"I think he's broken" said the
guitar player as we all looked hopelessly at Walter's large engine. On a quiet
back-street in Berlin's Moabit district our luck had finally run out. "We
haven't got breakdown cover have we?" There was no reply. "I thought
not." We tried again. And again. And again. Nothing, just the faint
click of his starter motor. "Let's leave it for a bit" said the
drummer. So we stopped staring at the tangle of pipes and bits of metal, of
wires wrapped in frayed gaffer tape and shoddy bits of welding. We sat on the
curb and wondered what to do. "I guess we could walk to the venue with all
our gear?" offered the bass player but nobody seemed overly enthused by
this idea. We sighed. And sucked our teeth. And paced up and down. Finally the
guitar player cracked, opened the bonnet and began tracing wires again.
"Give him another go" he ordered and we tried again. Nothing. The
drummer pulled out the starter motor and began fiddling with the wires but it
was hopeless. None of us knew anything about merchanics. We were
about to give up and load ourselves up like mules, when suddenly there was
a crackle and a rumble and a splutter and some noises I can't even begin to
translate and Walter burped and roared back to life. "Right, let's just
keep him running now for the remainder of the trip" I yelled as we piled
in and jolted off down the street towards the venue.
We had known all about Walter's problems from the
start. The romantic idea of setting off in an old motor home had completely
clouded our vision. He was very old, very slow and very thirsty. Built in the late 80's
as a family recreational vehicle, he was used for short leisurely
journey's with perhaps a Mum, a Dad, two kids and a picnic blanket.
Not a band of 5 males with as many guitars, a drum kit, heavy amps, an enormous
keyboard and a weeks worth of clothes, driving 9 hours a day at full speed! As
well as needing a new starter motor he needed anti-freeze every morning in
order to function. The left indicator didn't work, the speedometer didn't work,
the windscreen wipers didn't work and the windows would open but not close.
Perhaps his biggest quirk was the need to keep the engine running while filling
up! Failure to do this resulted in waiting a hour at the petrol station for him
to start again. Starting was always a problem. When I first met him he hadn't
started for 3 weeks and we were due to leave the next morning!
"It's hit and miss" said the AA
man, "until you fix the motor he'll have this problem. Where are you going
anyway?"
"Berlin"
I said meekly
"You're bonkers, you won't get past Bristol!"
F R I D A Y
I left Penzance, 7am
Friday morning, panicking about the London emissions zone and how we'd
sidestep a £200 daily charge! Our only option was for the drummer to
follow us to the zone's boundary, down in Sevenoaks, somewhere
on the M25, and then ferry us and the gear into Battersea.
This emissions dodge would certainly add a good few
hours onto the journey. I called the guitar player, "Realistically
we're not going to make the bloody gig, you'll have to leave work earlier!" I barked. "Realistically, I went to work
at twenty past five this morning, so I'm doing the best I
can!" he snapped back. Tensions were frayed. Walter struggled over
a snowy Bodmin Moor; 39 mph up the hills. We screeched into
Bristol, I gathered the instruments, picked up
the band-mates and sped off again, forgetting the guitar and
sending the drummer back to collect it. Sound familiar!? We floored it,
maxed out at 55 mph on the flat, no stops, no pee breaks, pee in a bottle! We
pulled up outside a pub in Sevenoaks, unloaded our gear into the drummers
jeep, tucked Walter in for the night and carried on to London arriving on
time for our soundcheck, what are the chances! We took to the stage at The Magic Garden to a lively audience and performed as
well as we could, but we were rusty, we'd not played
together for 5 months. Still, it was a nice opening night; busy
and bustling and we sank G&T's and talked animatedly about the
road ahead. If today was anything to go by, it was going to be a bumpy
ride. If, indeed, Walter started! I refused to entertain that thought,
preferring to believe the ever optimistic words of his owner,
"He'll be fine, he's a good engine! Honestly!"
S A T
U R D A Y
Saturday was a free day, we were
all scattered across the city, taking advantage of the time off. We
gathered back at The Magic Garden in the afternoon and
then, because we were bored, drove to the next venue 5 hours early
for our gig. The earliest I've ever been for anything in my life! We
unpacked. Sat around. Had a pie. Wrote a set-list. Had an
ale. The piano player had a sleep in the drummer's jeep. And we
still had 3 hours till kick off! The old place filled up, lights
dimmed and familiar faces gathered. We finally took to the stage and
performed a much tighter set. We always play well at The Gladstone and it's always so
well attended and well run. The atmosphere was electric and we
wrapped to lengthy applause. This was more like it. It felt like the
tour had begun. We socialised with our London fans, all of
them as excited about the road ahead as we were.
