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THE EZIO ZONE > LIVE AREA > Tour Diary
What Ezio has to say when he is on tour
The Band Tour 2005, Germany
... written by John Rech from DreamCatcher, Tour Manager
John's Spring Tour Diary (15.05.2005)
Last time we played Mannheim,
we were meant to shoot a DVD, well at least, Ezio was meant to. And
since we decided to record that show with T42, we upgraded the
recording material to 5.1 surround. We were very disappointed that the
camera team didn’t have enough tapes… but
nevertheless, we later released the T42 live album “crew
deluxe”. Unfortunately, the video material wasn’t
good enough to convince Ezio to release this show on DVD. What a shame,
because the show was great. Anyway, coming back to the Feuerwache woke
up a lot of great memories. Though, I thought we all played very well,
we were a little disappointed about less tickets sold this
time… But a Monday night, battling against a fellow gig next
door (at the Capitol), plus no announcement about the recording of a
DVD might explain a lot…
On a more personal note, Barbara faded away… once
again… Lee and Alex felt ill… tour bug…
Well, Mainz
wasn’t a long drive, but some people felt quite weak when we
arrived and it seemed some flue bug had found its way into the van.
Ezio felt a little weak. Playing Mainz was kinda fun, because the last
I’d been with Ezio in Mainz was to open up for Nigel Kennedy.
Weird, but true… And since Ezio has a lot of fans in Mainz,
it feels very strange not to play this town every tour…
We’re always close-by, but not in town… The gig
was fine and I recall a newspaper guy who asked for a free cd at our
shop but kinda slacked us down in his review, writing that the people
liked us and that we wrote nice little pop songs, but who needs more?
Well, apparently a room full of people… We don’t
pretend to be the next BIG THING… we never did…
and never will… we just enjoy playing our nice little pop
songs to people… and we love it even more, when the audience
seems to like it… we are thankful for every opportunity to
play live and we love touring with Ezio. That’s all! Nothing
more, nothing less. But it means a lot to us. Like I told Christian.
The world needs average bands, too… like they need average
and local press people.
Erfurt.
Museumskeller. Not the Gewerkschaftshaus. We’re not that
popular in this area. And I kept wondering how we would set up the
whole band in this venue. We managed to do it. The food eaten before
the show proved to be not the best choice of the tour. We all felt like
shit. The show was fun, though not the best. More fun than usually and
the feeling that not everyone in the audience understands
Ezio’s humour.
The danger of local liquors was not completely avoided… but
it was less destroying than last time…
After a long journey to Koblenz,
during which we lost contact, thus resulting in a van arriving a long
time after us, we were all looking forward to a quiet night off,
especially as the flue bug found a new victim: Booga. Jordan and
Antonia visited me and to hug my little girl just brought up the
conflict taking place in myself about touring and staying at home. I
love both and I can’t imagine to abandon touring, though
I’ve announced it… We’ll see.
The show at the new and wonderful Café Hahn is good, but not
great. A part of the audience (the ones at the bar) are chatting a lot
and you wonder whether those people came to a gig or just to the local
bar. If that’s the case, they should f… off. The
new Café Hahn just increases the noise and makes it almost
unbearable on stage. If you think that I might exaggerate, well, I
gotta tell you that we recorded both shows (dream catcher &
Ezio) and it sounds more like Camden Market than like a gig. Great
place, but only people that come to the show should be admitted. Not
the local pub clients and friends who furthermore seemed to get in for
free… Other than that, the welcome was warm and we felt
great. Except for my wife who became the new victim of our tour bug,
thus resulting in me making a detour to Luxembourg to drive her and
Jordan back home.
Despite the 300 km detour, I only arrived 10 minutes later than the
rest of the band in Offenburg.
