Euro tour recap
The Murphy's Law European Tour 2009, 6/15-7/1
First, what went wrong:
-My amp was overweight for the airline, had to pay $150 to get it to Poland
-None of the requested equipment rented, had to play first show with reduced backline
-Spent a whole day looking for power converters, which don’t seem to exist in Poland
-Buses switched to vans, have to wait four hours to figure out rental trailer at last second because gear won’t fit
-Not enough seats left for my sister to join up with tour in Brno despite assurances to contrary, even though she bought her plane ticket specifically for the tour back in February.
-Athens show rental amp has blown tube and nonworking footswitch
-Athens show doesn’t break even, John gets hassled for money
-Two people have to sleep in the van in Brno to allow my sister and her friend a place to stay, since it turned out they weren’t even budgeted for at all
-All tour cash gets “lost” after Brno show (no one seems to care…?)
-My wife loses her wedding band in Budapest
-Rainy and freezing cold for 48 hours, clothes won’t dry
-Roof of Vienna venue leaks during bands’ sets, equipment gets wet
-3 people get sick (respiratory virus)
-After two straight 9 hour drives, van starts leaking fuel in Belgium, sprays the trailer
-Poor organization/curfew in Berchem means Rosetta only plays one song, lots of angry people demand their money back for the show
-Had to sleep in venue in Berchem, air mattresses deflate during the night & mosquitoes bite everyone; my wife's face swells so badly her right eye shuts
-Fest in Knokke is in a warehouse with no bathrooms and no electricity, amps buzz wildly because of the gas generator used for power
-Had to cancel Hamburg show because the routing is impossible --- not enough time to actually drive nine hours from Belgium to Germany and then turn around and make it back to Belgium for next show
-“Secret show” was actually not a show at all, it was just never booked to begin with
-On morning of canceled show day in Belgium, Andrew’s lung collapses and he has to have surgery to repair it, leaves tour, stays in the hospital for a week
-Berlin show falls through
-Last minute replacement for “secret show” draws precisely zero people, no money and only one shirt sold
-GPS goes crazy multiple times, takes us around in circles
-Driving from Holland to Poland, second van has a wreck, possibly totaled
-At final show in Gdynia, no hospitality, no sound check, and Sepultura’s drum set takes up so much of the stage that Rosetta can’t fit on it, and we almost didn’t play.
-GPS goes crazy on the way to the airport causing us to almost miss our flight home
Regular old dislikes:
-Too much drinking and not enough exploring
-Group is too big to go anywhere expediently
-Final tour routing didn’t make sense, unreasonable drives
-Would prefer reliable equipment and tight logistics to cushy accommodations and hot food
-Cocaine?? Really?!
Positives:
-Encores almost every night, including some double encores
-Sold a ton of merch
-People drove to see us from all over:
-Went on a 24-hour “date” with the wife to Amsterdam
-Cathedrals are awesome
-Post-soviet Europe is full of super nice people
-Glad to count Mojo, Jon, Milan, Davy, and the Blindead guys as new friends.
-Got to meet some internet friends in person for the first time
-Beautiful countryside
-Incredible food and hospitality from basically everyone
-Goregrind and black metal jokes
-Insane crowds who know the words and go crazy
-Learning about cultural differences between white people. White people are not all the same!
-Coming to appreciate some ways that America really is unique in a positive way
-Got to play after Sepultura (can't believe they agreed to this) in Gdynia to a sweet audience who stayed way too late to see us play, now I can say that "Sepultura opened for Rosetta"
I'm sure I'll be able to reflect more on this with time. It's not the kind of experience that I can say was good or bad by some scalar measure. It's not even primarily an experience (which implies a kind of consumption). Touring is work --- which is to say, production --- with particular hardships and particular perks.
"A disaster a day keeps the hubris away"
Seems like everyone else beat me to pictures and videos. I'll post some of my own pictures later, but for now you can find videos here, here, here, here, and here. Other people's pictures of the shows we're putting in a Myspace album.
Seems like everyone else beat me to pictures and videos. I'll post some of my own pictures later, but for now you can find videos here, here, here, here, and here. Other people's pictures of the shows we're putting in a Myspace album.
First, what went wrong:
-My amp was overweight for the airline, had to pay $150 to get it to Poland
-None of the requested equipment rented, had to play first show with reduced backline
-Spent a whole day looking for power converters, which don’t seem to exist in Poland
-Buses switched to vans, have to wait four hours to figure out rental trailer at last second because gear won’t fit
-Not enough seats left for my sister to join up with tour in Brno despite assurances to contrary, even though she bought her plane ticket specifically for the tour back in February.
-Athens show rental amp has blown tube and nonworking footswitch
-Athens show doesn’t break even, John gets hassled for money
-Two people have to sleep in the van in Brno to allow my sister and her friend a place to stay, since it turned out they weren’t even budgeted for at all
-All tour cash gets “lost” after Brno show (no one seems to care…?)
