Sunday.

We're currently on our way from Pilsen, in the Czech Republic, back to Germany. Tonight we play Nuremberg, our third show of the tour.

This tour is booked as a three-band bill. We are headlining, and are taking two bands out with us for all of the dates except Barcelona, which is at the end of the tour. Warsawwasraw is one of the openers. They are from France. They toured with The Locust a few years ago, and JP will soon be releasing a record of theirs on ThreeOneG. The other band is Wolves Like Us, who are from Oslo, Norway.

We met up with both bands on Friday night in Munich, for the first show of the tour, at the place I mentioned in a previous post - Feierwerk. Wolves is supplying the backline, and unfortunately they had a lot of trouble along the way from Berlin (where they were the night before), and we had a very rushed soundcheck as a result.

The Wolves guys were quite distracted when they got in to town because of the bombing and shooting that had happened in Oslo that day. Apparently, their rehearsal space had all of its windows blown out, and the bombing happened in an area of town that they regularly hang out, work in, etc, etc. Considering the magnitude of what had happened in their hometown, the Wolves all seemed to be in pretty good spirits, and played their set quite well. So far, we've thankfully had no news that anyone in the band lost a friend or relative.

The Munich show was decent, but somewhat poorly attended. Everyone told us that attendance was low due to the fact that many people had gone to Czech for the Fluff Fest. Despite this, we played well, and I had a good time. The crowd was a bit reserved, except for one drunken idiot that JP got into a bit of a row with during the middle of our set. The kid eventually got thrown out by Marco because he was getting belligerent, and was bothering everyone who was up front.

Yesterday, we left Munich and headed to Rocycany for the Fluff Fest. Fluff is a big outdoor festival, next to an old airstrip, in a small town about fifteen minutes away from Pilsen. Several thousand people were in attendance...mostly hardcore fans, but there were all kinds of other punk rock sub-genres represented as well.

One of my favorite bands at the moment, Year of No Light, played a few hours before we did, and I was really excited to have the opportunity to see them because they have not yet toured the US. They're an instrumental metal band with two drummers, three guitars, keyboards and bass...and didn't really fit the rest of the festival mix, but I was happy...even if the crowd didn't know quite what to make of them. I shot some photos of them playing, and hope to be able to post at least a couple soon. By the way, if you like Godspeed You Black Emperor! or similar bands, you should check them out.

After YONL, I took a nap for a while and hung around doing a bit of people-watching until it was time to play. Now, i have to say, festivals are tough...the backline is borrowed, you don't get much of a soundcheck because it's one band right after the other, and the sound on stage is typically beyond terrible. The Fluff Fest was no exception. No one in the crowd really seemed to care, but we played like shit as a result. The energy was good, and the crowd seemed to enjoy it, but we were a bit sloppy. Oh well.

After the show, we hung around for while before heading back to the hotel in Pilsen. All the bands stayed in the same place, and it was our first real chance to hang out and really get to know each other (mostly because, as you might expect, the Wolves guys had been glued to online news reporting the night before). Almost all of us, everyone except JP, Ondra and Kenneth (Wolves sound guy), headed out to hit up the town.

After a bit of a search we happened upon a dance club. The place was pretty lame; bad techno music, bad outfits, and lots of drunk and stupid people who were mostly older than us but were acting half their age. We were up for an adventure however, so we hung out, had a few beers, and had as much fun with the locals as we could without speaking the language. Naturally, it was a drunken mess...and the party continued for most back at the hotel...

...but anyway...I think I'll end this here and post a few photos...




Blue Note poster up at Feierwerk.





Orange House/Feierwerk entrance before the show.





Jimmy passed out in our room at Feierwerk.





The beer truck. What you need for a good festival!





The crowd shortly before the Blue Note set.





JP is interviewed for Czech television.