cheapo trip......

Lots of driving later, we eventually arrived at the hotel, checked in and sat outside with a beer or two. Chuck appeared, going for an afternoon run, and said that Alice  and Ryan were off playing golf.  Soooooo we hung about for a while, hoping he would come back, but ................he didn't ......
But James (sound) and the Magoo (merch) arrived and we had a couple of drinks with them. And then Diane (pyro) and Chuck (Glens drum tech) turned up so we decided to go out for a meal.
We wandered on down to the nearby train station, and Diane and I photographed the station sign so we'd know where to come back to, and then we got rather confused as to how to pay for our tix. But we all ended up with some kind of ticket, so that must be ok, right?
Wrong. The Train Police got on at the next stop, examined our tix and told us that we should have validated them first (?), and that there was a fine of blah de blah blah -  but we played the dumb tourists, and he let us off as we were obviously ignorant Hah!!   and we eventually made it into town.

Where there was nobody. Like a ghost town it was. But after a bit of walking, we found a lovely square with several restaurants around it and picked one with lots of steak on the menu. There followed a gorgeous meal, peppered with  tour bus conversation about various incidents, including the No Show of Pyro at Cardiff on the first RTD show. Pat (oldest serving roadie) apparently had his head over one of the outlets, and, as she didn't want to treat the audience to the spectacle of Pat running around with his hair on fire, Diane had to shelve it at the last minute. She also told us of a game they play, you have to put the the word 'ANAL' at the front of any name of car. Works spectacularly with lots of American cars, not so much with UK ones. Dodge, Saturn, Viper. Kompressor, lol.........kept us in stitches for a while!
After dinner, we found a bar, was probably the only one left open, and managed to cram in several more drinks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . including several Jaegerbombs, I think, although I'm sure I didn't have one, I hate the stuff.
Dagget

Dagget too

I can't even remember stumbling back to the hotel, but I guess we got off at the right stop, cos I woke up the next morning  in the right place. We went downstairs for brekkie, and encountered Tommy and Chuck....was lovely to chat to them :). Couldn't actually eat anything at this point, I was so hungover, but we took a couple of videos and made some banana art for Sparky. Bloody good job we decided to stay here 2 nights, as they were all due to check out before going for soundcheck at about 4pm today., so if we'd stuck to our original plane, we'd have missed them..... Alice was apparently already out at golf, so we'd missed him again and Steve never got to play that game with him. Mebbe next time!!

We had a look round the town of Dortmund  then (remembering to validate our train tickets this time) and had an excellent lunch in the same square as last night's dinner. 
Back to the hotel for a snooze and then down to the foyer to meet up with the band  before  they  went off to soundcheck.  
 

And they were happy to take photos as usual, bless'em so we took lots -  Glen took the one of Ryan with us, and Ryan took the one of Glen with us!"!! Had a long chat with Kyler about, oh, this and that. He's such a nice bloke.
I was gonna ask Toby for passes, but he was stalking around moaning at all the hotel staff  because his baggage wasn't stacked exactly like he wanted it, so I figured it would probably be safer not to.

They were about to set off before Ori arrived - 'have to do soundcheck without her', somebody said.............'Will sound the same anyway', somebody else said..................

She still hadn't shown up at this point - she'd gone somewhere else for the day off, but then she appeared just as they were getting in the van.. She signed my jacket, and Carlotta's beautiful painting of her (we'd taken her folder of pictures with us in hopes of getting them all signed) and then they all disappeared off.

Tonight, we decided we were NOT going to rush getting ready, NOT going to be late getting to the venue, and definitely NOT going to forget the tix. So after a leisurely make up sesh, we strolled down to the foyer, took some pics and set off for the venue. Quite a few people q'ing, but we know people at the front, lol. Steve had the usual people asking for photos with him, and quite a few people took pics of us both. Bumped into Colin from Chedworth, it's a small world!

Somehow we managed to get in first (coulda got in earlier if I kept my last nights Vip pass on, must remember to always wear one just in case!) and landed the front row middle spot - where we belong, lol.
Janice was there too, in spite of having missed her plane out (think she missed the one home too!!) and the show was brilliant, I love to sing along at the top of my voice, (it's so loud even I can't hear myself) trying to catch beads, actually getting some dollar bills, AND Steve and I caught Alice's whip!! Ok, well Steve had much more of it than I did, but I did actually get my hands on it too!



 LOVE seeing Alice live, it's the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Or off actually. But it all goes so quick -  by the time we got to the covers, I was thinking 'Gotta make the most of this, it's gonna be ages till I see him again'.
But it was over all too soon, and we made our way out to the foyer to 'mingle'. And get Steve's photo taken with loads more people. One day I'm going to be his agent and start charging for it...........



LET ME HEAR YOU!!
All I need is a little speed. . .


Bujie waits for the Man Behind The Mask



 
Got to chat to the Argentinian lady with the support band Fyre, and several other Alice fans, who were impressed that we dressed up. Germans don't really do that sort of thing.
Janice throws us a balloon


Really?
Then, being the stalkers that we are, we decided to go look for the tours buses with Jean Yves and some weirdo that was hanging around with him. Off we set across the car park , trying to find the back of the massive building. Nearly got lost, but then we spotted a 'short cut' -  which unfortunately involved climbing over a railing fence. I'm far too unfit to climb fences, but somehow I made it without getting spiked. And then we spotted the buses on the far side of a car park. Unfortunately said car park was guarded by a 3 horned winged scary beast....... well ok, a snotty attendant who wouldn't let us past. So we never got another opportunity to sample the drinks from the crew bus fridge (us) or chat with Alice while he tries on your specs (JY). The weirdo bloke took a fabulous pic on his phone of Stephen and me in the dark looking spooky, (make up was running by this time) but as I've never heard from him again, I guess I won't be seeing it any time soon. Unless you know who the hell he was JY?

So we had to give up Busquest in the end, and go home. To our Alice-less and bandless, suddenly-uninterestingly empty hotel
To sleep a bit, then pack and go home   .....

Trip home was fairly uneventful. Couple of stoopidly named places but that was it. Looking forward to the next trip. Hopefully it will be Barcelona or somewhere hot for a change! Or failing that, a UK tour would be particularly good - are you listening, Alice? (ok, Andy, Alice's management.)

                     UK TOUR UK TOUR, WHAT DO WE WANT? UK TOUR!!





















































1 comment:

  1. eeeee... the life of a groupie! another fab trip under your belt Pen x

    ReplyDelete

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