They got stuck in a traffic jam. As funny as it might sound, I felt
like I had abandoned them and I worked even harder after I arrived. The
local crew had great machines and systems at their disposal, but it
seemed that they just didn’t get the idea that we knew Ezio
best and that they should follow our instructions. Marcus and me tried
hard not to lose our control and kinda stay nice, but Ezio got more and
more angry as they just didn’t follow his instructions. The
guy doing monitoring was too inexperienced and just didn’t
get it all, while the light engineer seemed to be more interested in
doing his thing (showing off?), than into serving the music and the
artist of the night. Which is basically what he’s supposed to
do… At least, that’s my opinion. And
that’s what the best crews usually do… Anyway, the
show went downhill and Ezio didn’t get a great review in the
local paper. The show left us quite unhappy, too… Eric left
us as a 4 piece as he had to mutate back into a teacher. Strange,
too…
And then we drove off to München,
just to get back the next day. Fuck! And when we arrived at the
completely unknown Monofaktur, I almost couldn’t believe my
eyes… And the gear didn’t look that…
eh… convincing… Furthermore, nothing had been set
up and I wondered if we would get the show ready in time… We
did. Mostly thanks Marcus. And despite all the stress, this show became
one of the best of the tour. Crazy! Jochen, the local promoter, also
made his contribution to this incredible night and the people who came
to the show, lifted Ezio to his best. Just weird…
As I said, back to Offenburg
and slightly further to Freiburg
and even though I might repeat myself, one of our favourite places in
Germany… We love almost everything down there: the venue,
the crew, the many friends (hi to Mirjam, Lars, Sara with an
h…), the weather (always sunny), the hotel… And
playing the Jazzhaus is better than playing at home… Quentin
was out due to the bug. His wife and boy who visited him were scheduled
to follow soon. Both shows were great and we all headed for a small
party after the show… Just a couple of drinks…
On our day off, we all went for shopping and later for a sushi meal and
some more drinks. I felt quite weak and decided to head back to the
hotel earlier than planned but someone convinced me to drink another
beer and I stayed… Bad choice. I felt like shit the next day
and knew instantly that I was next on the bug’s list.
I just seemed to have enough energy to put up the production in Erlangen because as
I walked on stage for the dream catcher set, I felt already like
collapsing… and I almost did. I reduced the set to a minimum
and almost fell into the arms of the girl that took care of us this day
(sorry, but I can’t remember your name, but many thanx). She
drove me back to the hotel where I went straight to sleep.
I woke up many hours and gallons of sweat later with just the minimum
energy for the journey and the show. It’s really tough to be
ill on tour… You feel awful… and like
you’ve let down your companions… and just like a
lump… When we arrived in Plauen I tried to get some more
sleep before going out for a walk. The show was fine and we felt like
Plauen could become a traditional town on the Ezio tour map.
Sometime later during the night, I wondered whether Christian would be
affected by the bug or not… It looked like he had found the
best way to fight it, but I won’t tell you his
secret… I think you can guess it…
I don’t know why, but Krefeld
seems to be a longer drive every time (600 km this time), but we were
all looking forward to this show, so it made the journey a little less
annoying. Another major venue on our journey. Everything’s so
cool at the Kufa and it seems like they’re looking forward to
having us, too. The lightning guy is terrific and the show was
absolutely great. The party next door gave us an opportunity to test
Christian’s method to fight the bug… It
doesn’t seem to work for everyone… Eric joined us
for the weekend and we were back to normal… He had to
experience the difficulty of someone dropping in and out of a
tour… I always hate that and leaving the touring company and
its very special atmosphere, even only for a couple of days, is a
strange thing and when you get back, you almost feel like an outcast.
It takes at least a day or two to readjust…
While driving to Isernhagen,
I wondered when I would finally have time to write the tour diary and
came to the conclusion that I’d probably do it after the
tour, as this trip just proved to be very demanding for me. As
I’m writing these comments now, many months later, trying to
recollect my thoughts, I’m surprised that I finally got to
write it down. The year has been very tough and I can’t
complain about the amount of work. That it’s been quite
successful compensates for the energy and time invested…
Anyway, back to our trip to Isernhagen, where I also wondered what I
would write this time. Every tour, I try to find another approach to
share this moments with you. This time, I seem to spend more time with
my personal feelings and less with the shows. Due to the amount of
work, I also can’t write down the setlists… Maybe,
I’ll do this the next time… The previous time I
played Isernhagen’s Blues Garage, I fell off stage, being
exhausted and ill. So I had a goal for this time: stay on
top… The name of the venue says it all and it
shouldn’t be a surprise that we all chose to play more rock
numbers than ballads. I’m still not quite sure about playing
this kind of venue, but it proves to be good fun… On the
other hand, I’d rather see Ezio’s feelings lead us
through the night, than the venue’s crowd imposing a certain
style. But since it’s always quite full, the concessions to
make are quite evident… Hotel Motel…
A day off in Hamburg
was up next. And we all tried to recover from the bug that had left its
traces in everyone’s body. Some shopping, quite a bad dinner
with Ezio’s Manager (some Asian restaurant near the hotel
– big shit hole) and a drink in a weird bar (we seemed to be
surrounded by them) made the day pass like hell. Had a great time and
loads of laughs with Carmen and Esther. Thank you. Oh yeah, I remember
running around like hell to find a connection for my laptop. Or a
decent internet café. Without any success. I definitely will
write this diary after the tour. I also rehearsed with our new bass
player…
The Hamburg show was recorded for the radio and we all made this night
the best in Hamburg ever. I really enjoyed the gig. Dream catcher
presented their new bass player, a very young and fine lady from
Bournemouth (England) as Christian had head back to his bank in
Dudelange (Luxembourg). And Lydia gave us a complete different sound.
