ARTICLE
DOWN AND AWAY - TOUR DIARY
November 2007 by Martin Elf
8/11 11:00 PM
So once again we’re on our way to a new adventure. Don’t know how many times we’ve been on the road now, but it has been at least twice a year since 2001. The tour will include 7 gigs, so it’s a short one, but we couldn´t just let the fall pass without doing what we love.
We left our hometown Askersund about 2 hours ago and we’re off to the ferry that gonna take us to Denmark, and then from Denmark to Germany. Today there’s no show….haha!! How often do you start a tour with a day off?? Here’s the thing. We have a really, really long drive to the first gig, so we’re gonna make a pitstop in Neumunster to have a good laugh and sleep at our friends, The Detectors, place. So this evening we will just chill out and get to learn eachothers smell. Before we get on the ferry to Denmark we’re gonna have a last taste of Sweden and have a good meal… That’s all for today, tomorrow the adventure starts.
10/9 9:00 PM
The first show is done and we’re now heading towards Austria and Fischamend. I’m really excited to play in Austria again. It was a couple of years since the last time.
Yesterday was a good start on the tour, a small club and a perfectly sized stage with dancing people in front it. We woke up early in Neumunster to go to Wurzburg, and as always Down And Away arrives a couple of hours early . The club was empty and it was raining cats and dogs. Nowadays we never use the roadmap, since last year we are using a GPS, that must be God’s gift to punkrockbands. We don’t have to shout at eachother from the back of the bus anymore, just shut your mouth and listen to the GPS.
Well Well. You’re always a little nervous before the first show on a tour, what’s gonna happen. The only thing that’s on our minds the minutes before stage time is that we’re gonna rock the brains out of these peoples. The sum of yesterday is that the tour started out really good in Wurzburg.
We’ve got a 630 km long drive ahead of us, so I better start to activate myself before I start to climb up and down the wall in the bus!!
12/11 12:25 PM
Entering the Czech republic… It’s easy if you got your passport with you. On our way to Germany again from Austria. We’re gonna play in Chemnitz tonight so our drive goes through the Czech republic. David forgot his passport in Sweden and as always when you get to that border you will have to show it. For a little while I thought that we would have to go back, but we just played stupid when we gave them 4 passports when we actually were 5 people. So know we’re on the road again.
Yesterday was an off-day for Down and away and we spent the day it at the promoters girlfriends grandmother in Fischamend. A nice little old place in a very very small village. Two days ago we played in Fischamend “Stand up club” and my expectations were high. And it turned out to be a blast.. The place was crowded and they were really into the music. We had a good party til 4 in the morning, thanks to all the people who supported us. I always get the same feeling when I go on stage when the place is crowded. I´m gonna show them why I go all the way from Sweden to their town to play my music.
Tonight we’re playing in a club called Subway to Peter. It’s gonna be a floorshow and good food. You’ll hear from me again tomorrow. For now, hold your fingers crossed that our summer tires will stand the winter test… Yes it’s true, the snow arrived this winter as well. To all the band member’s surprise.
Best regards
/Martin
13/11
Up up up in the morning,,, We´re going to Kempten.... Don´t know how far it is to Kempten from Chemnitz but all I know that it is early in the morning... Yesterday we had a night out at Supway to peters.. I have mixed feelings when it comes to floorshows, but mostly I like them. Yesterday I loved it.. Floorshow almost always get a little more intense, and I really felt the nerve... The food was great and only 200 meters to our sleepingplace, that always make it easier to find your way home in the middle of the night.
Over and out
/Martin
Later on 13/11
So we´re sitting in The Ritterkeller. That´s the name of the venue were we are gonna play tonight. The drive was a little bit scary since the weather is more worse now. We had to drive in like 80km/H for the first 100 km. It´s a long drive on a slippery autobahn. No expectations tonight since we are doing this show instead of another off-day. Last time we visited Ritterkeller was with our good friends Trashcan darlings.. I remeber that night as if it was yesterday... Trashcan Darlings wanted to do something fun so they all entered the stage in nothing but their underwear!! Will never forget that sight... haha..
I like this club, it´s cosy and the owner is a GREAT guy who do anything to make you feel welcome. For the moment I don´t really have anything else to add.. So goodbye folks it´s time for me to check the drums... CHEERS!!!
15/11
Haha.. don´t really know were to begin.. Didn´t write yesterday so I´ve got some things to catch up with. We landed in Munchen early yesterday since we had to be at the venue at 4 in the afternoon, and we wanted to check in at the hotel before load in and soundcheck. By the way.. If you ever go to Munchen then you will have to stay at the same hotel as us.. It´s called Easy palace, and it´s a real punkrockhotel. Remeber that...
