The Dusseldorf gig was great, the biggest crowd of the tour in a giant arena called the Mitsubishi Electric Halle. We got the crowd clapping along on "Fool," which is no easy task with a Tenacious D crowd.
Before the show we met up with my German cousins, Robert and Ulrike. Kyle said he loves that I have friends and relatives in every city. I may be poor as hell, but I do indeed have friends and family in every city. It's something I am proud to say. Anyway, Robert and Ulrike were great to hang out with -- funny, and the exchanges we had with language barriers were hilarious too. I remember at one point Robert was saying to me, "you know, how do you say, uh, mouth bag?" Err, don't know, and to be honest I can't remember what he meant. Great people though and a great time.
We stayed the night in Dusseldorf and I was frustrated I could not call home -- sometimes the wifi (pronounced 'wee fee' over here) just won't work.
The next night was Frankfurt, and here we played Jarhunderthalle, a venue that had these acts play there in their prime: Ray Charles (1967), James Brown ('67), Hendrix ('69), Ike & Tina ('71), and The Band ('71). I usually don't get too weird about that stuff, as we played places The Beatles and Hendrix have played, but the place was like a giant spaceship on the inside and it sounded fantastic onstage -- though that also is due to our amazing monitor guy, Dan Ungaretti.
We played to another sold out crowd and we were on fire. Night four and we were cooking -- we had the crowd clapping and we could do whatever we wanted. I even fucked up the intro to "Anything to Anyone" and had the band restart it, and it was a freeing, candid moment.
The low E string on my 1965 Gibson 330 had been popping out of the saddle and the D's guitar techs, Patrick and Sean, took a look and helped me out. They both really want to clean my guitar too, with the years of blood, sweat, and who knows what else caked on there. Patrick told me it does not look good, but for me it is a representation of who I am. I may have an iPhone that I'm using to type this with, but the screen is cracked. Life is never perfect, and it's the imperfections that make it perfect. Makes sense, right? Mission complete.
All the best,
eddie
Skip's Current State: hungover.
