What could be better after living with 3 guys for the past 3 years then to fly across the Atlantic and move into a tour bus with 12 guys, 3 girls and one cranky German driver for a couple of weeks? Not much I think.
So thats what I did, got on a plane in LA and after some planes, trains and automobile action I was in Antwerp, Belgium to meet my friends from the Icelandic bands Seabear and Borko and of course Mr. Sound/Tour Manager, Ajay Saggar.
When I met up with them, the bands had already been on tour for two weeks playing shows around Europe every night and the next two weeks would be the same, so all in all 30+ shows in 30+ days. The show that night was at a place called Trix, a rec center type venue, which got filled with people. I even saw some newborn in the crowd enjoying the smooth voice of Seabear’s front man Sindri. After a quick dance party I found myself in my new bed, AKA the tour bus lounge, with my trusty towel as a blanket and on our way to The Hague in Holland. This two day festival was packed with things to see and hear, crazy light shows, people dancing on the sides of buildings, great music and the late night snack that is fries with mayo, mmmmmm…
With Holland behind us we crossed into Germany, where Cologne was the next stop, and according to concert posters bands like Built To Spill were hot on our trail. G9 was the venue in an old rundown industrial part of town that made for some great thrash-metal Kodak moments. Maggi, who like a champ sat behind the drum kit for both bands on the tour, decided that it was time to trim his long hair before the show so around 20 people had a say in his new look. During the last Seabear song a tall figure appeared on stage; no other then Olympic silver medalist Robert Gunnarsson was taking full part in the song with members from Seabear, Borko and myself.
Two more shows in Germany followed with the highlights coming from Heidelberg, one being the worlds strongest beer the other being Europes biggest barrel; and its huge, holding 300,000 liters of booze from the middle ages (or something like that). With our driver haggling us on how dirty the bus always was we got to Copenhagen, Denmark, or my second home, where Loppen in Christiania was the venue for the night and after some arguing with the driver and myself over who was right, we found it. Copenhagen is home to thousands of Icelanders so Loppen was packed with them and locals enjoying every second of the show, and seeing 15 people go nuts on a small stage.
In some need of a little RnR, I decide to stay in Denmark for a few days collecting my thoughts and meet the bands in Munich, Germany in a few days. Arriving at night in Munich made finding the venue a bit harder, but eventually I got there before the bands went on stage. And once again they repeated themselves, putting on a great show sending concertgoers out into the night with huge smiles. The next morning I woke up from my nap to see nothing but big cloudy mountains and realized we had crossed into Austria and were only a few hours outside of Vienna. Just as before it was the same routine: unload, rig up. Both bands did a little live set in a park with a TV crew where a punk threatened to fk Sindri if he didnt bust out some Nirvana on the guitar. It was hard for us to escape the financial crisis hitting home as Sindri and I discovered during a radio interview, not only was it a part of the shows intro we also heard it in the cab only understanding the words Landsbankinn, Reykjavik and “Financial Crisis Ah well, the show must go on so after cleaning out the venue and then some it was off to Dresden for the second to last gig of the tour. It’s hard to tell that Dresden was in ruins not too long ago and to quote Gylfi Blondal as he stepped out of the bus, I want to live here. Full house that night making the performances even greater and more fun for sleep deprived musicians. Ending that night for some of us was the Lebowski Bar where the movie is in a loop and offering one of the best White Russians I have ever tasted. As a result, me and Maggi declared each other the drunkest men in the world that night.
Finally, Berlin, the HQ for both bands’ label Morr Music and the final day of the tour. For most of us it was the hardest day, spending some 13 hours hanging around a theater with nothing to do and the bands going on way into the AM and having to cut their sets short as a result. But when you have good people it can’t go wrong, so after a late night at Astro Bar with Berlin’s finest, many of them hailing from Iceland, it was time to say goodbye to the kids from Seabear and enjoy a little pre-planned relaxing in Berlin with the Borko boys and our friends and host Mani. While some relaxed more then others it was time to say good-bye the rest of the crew and my trip to the Far East was about to begin, with a short layover in Doha, Qatar.