S U N D
A Y
It was an early start
on Sunday, myself and guitar player crammed into
the drummer's jeep and drove cross-city to Sevenoaks.
Walter was unharmed. Sat shinning in the morning sun. He started first
time too. Easy. We loaded up and pulled away. We were
early and the sky's were smiling. This was perfect. Walter
offered us space and a stove to cook tea. I was glad we'd taken
him. I never doubted you, Walter. Who need's a windscreen wiper when
it's sunny! The mood soured somewhat when the piano player and bass player
missed their train and our careful time management was put to the
test. We sped onto Folkestone, convinced we'd encounter no
end of problems at customs, due in part to
our resemblance of the mobile meth lab from Breaking Bad! But we were spared the
stop and search and boarded the train. The mood soured further when the
guitar player realised he'd lost his wallet containing all
the tour finances. We really were at the mercy of the gods. We had
to make enough money tonight in Antwerp in order to continue.. There
was no contingency cash. Quite literally we were playing for
our petrol. We crossed into Belgium and it started to rain. This
could be interesting without a windscreen wiper. We pulled over for lunch; an overpriced burger,
boycotted paying for the toilets and peed in a bush. We
bought anti-freeze and a hi-viz vest and started
Walter up. At least he was behaving. We chugged away and then as if
by magic the wipers started working. We arrived in Antwerp, were
greeted by Henneke as we had been a year earlier, offered Edame
beers and began setting up in ernest. With the piano player on a real
piano our ears were primed for a good sound. We
checked well. Added Haul Away into
the repertoire and then bizarrely decided to play The Wolf for the first time in 3
years just cause we knew a fan was coming and it
was her favourite song. Cafe
Den Hopsack filled up and we played well enough, were well
received and sat around indulging our fans. We sold 28 CD's, a record, and
garnered a healthy collection pot. Many fans stayed around as the
conveyor belt of Belgium beers began, many of which, like the
Westmalle Tripple, were 10% in strength. We got drunk. It didn't
take long and was inevitable. Our host, Jan, was
infectious and his sons were equally as thirsty. We sat around
signing albums. We knew we were pissed when we started signing beer mats, just
cause they were passed our way. Rock stars. Back at Jan's house and
his wife Lieve had made us French fries and Joppi sauce and we
sat feasting and talking animatedly about waking early and exploring the city.
M
O N D A Y
We woke late. Spent hours sitting around the
kitchen table grazing through the feast that Lieve had made for us, drinking numerous
cups of ginger tea to shake the hangover and sooth the vocal chords. We
left the house at 1pm, rode the tram into the centre and ate waffles in a
Belgium cafe. We all felt a little ropey. The piano player had lost his
voice. We snapped some pictures of the cathedral, frowned at the grey
skies and wondered whether the windscreen wipers would work
today. We fed Walter his morning pint of anti-feeeze and he started easy
enough. We collected our gear from Den Hopsack, promised to return
next year and then pulled out of the city in the driving rain. The
guitar player took the reins, guiding Walter across the boarder into
Holland. All of us slept in the back. Every now and then we'd hear him
chuckle to himself at the many quirks; the wipers stopping mid-wipe.
The window stuck half open. The engine roaring like a tractor on
steroids as we hurtled along the smart Dutch roads. We were late arriving
at The Phoenix in Apeldoorn and
a hive of activity greeted us. It was a large dance studio not used
to housing live bands; it had no PA system or stage and the choice of
a room too big or a room too small. "How many are you expecting?"
I asked the proprietor, exploring the idea of using the smaller room and
creating a nice acoustic sound. "Anything between 30 and 70"
she replied. Not the answer we wanted. We bickered amongst ourselves
before plumbing for the larger of the two rooms and hoping the larger number
came. Mid soundcheck a dance class entered the space and began warming up, and
then dancing around the room. It was one the most surreal experiences I've ever
encountered. The bass player, who often stands in the middle of the room to
check the sound was suddenly engulfed by dancers skipping round and round him
like he was the maypole! So, this would be a dancey affair we thought. Wrong.
Upon announcement that we were about to begin, the dance class all grabbed a
chair and sat in neat little rows like diligent school children. More and more
people arrived, a healthy chorus of our Dutch fans and we began. It was a hard
gig. Not bad at all. Just hard. The piano player lost his voice mid show and
the sound wasn't great, but the crowd were appreciative and very focused. Many
of them bought CD's and the collection pot was generous. We were very grateful.
