Chronicles of an elephant attendant, # 1

The first days of tour lie behind us. Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao seem to have brought the tour-machine
into gear: a total of more than 70,000 fans offered awe-inspiring views from the stages.
- A greeting here to everyone who rocked with as though there was no tomorrow!

In addition, two amazing after-show parties in Lisbon and Barcelona put a stamp on the week. In connection with the latter, we seized one of the tour buses to get ourselves over to the local “Demonix.” All in all a worthy finale to our 2-days-stay in Barcelona.
The tour lead us on to Bilbao, on the Gulf of Biscayne. Here on Saturday afternoon an autograph signing session at a local music store took place.

After half the team mutated in the meantime into virus-motherships, the tour-pharmacy plus two crates of warm dark beer were able to prevent the worst. So on Sunday our truck convoy – 1 kilometer long and 111 men strong – finally left the Iberian Peninsula to celebrate doctor’s birthday on the following day in Nantes, France.

And now this evening, the kick-off of the Swiss tour in Basel… excited to see what the evening brings.

These first days of the tour are being accompanied by the debate about the album’s being put on the censor’s index in Germany. The question of how/when/and in what form one is allowed to spank someone with a bag over their head, or rather sing about it, ought to be answered by Monday in Munich at the latest.

Then it behooves us to sail round the critics, censors, and other Scyllas and Charybdises, or just leave them where they lie….(st)

Chronicles of an elephant attendant, #2

… and then came Luxembourg, and somehow the virus that had ripped holes in our ranks in the last weeks seemed finally to strike with a vengeance. But what happened before that?!? …

… During our two-days stay in Vienna, we treated ourselves to an afternoon of culture and visited the “Videorama,” an exhibition showing what Austria has to offer in the way of video art. This outing culminated with the cinematic highlight “Unternehmen Arschmaschine” [“Project Arse Machine”] – science fiction, narrative theatrics … “a film adventure oscillating in the space between performance and screening.” In other words, the full program.

Then it was off to Munich, the first German stop on the Rammstein European Tour. While the rest of the band took it easy in Munich, shortly before landing in the city Richard’s plane was unexpectedly sent back to Vienna. The consequence: “two more hours of Viennese ambiance,” which is to say, airport ambiance. Finally they gave the green light, and everything was a go. So, Munich – prelude to all the shows in Germany – where the band served up an improvised set of lyrics for the “unloved” song “Ich tu dir weh”. It seems to have been decided that every German city on the tour gets its own local version, as different versions were also performed in Leipzig and Cologne.

Oh yes, Leipzig – an awesome city that will remain in our memories: because the tram ticket inspectors here have a big heart! The Tour Pass, which happens to allow access to the means of transportation provided by the tour caravans, is not especially helpful when it comes to Leipzig Public Transportation. So much for the hard facts. Mild-mannered ticket inspectors came up empty-handed, but looked the other way…. That evening there was a huge reunion with the Pilgrim Team and many old acquaintances of the band.

Barely a hop, skip, and a jump away was the next city on the tour: Prague. After an overnight, albeit sleepless drive to Prague, the idea occurred to some of us to once again experience the concert “from the front ranks,” so to speak. In practice, we found out that this meant “standing and waiting.” So here and now, a shout-out: respect and wishes for a strong immune-defense to all the fans who were already camping out in front of the hall at 10 o’clock in the morning … and waiting.

In any case, it all finally got under way! And the decision for us to experience the show from up front turned out to be just right for this evening. A terrific show.

Two days later we reached Katowice, Poland. The concert took place in the “Spodek,” a venue that looks more like a UFO or teapot than a concert hall. The LIFAD-Heart emblem was printed thousands of time on white sheets of paper and held up for the song “Frühling in Paris”. At that point the hall drifted into a collective delirium of joy – which we were only torn out of when an emergency flare was somehow shot off and appeared to reach its destination between the legs of our lighting technician … fortunately the good man was uninjured.

Both concerts in Cologne definitely revealed their fallibly “human” side, so that for instance the “juice” from the oblong-shaped “Foam Cannon” that was directed at the audience petered out after a few meters. Here as well, there were some interesting revisions to the lyric structure of a certain song …

Then we travelled on to France, to Lyon. A breathtaking view of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière took our breath away for a moment. A pair of moldy bread rolls in our hotel room had a similar effect, if with different consequences…. Our accountant had more luck there and found a black women’s slip (previously worn), size 38.
The Tony Garnier Concert Hall in Lyon was a mighty steel construction that in its main features resembled a slaughterhouse. Little wonder that this hall was built by no one less than Gustave Eiffel. More than 16,000 fans impatiently waited for the concert to begin. And in the process, empty cola cans were converted into projectiles and thrown willy-nilly throughout the arena. Some landed on the lighting consoles, and due to a direct hit, we ultimately had to suffer the loss of part of the lighting design.

Still in France, now Strasbourg: a truly impressive city, which among other things is inviting for simply passing the time. After we had waited six hours in the hotel for a rental van, the hotel lobby was transformed without further ado into command central. As we began to divvy up our increasingly skimpy alimentary provisions and to set ourselves up at home, nervous twitchings of the eye were to be observed amongst the hotel employees…. A sign that clearly signaled: Time to leave the city. (st)