She’s great!!! I love Christian, too (I have to write this
since he’s gonna read it and I don’t want him to
think that I… blablabla…). Anyway, we recorded
the show, too. The ASS (= agent) squad was there, too. And I had to
secure the beer and sandwiches. Agents and record companies usually
empty your fridge faster than you would know… without
asking… I locked them out. My boys (& girl) deserve
their food and drinks after the show. We don’t mind offering
a drink to them, but that’s all…
Driving from Hamburg to Berlin,
or the other way round, is a classic journey, boring, too. The hotel
proved to be absolutely fantastic and to be back at the Quasimodo
called for smiles on our faces. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I
personally never feel quite at ease at the Quasimodo. I can’t
explain why and I always wondered whether it was me or my attachment to
the band… I think it’s me and the misunderstanding
with the local P.A. guy (who proved to be the manager’s
boyfriend) didn’t help to break the ice… My
announcement, after having almost my ears blown off, kinda made it
worse. But the fact remained that our monitoring system had been
perfect before the show and that the performance afterwards became a
nightmare due to unacceptable conditions on stage… Who am I
to complain? The tour manager worrying about the main act and the
singer of the opening act that really felt awful on stage. The
misunderstanding came from a request made on stage to please get a
better sound and that was considered as an insult. It
wasn’t… but the manager got quite
angry… I worked it out with the sound guy later and it made
clear to me that I would never have my wife work in the same business
than me… I had experienced similar situations when I went
out with the girl singing in T42… bad idea… I
left the venue with a bitter taste (which I thought was a shame as I
really love it – we gotta work it some day) and Ezio with
reduced energy since the bug had found him, too… He never
really got ill, but the virus was present now and then…
Ahaus proved to be a complete waste of time, energy and
money… I’d rather have played a small bar to
please the promoter (who celebrated his last night at the venue,
fulfilling his dream booking… Ezio), than this venue stuffed
with local VIP who gave a shit about who was playing and also made it
an unsatisfying experience for the Ezio fans present. I don’t
know about candle decorations In Ahaus, but my local fire brigade chief
would have lost more than his temper if I had decorated my venue with
300 lit candles, just an inch away from the curtains… All I
wanna remember from this gig are the great dancer (that caused the
biggest laugh since the Koblenz miracle a couple of years earlier),
Ezio’s partisan song (that no one except for him, Lidia
& me recognized), my friends and their future baby (if
it’s a boy, they might call him John, I hope so, what a great
compliment) and the drive out of town…
And then there was Cologne…
The last show, the last arising, the last recording and probably the
show we were most looking forward to… Great presale figures,
the knowledge that we were gonna record it and the fact that Cologne is
always a highlight made it special… And we took so much more
time to set everything up and make it perfect… Martin
(Marcus’ friend and partner at the great Mühle der
Freundschaft – recording studio) came once more to do the
recording and there was something special in the air…
Christian and Eric had joined us for the final performance and we
probably played one of our best shows… I thought
“Verluer” sounded great that night as we all sank
into a longer middle part… “Fuck off”
saw the visit of Booga, Lee and Alex and caused tears of laughing while
announcing that the end of the tour was near… One last
“déjeuner en paix” and dream catcher had
done their bit… I sincerely hope that you liked it. This new
beginning was very special to us and I felt like this was the best
line-up I ever played with. Quentin just brought the right feeling to
it and Christian mutated into the bass player and musician I always
expected him to be. Most of all, their playing matches perfectly.
Quentin is also such a nice person to have around. Eric continued his
journey to less but better playing and has become so important in dream
catcher. Right now, I can’t imagine dream catcher without
him. His touch is an important part of the sound. And Marcus is just a
great guitarist. His presence raises everyone to a better level. And
his guitar playing fulfils my wishes… Though we surely still
have to improve, I think we’ve done quite well and
I’m already looking forward to the summer dates…
And then we all took off for a different planet… Planet
Ezio… The band played until complete exhaustion and the look
on their faces when they stumbled off stage for the first time told me
that no big party would conclude this tour as they were putting all
their energy into this final show, a great show indeed. I hope this
recording will be available in some way, because I loved every moment
of it.