So after we had checked all our bags in to the hotelroom we went off to the venue.. The venue is called Hansa 39, and we were the support for The Unseen and Rejected Youth. By the way.. Thanks guys for having us at the show, it was a pleasure for us. We´ve been playing with rejected youth before. I really like them, they are such nice guys. The crowd is always a little reserved when it comes to the supportband, and were not only the supportact.... We were the 1:rst supportact so there you go.... No it wasn´t bad at all.. The crowd seemed to like us and we were selling pretty much merchandise.. Thanks to all the fans in Munchen..
The afterparty was crazy... The unseen and rejected youth were sleeping in a apartment above the venue, so when the unseen had played it felt like the were pushing people up in the apartment and then the party broke loose. People everywhere you turned and in every room you looked. I was thinking to myself,,, I´m really happy that I´m not sleeping here tonight, since I´m going back to the hotelroom without any partynoise at the door.. It´s hard to describe a picture without really showing it... So use your imagination.. three bands partying.. I don´t have to say any more than that.
Later on it was time for Down and away to head back to the hotelroom. The time was somewhere in the middle of the night. Tobbe (the merchguy) and me felt a little hungry so we went out for a burger.. We walked and walked and walked.. After 1 hour we reached burger king... we ate our burgers and then we had lost our way home. I hour to the burger,,, 30 minutes eating the burger. 1 and a half hour finding our way back to the hotel.... 6:30 in the morning.... Went to sleep.. That the short resume of me and tobbes adventure in Munchen
Today we are going to Göttingen. That´s the hometown of our Recordlabel Mad Butcher Rercords. We have a day-off today and we are gonna spend the night in göttingen and tomorrow we are gonna go to the Mad butcher Store and get poor...
16/11
Good morning everyone!!
Martin is up and walking in the sleep againg.. Yes it´s true.. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it happens a little to often. I´m walking in my sleep every now and then. Marcus woke me up last night when I was walking in my sleep. When I woke up and was standing up on the floor, holing in a pretty big furniture filled with Cd´s.. When I almost discovered what I was doing I dropped the whole thing on the floor and went back to sleep again. So this morning I´ve spent on looking for cd´s and broken cases all over the room..
In sweden there is a law that says that you can not smoke in a bar or a restaurant,, basically it´s forbidden to smoke inside public places in sweden.. Germany just changed the law as well, but they printed it out in a different way.. It says that you can not smoke in a pub or a restaurant,, nothing else.. That´s made to cause trouble.. Why do I mention this? Here is the answer:
Mad butcher´s got a clothing and recordstore in Göttingen, and next to the shop there is a tobaccoshop. The only hook with that store is that at the first look it´s like any ohter tobaccostore,, but when you step into it you´ll get surprised.. when you buy for example a cigar, you´ll get a cup of coffee for free. It´s not illegal to drink coffee in a tobaccostore and it´s not forbidden to smoke in a tobaccostore if you read the law you will find nothing that can stop people from buying a cigar and get a cup of cofee for free and then light up a cigarette in the store...... Tada....... You´ll have a cooffeshop without the word shop,, beacuase it´s for free....
Toady we´re heading to Bergkammen. It´s gonna be our second last show on this tour.. Up till now this have been one of Down and aways best tours. Maybe I think that every time we hit the road, but this Time I´m not only think, I know.
17/11
Wild At Heart... I think it´s our 9:th time at this venue in Berlin. It´s crazy, but we love it. It´s a saturday on Wild At Heart.. the only thing we were talking about on the way here was that finally we´re gonna play at Wild At Heart on a saturday.. All the other times have been in the middle of the week.. For a couple of years ago when we weere playing at the Wild At Heart, Dropkick Muphys played at another venue 600 meters from wild at heart.... But this time we thought nothing could stop us... Hmmm
Arrived a little early and went down to the Wild At Heart shop to buy some clothes for my wife. Everything was fine and i pent all the money I had left in the wallet on some underwear for my wife, when Lea (the owner of wild at heart) steped upp and welcomed me to Berlin. Have you heard the bad news? she told me.. At that moment there was nothing wild about my heart.. I answered no..
Sham 69 is playing at the SO 36, a little bit down the street (that very same venue were dropkick murphys broke our hearts)
Great, great.. The only thing I could see in my mind was an empty wild at heart with a lousy punkband on stage...
We hanged out in the venue waiting for F-three, the band that we were supposed to play with. F-three is one of the best bands I´ve ever shared a stage with,, thanks guys. Your music rocks.
When the evening came the people arrived and was not what I had expected.. Way more people than I thougt would arrive. We entered the stage and we did the best show on this tour... Typically it was the last one for now.. But I could jump into the van with a big smile on my face..... Once again we prooved to ourselves that Down and away is a band to count on.
I´m going to sleep now, we´re going up at 7 o´clock tomorrow just to see Germany fade away.. It´s sad, but my head is filled with alot of good memories. I have so many memories from the years on the road so that I could print them all down on 300-400 pages send them to a factory and sell them like a book.. that would make me rich and famous.
I have three advices for you... Start a band, Have fun, Don´t care...... See ya in the pit
Over and out/ Martin and Down and away