Element of Crime Blog

At last we are back in Austria, Felix. A few days have passed since the last entry in this diary so I recapitulate briefly: Hamburg; we played in the vast and airy (and cold) Alstersporthalle. We enjoyed it and so did the punters. If you don’t know what ‘punters’ means, I’ll give you a clue: people who pay for tickets. Onwards we drove, to Bremen, where we were housed in The Park Hotel, a hostelry with a very strong sense of its own importance, enough of it in fact, that it might irritate sensitive people like me. Show in Bremen, v. good, and a party after, to entertain the family and friends of the band’s most famous personality. Then the big one, the Arena in Berlin, Element of Crime hometown, starting point, place of business, home and school for all, except me, a Londoner. OK, Sven comes from Bremen and he went to school there, but the rest is true, with a few exceptions and conditionals and economies with the truth. Got it? Obviously truth and literature don’t sit easily together. We were all astonished by the number of people who showed up, slipping and sliding over the Treptow ice to hear EoC play ‘the soundtrack of our lives’ as someone put it. A great moment for all, and Thank You. On a monday I found myself in a hotel near the Ostbahnhof, the others having gone off to their families. What I needed was an SD card (don’t ask what it is) so I set off to get one. I was suddenly out, out of the tour and lost in the bitterly cold streets of Friedrichshain, surrounded by identical appartment buildings dating fronm the socialist paradise. Only ice visible and the slow drip of the fall of communism. And then, suddenly, a huge pink blob in front of me. The Alexa. Shoppers paradise. The shoddy triumph of capitalism standing mighty in its unbelievable ugliness, with its streams of warmed air and millions of halogen lamps and a kind of stage where Westlife were sitting, signing autographs, along with a thousand identical shops. Like the socialist paradise but with more electricity. I rushed back to the hotel, in fear and panic but with an SD card, and jumped onto the next bus to Vienna. The bus happened to contain the EoC crew, kind enough to give me a lift. What gentlemen they are, the Sine Qua Non of the whole enterprise, offering me Brandy after my scary shopping trip, and making me feel very much at home and happy. Unfortunately we have only three days more of their company. Tomorrow: The Käsekrainer.

Der Beitrag wurde am Dienstag, den 9. Februar 2010 um 18:05 Uhr veröffentlicht und wurde unter David Young's Blog: Rosbif with Kraut. Tour 2010. abgelegt. Du kannst die Kommentare zu diesen Eintrag durch den RSS 2.0 Feed verfolgen. du kannst zum Ende springen und einen Kommentar hinterlassen. Pingen ist im Augenblick nicht erlaubt.