Grateful for all the right reasons; that people found enjoyment in our music,
that they felt compelled to help us out, NOT that we'd promised ourselves
Apledoorn's collection pot would be spent entirely on booze in Berlin!
T
U E S D A Y
After a wonderful night's sleep at
Gerbrandt and Imke's house - where we each had a separate room and woke to a
table full of breakfasts - we started Walter up and pulled out of the quiet
Dutch suburb of Arnhem. Next stop Berlin. 6 hours in a normal car. Walter would
take at least 8. The drummer took the reins and we roared along the pencil
straight roads sounding like an angry mosquito. In the back the rest of us
played the card game Rummy, with the guitar player cleaning up despite having
never played before. I took over driving duties somewhere in the late
afternoon. It was more hilly now, Walter could gather more speed on the slopes,
at one point we got him to 70 miles an hour! But it came with a price; chugging
back up the other side and we were down to 39! We arrived in Berlin in the
early evening; sliding up beside the 2nd of our Berlin venues, The Hole, where we'd arranged to store our gear, but it
was closed. We parked up and went into the bar opposite to thaw out, and get
beer, in that order. We sat on the radiators and drunk mugs of Pilsner while
trying to establish contact with Elena, our host at the second venue. 2 pints
down and we finally got a reply, so started Walter up and followed her through
large crowds queuing for a techno night. We squeezed through a narrow tunnel,
through a barrier and arrived in the backstage car park. "You can store
the instruments in our warehouse upstairs on the 5th floor" said Elena,
and then after seeing the fatigue in our eyes, "there is a lift!" She
was striking and small, shaven headed with dark eye makeup. She studied Walter
for a while and then, "Wow, it really is a shitty vehicle!" We pursued her upstairs to a very large workshop/warehouse called The Mindpirates Collective, all brilliant white and
echoey. We stored our gear behind the bar area and followed Elena and her
identical girlfriend back into the lift. "This is strange" I said to
the guitar player under my breath. "What's strange?" asked the
girlfriend who's ears were sharper than I'd thought. "Oh... nothing, it's
been a strange day, we umm... err..." I countered and trailed off leaving
the guitar player to charm them back. We thanked them and followed them out of
the tunnel and into the bustling streets, perhaps a tad over-smiley and
over-wavy. We parked Walter up by the river, grabbed our night bags and walked
an hour to our hostel, passing endless cosy bars and dodging cyclists that sped
along the pavement/cycle paths. A quick shower at the hostel and we bounded out
into the city lights, umming and arring over which cosy establishment to dine
in. We settled on a nice place with a name i've since forgotten, and were
served by a large camp waiter who took a shine on the piano player. While the
rest of us drank beers he was umming and arring over what beverage would best
serve his broken voice, "What you need is a tea, dear!" said
the waiter in a thick German accent, "come with me, I show you everything!" and he propelled
him up and marched him off to the tea counter. We ate well, all except the
piano player who had food envy and man flu. He had another tea and then cycled
home like a rockstar. The four of us settled up, thanked the waiter and went to
the bar next door for a couple more. After that, we found a rum bar and sat
giggling and swapping tales. It was like sitting in an ashtray. Everybody was
smoking indoors. We endured it for so long because it was a novelty. That, and
the rum. And the pretty barmaid!
W
E D N E S D A Y
"I'm not drinking today!" I
groaned from my bottom bunk. The room smelt like a bonfire and none of us had
even smoked. The bass player opened the window to blow away the 5-man fug. It
was glorious sunshine outside. "Let's hire bikes!" he said.
"Best way to see the city". And it was. We steered into the centre.
Past the Fernsehturm tower and the Berlina Dom. We paused and rested while the
piano player and bass player nipped into a market and then we got bored of
waiting and drove off separately. It was inevitable we'd split. 5 men making
decisions is my kind of hell. We had no knowledge of this city and no clue of
where to head so we devised a game; at each junction whoever was in front would
choose the direction. We approached a roundabout, I went straight. We hit a
cross-roads, the drummer turned right. We hit a fork, the guitar player veered
left. This random navigation managed to steer us to all of the main
attractions. We arrived at the Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag, Charlottenburg
Palace, the Gypsy memorial garden, where we parked up and stood in silence for
some time in reflection. It was a very powerful city, very emotive. More than
once we were overcome by the magnitude of it's history. While cycling through
one central neighbourhood where buildings still harboured dozens of bullet
holes, the guitar player remarked; "Shit got real here!". Crossing
the river and back into the old eastern block we encountered a large section of
the Berlin Wall, now an art gallery. We followed it for a while trying to
imagine it, trying to picture our lives with walls through the middle of them.
