Seit Jahren hab isch Rücken Tour…
Aus der Sicht von Stefan W. aka. Spielberg / Stefan’s point of view:
Wednesday, April the 18th 2007
11:45 – I arrived quite late at the Berlin Schoenefeld airport: Stefan, Andreas and Behrang had already checked in, so it were Marko and Dominic that welcomed me. The guys from Samavayo came a few hours earlier to make sure, that all the equipment is checked in correctly. The three of us checked in and we met the rest of the crew … where else but at the Burger King. One last burger before boarding and the question “Where the hack is Jens?”. He is the sound engineer and was supposed to arrive more than half an hour ago. We ate the last French fries and exchanged some dirty jokes and then finally Jens arrived. So now we were seven: Andreas (bass), Stefan (drums), Marko (guitar) and Behrang (guitar and voice) from Samavayo and Jens (sound engineer), Dominic (camera) and me (tour reporter and wanna-be translator, a.k.a. the guy that always hangs out with the band) and went on board.
16:55 – We had a pleasant flight and finally arrived in Athens. Ahhh … Kalispera Ellas (Good Afternoon Greece). We were supposed to meet with our local guides at 17:30 GMT. However, it was of course foolish to expect anything to happen punctual here. No offense! A phone call later we were at least sure that they didn’t forget us, they just need a little longer. GMT obviously stands for “Greek Maybe Time” here! So we spread out and scouted the area. Hmm, strange letters they have here! But hey, what do I see there: familiar looking Latin letters that form the word “BEER” … oh yeah! So we all took a can of the local beer, or wait: Amstel and Heinecken are Dutch, aren’t they? Having deep discussions on topics like that, we didn’t realize the time passing by and were quite surprised about our Greek friends arrival: Vassilis, Bebis, RG “Welcome to Greece. How was the flight?” & “Hi, nice to meet you. Yeah, flight was nice.” Everybody introduced themselves and seconds later, all the names were forgotten already, but ok, we have almost one week to learn them!
18:00 – We drove to our temporary home in the South West of Athens in a white VW Bus from the 80s, a real classic! We arrived at Anna’s place, really nice appartment in the south west of Athens, “Tool”-posters hanging everywhere, a huge balcony (guess that’s standard in Greece) and a map of the public transport of Berlin (guess this is not standard). So we felt almost like home, especially after the dinner. In the evening we went to the center for a frappe (metrio me ghala = medium sweet with milk) and met the other two members of Bull-Doza: Alexander and Thanassis. Then we went to the Underground, good ol’ Rock bar in the heart of Athens. Really cool! Nice wall layout and atmosphere, along with famous rock classics the DJ also played some songs from the latest Samavayo album and the beer “was running in streams” (German expression, hehe), bought to us by a cute looking waitress that spoke a few words German.
Thursday, April the 19th 2007
We took our time to get up the next morning, enjoying the view from the upper balcony of Anna’s place, from where you can also see the Acropolis, having some walks through the surrounding area and eating breakfast. Then it was already time to go to the “An Club”, where tonights concert ought to take place. Quite a big place, I have to admit, while the backstage room was rather small. The guys did their soundcheck and then we went to the nearest Souvlaki-place to fight against our lust for meat. Of course, the guys from Bull-Doza kept saying that there’s no Souvlaki but Thessaloniki’s Souvlaki, but for the moment any grilled meat was right! We enjoyed dinner and a few beers and then went back to the club. Where quite a few people already filled the club so that the concert was about to begin soon:
Band:
“We had a good show. We rocked them their asses off and we had a terrific stat at the merch. We sold over 20 CDs. And had an audience of about 80 person. The people were a bit reserved but they liked it. After the show we talked to some guys here and there, Musicians and non-musicians. It was fun. After our show Bull Doza played, which was a cool experience to see them playing live”
After the concert we gathered our stuff and then went straight ahead to the Underground again, where we had a great after show party. A few more chicks would have been great but the beer kept us happy. Again it was great music in the bar, this evening, and also the local folks showed some impressive air guitar and air drum playing skills!