-My wife loses her wedding band in Budapest
-Rainy and freezing cold for 48 hours, clothes won’t dry
-Roof of Vienna venue leaks during bands’ sets, equipment gets wet
-3 people get sick (respiratory virus)
-After two straight 9 hour drives, van starts leaking fuel in Belgium, sprays the trailer
-Poor organization/curfew in Berchem means Rosetta only plays one song, lots of angry people demand their money back for the show
-Had to sleep in venue in Berchem, air mattresses deflate during the night & mosquitoes bite everyone; my wife's face swells so badly her right eye shuts
-Fest in Knokke is in a warehouse with no bathrooms and no electricity, amps buzz wildly because of the gas generator used for power
-Had to cancel Hamburg show because the routing is impossible --- not enough time to actually drive nine hours from Belgium to Germany and then turn around and make it back to Belgium for next show
-“Secret show” was actually not a show at all, it was just never booked to begin with
-On morning of canceled show day in Belgium, Andrew’s lung collapses and he has to have surgery to repair it, leaves tour, stays in the hospital for a week
-Berlin show falls through
-Last minute replacement for “secret show” draws precisely zero people, no money and only one shirt sold
-GPS goes crazy multiple times, takes us around in circles
-Driving from Holland to Poland, second van has a wreck, possibly totaled
-At final show in Gdynia, no hospitality, no sound check, and Sepultura’s drum set takes up so much of the stage that Rosetta can’t fit on it, and we almost didn’t play.
-GPS goes crazy on the way to the airport causing us to almost miss our flight home
Regular old dislikes:
-Too much drinking and not enough exploring
-Group is too big to go anywhere expediently
-Final tour routing didn’t make sense, unreasonable drives
-Would prefer reliable equipment and tight logistics to cushy accommodations and hot food
-Cocaine?? Really?!
Positives:
-Encores almost every night, including some double encores
-Sold a ton of merch
-People drove to see us from all over:
Latvia/Ukraine/Sweden/Russia >> Poland
Bulgaria/Macedonia >> Athens
Moscow >> Prague
Croatia/Romania >> Budapest
and probably lots of other places I'm not aware of.
-Went on a 24-hour “date” with the wife to Amsterdam
-Cathedrals are awesome
-Post-soviet Europe is full of super nice people
-Glad to count Mojo, Jon, Milan, Davy, and the Blindead guys as new friends.
-Got to meet some internet friends in person for the first time
-Beautiful countryside
-Incredible food and hospitality from basically everyone
-Goregrind and black metal jokes
-Insane crowds who know the words and go crazy
-Learning about cultural differences between white people. White people are not all the same!
-Coming to appreciate some ways that America really is unique in a positive way
-Got to play after Sepultura (can't believe they agreed to this) in Gdynia to a sweet audience who stayed way too late to see us play, now I can say that "Sepultura opened for Rosetta"
I'm sure I'll be able to reflect more on this with time. It's not the kind of experience that I can say was good or bad by some scalar measure. It's not even primarily an experience (which implies a kind of consumption). Touring is work --- which is to say, production --- with particular hardships and particular perks.
Labels: Rosetta
posted by M. Weed at
8:15 AM
7 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I'll be watching ALL of these videos. Wish I could have been there. Sounds bittersweet as all great moments are. Can't believe Sepultra opened up for you guys lol. That sounds sweet.
Sorry to hear about your wife. Has her eye healed yet?
I make gif's so if you wanted any cool moving pics of a part of those videos, I'd be more than happy to make oodles of them.
Hope to see you again in Poland, show in Wroclaw was something incredible. Here's our pic together: http://img149.imageshack.us/i/img2813b.jpg/ .. Come back anyday you want! I'll be there and tons of other ppl too.
I'd be interested to hear some of the ways you saw the U.S. is unique in a positive ways.
Thanks for the kind words everyone. Now that I'm home, I'd like to do it again, although without the level of mishap. Trouble is inevitable on tours, but this one was just surreal.
Inept Architect: Yes, she healed up in a few days. It wasn't that it was so horrible for her, it was just a really visual reminder of everything else that was going on. Kind of hits you at a gut level when someone you really care about looks like they got beat up, especially when there's so much anxiety around.
Nick: Maybe I'll make another post about that, maybe not. The problem is that it's hard to talk about American exceptionalism in a public forum without being comparative --- and therefore offensive to those you're using as comparisons. I think it was more a process of coming to terms --- on a personal level --- with the competing "America is an evil empire" and "America is a shining beacon" stereotypes. Neither is true, anyway. I'm thinking that it's more that America just doesn't fit into the cultural spectrum of "white people" as they exist in their homeland, Europe. You have to go to countries that are actually ethnically "white countries" to understand that America isn't a white nation any more than it's a black or a Hispanic or an Asian nation. And I don't say that as some yuppie Northeasterner who's never been to the rest of the country --- I've been to 47 states and know people in basically all of them. It's really different here.
I'm shocked at the number of roadblocks you, family, and other bands faced..wow.
I have the same feeling whenever I leave the U.S...I appreciate it more when I come back.
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