"Shit went down here too!" he remarked again. We arrived back at the
hostel and all fell asleep for an hour or two, exhausted by the physical
activity after days spent in Walter's charge. The piano player and bass player
arrived back eagerly swapping tales of the same sights in a slightly different
order. They'd booked us a table at a floating restaurant on the river. We
showered and slipped back out. "I'm not drinking tonight!" I reminded
myself as I ordered a large bottle of red wine and looked out across the water.
We ate well. Another bottle of wine meant we drank well too. We cycled around
trying to find the rum bar so we could passive smoke again but a 100 identical
streets meant we gave up the ghost. We drank Fernet-Branca instead but it
tasted like cough medicine so we turned in for an early night at 5 past 1!
T H U R S D
A Y
We broke our fasts in the cafe opposite
the hostel as we had done the previous morning, and like the previous morning
we ordered eggs benedict and a ginger tea, or coffee, if you were the guitar
player. We sat in silence with our thoughts. Our two day holiday was over, it
was back to work tonight. We took the bikes back, faffed around at the hostel
and then fed Walter an extra large helping of anti-freeze and drove cross-town
to Moabit. We were early. The venue was closed so we drove around the empty
neighbourhood worrying that nobody would attend our gig that night. We parked
up by a playground and played football. Headers and volleys. We were joined by
Fat Maradonna and his friends who never passed the ball and shot on sight at
every chance. In the end we refused to pass to them until they got the message.
They sloped off and we sat on a bench and caught our breath. The drummer and
bass player played on for a while, reliving the games of their youth; Grimsby
vs Botallack in the World Cup Final! The piano player, the guitar player and I
(the original band) decided to stroll to the venue to see if the doors were
open but walked 20 minutes in the wrong direction. Hot and bothered we met back at
Walter and it was here that he wouldn't start. It was on this quiet
back-street in Berlin's Moabit district our luck had finally run out. Well, as
you know by now we repaired him somehow, thanked our lucky stars and drove along the empty streets
to the club. We met Kini our host and unloaded into the old venue; a Guardian
top 10 for live music in Berlin. We soundchecked and then went in search of an
eatery of sorts. We walked 20 minutes down another of the district's empty
streets and ate in a falafel's bar, by now convinced we'd count the night's
audience members on two hands. We didn't know a soul in Berlin, and nobody knew
us, perhaps we'd even count them on one! But back at the Kallasch& Moabiter Barprojekt we
were pleasantly surprised, very pleasantly surprised. Why you couldn't count
them on 16 hands, it was maybe even 20 hands deep, some 80-odd cool, young, hip
Berliners crammed into the music room and further into the back bar. We started
up with Franz Kafka and
soared through our set, swapping jokes with the audience, and wrapping to
healthy applause. It was an incredible feeling. Having so many people turning
out to see us, in a city we'd never been, nor had any roots, nor ties. And of
course the venue was well-run and well-loved, and that counts for a lot; people
trust the venue and so trust the band. The guitar player's cousin tapped me on
the shoulder, "Great gig mate!". He just so happened to be in town on
a work's do and had bought 8 of his clients with him. We drank at the free
bar; entertaining a stream of new fans and groupies. We chatted long into the
night, drinking yet more peculiar shots and when the venue closed we
followed the groupies to a nearby jazz bar and ended up playing a impromptu
gig on the stage with the venue's equipment. Well it's the first time
I'd played electric guitar since I was a teenager. We thrashed about a bit,
played some of our numbers and then settled on a rap song for half an hour with
a drunken South African taking the mic. We left at dawn, walked 40 minutes in
the wrong direction and then took a taxi home. There were many drunken moments,
what goes on in Berlin stays in Berlin and all that. This is a respectable
medium, a censored platform for you to read about us. You don't want the gory
details do you? Oh you do? Well
the piano player went in for a kiss, she dodged it, he tried again, she
sidestepped, and he pecked at her again and again like a goldfish on a waltz.
F
R I D A Y
We woke in the bonfire, in a 5-man fug. No words. A bit of moaning. "I'm
not drinking today!" mumbled under the breath. We showered. This did
nothing to alleviate the pain. We ate in the breakfast place. Eggs benedict
again. Ginger tea/strong coffee. We took the skyrail down to Neukölln because
we'd heard it was good. It wasn't. Or perhaps we were in the wrong part. It was
like being in Enfield on a weekday. We looked for a cafe in which to eat in but couldn't
decide which one. We walked into one, looked at the menu and then walked out again,
returning 20 minutes later and asking to eat again but being refused entry this
time! We ducked into a Japanese restaurant and ordered food. The waiter was
friendly but didn't speak a word of English. We did a lot of pointing. The food
took ages to arrive. The guitar player had ordered a bowl of egg-fried rice. 45
minutes later he received a tiny bowl of cold boiled rice. He was too tired to
argue, so sloshed on some soy sauce and ate it in one mouthful. We took a
cab to Moabit and collected the gear. Walter started thankfully. Cross-town and
we unloaded at The Hole, Elena and her identical girlfriend were nowhere to be
seen, and we were instead looked after by Johnny Depp and Chewbacca! We set up and
sound-checked and then slunk out to find an eatery. We settled on a Mexican
restaurant, had a pokey mojito and a chicken burrito and were cleared off the
table by the eager waitress before we'd even finished and almost manhandled to
the door! Needless to say we didn't tip them. Back at The Hole we were again
surprised to see a large audience. Almost too many to fit into the venue.
Familiar faces from the night before too. We played our best gig I'd say. Not
just in Europe, but ever! We had the audience in the palm of our hands. It was
a great atmosphere that contained pin-drop moments and loud raucous whooping,
both at their appropriate junctures. We tried to prop up the bar again, myself
and the guitar player trying an array of different cocktails. I smoked a
cigarette indoors just cause it was novel. We networked a little; entertaining
far-flung fantasies of all moving to Berlin. The piano player and the bass
player went out to a techno club. The drummer went home. Myself and the guitar
player followed, a little worser for ware.
S A T U R D
A Y
We didn't eat at the breakfast place. It was closed. Maybe because we were
early rising. We split up, the drummer and I walking ahead to The Hole and
dining in a vegan cafe. I then realised I'd forgot my passport and had to walk all the way
back to the hostel. Standard. The Hole was closed and there was no answer on Elena's phone, or
Johnny Depp's, or indeed Chewbacca's. We were stuck waiting. And waiting. I
eventually went round to the car park behind and chanced a lift up in the
elevator. Floor 5. The Mindpriates Collective. The brilliant white
workshop/warehouse was awash with mindpirates, males and female, all decorated in
dark eye makeup. There was some photo shoot going on and people were busy.
"Too busy to answer the phone!" said Chewbacca as he flicked his long
hair out of his eyes. Eventually someone escorted us downstairs and unlocked
The Hole and we were able to retrieve our gear and pack Walter for the journey
ahead. We bid farewell to Berlin at midday and drove straight to Antwerp,
scared to stop in case Walter may play up again. We fizzed along the black
roads straining the engine, trying to beat the 70 mph downhill, "I just
got 71! called the drummer from his perch in the front, wrapped in a blanket,
Walter's heating having broken. At least the windscreen wipers were
semi-functioning as the rain splashed down. We landed back at Jan and Lieve's
house at 9pm. We ate Chips and Joppi sauce and all went to bed; well all except the
piano player who went out with their sons and didn't return till 8.30am in
the morning, about the time we left for Calais.
--
We returned to England in one piece. More or less. Our heads were reeling and
our fingers aching, we'd played our socks off. Burned the candle at both ends.
Lived the life of rich rockstars without the money or fame. We conquered
Berlin, and in doing so left a piece of our hearts there. For a band like us to
travel out into the great unknown on a whim and come home within budget, heck £45
a person richer, is a real achievement and one I'm proud of. And I hope it
gives other small bands the confidence to follow their dreams. You don't need
an agent or big bossy manager picking and choosing your gigs. Just find a venue
that suits your style and fix it up yourself. Find a bus. Plan your route and
go out and play for your supper, you'll come home a richer man, in more ways
than one. Europe is friendly. It's treated us well. And we're blessed to have a
decent following in Holland and Belgium, but Germany is a complete unknown and
we played to double the crowds. It was an awfully big adventure, the biggest
we've done and one hard to better. And dear old Walter, we couldn't have done
it without him, and it wouldn't have been quite so much fun in a regular smart
van. He wouldn't start again at the customs check point in Calais, 10 frantic
minutes spent trying as the clock ran down and the horns blared behind us. He
was searched as well across the channel in Folkestone; English customs
believing him to be smuggling refugees, that or harboring a meth-lab! And
perhaps the funniest of his ailments came just 30 miles from home when the driver's door
broke and wouldn't clasp shut and so I had to hold it closed while driving along
the A30. I parked him up and tied the door shut from the inside and left him for
his owner to collect. I heard later that he wouldn't start for 3 days.
Dear old Walter.
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| The boys and Walter in Berlin.. |