As I said, there was no big party, just a small one as we all were
completely exhausted… but happy. The Köln show was
the best way to end a tour and, the next day, we were all heading home
with a big smile on our faces…
John's tour diary - Part
I (11.04.2005)
Hi there, long time fans and friends of Ezio wondered why I
hadn’t written a diary on this tour. The answer is quite
simple… I just didn’t have any time to do
it… If this tour gave you Ezio (the band and artist) at
their best, it surely was the toughest I have done so far. Long drives,
not the best itinerary in tour history and a bigger production (i.e.
Lee had more gear) kept me quite busy… Time off was when I
hit stage with dream catcher… and a couple of hours on 2
days off…
Anyway, today, 2 weeks after finishing the tour, I finally find some
time to write down a couple of memories…
Bitburg
started with the usual “first day of tour stress”.
The good news: all the gear arrived. The bad news: We’re
short of one musician. Lidia missed the plane. English
traffic… The promoter dispatches someone to pick her up at
the airport and she makes it to the venue in time for the
gig… Tired, but happy… The show’s quite
good for a first day of tour… I get a suspicion: the
band’s better than last time I saw them… About
dream catcher: we just played our first gig and I think it was quite
ok… there’s life after T42… and it
looks promising…
End of night: Packing the van in the middle of the night looks like
fun, too… I already hate it…
Over the years, Kaiserslautern
has grown to one of our favourite places. Though some people might
think that Angelika and Richard are quite special, we think
they’re quite fantastic and we love playing the Kammgarn. The
reasons? A warm welcome, a great venue, long time friends…
and a great audience. While setting up, I wonder that the crew and
production already work pretty well and we’re only the 2nd
day of the tour. Cool. Quentin, dream catcher’s drummer, our
common driver and Ezio’s drum tech wondered yesterday why the
band just thought the gig was good, while he thought they were great. I
told him the band’s very demanding, also towards their own
performance and he would find out soon… The Kammgarn gig is
quite a good answer… The band’s in a great mood
and the tiredness from yesterday’s long journey is
gone… They rock… Hotel Motel… About
dream catcher… Wow, I’m surprised… the
new songs go down very well, despite the many languages… the
T42 classics sound different, too… I feel reborn…
I’m happy… in my tree house…
While driving to Tübingen
in the snow, I remember the last time we played the Sudhaus and as I
turn around and see the faces of everyone else in the bus, I have the
impression that we all share the same sweet memory… A
promising gig is just ahead of us… And the expectations are
not deceived… What a great night… Once
again… A night to fly…A night to rock…
A night to fall in love… A night to take off and never
land… did you say neverland? We’re all Peter
Pan… we’re all in a dream…
Ezio’s new songs work well… I love
them… Oh yeah, I’ve read on the internet that you
guys don’t know the names of the new songs, so I thought I
should tell you: “hotel motel”, “keep the
light on”, “friends again”,
“I'd still want you” & “what I
came here for”. Up to you to find out which title belongs to
which song.
cologne (25.03.2005)
what a night ! juhu ! double juhu ! at the end we were all very thirsty
and confused !
hannover - blues garage
(20.03.2005)
the "blues garage" is such a cool and funny place to be, it looks like
an old american bar and henry, the owner, is a very cool person.
there's no fridge in our backstage, we're free to take whatever we want
from the bar, juhuu !
at the end we were all very tired, and we got back to the hotel quite
early.
today's a "day off": marcus, lee and quentin went to bad iburg
(studio), christian and me got back to luxembourg, while the rest of
the team drove to hamburg.
krefeld (19.03.2005)
yesterday, after work, I was driving to krefeld to join the "team".
after several traffic jams, I finally managed to arrive in krefeld
without any delay, ouff ...
once again krefeld was such a great show. the location looks very
similar to the kulturfabrik in esch/alzette (L), so I felt like being
home ... thanks to everybody at the kulturfabrik for a great evening
and a long night !
offenburg -luxembourg :-(
(13.03.2005)
I'm very sad, because I had to leave the tour today. I'm back in
Luxembourg, because I have to work tomorrow ....
the team's playing in munich tonight ...
offenburg (12.03.2005)
after a very short night we were heading off for offenburg. the weather
conditions were very bad, a lot of snow and rain, furthermore there
were a lot of traffic jams. we had no time for a rest at the hotel and
everybody was very tired. quentin got ill very badly (high
temperature), he hardly managed to play the concert.
we had a lot of problems with our sound on stage, so nobody was feeling
well.
up to now this was the hardest day of this tour. at the end everybody
was happy, when we left the venue and went for our beds.
koblenz (11.03.2005)
what a night ! lot's of people, very hot, crazy show. we tried to
record the whole set, but john's guitar just fucked off, while we were
playing, guess what, ... "fuck off", so we had to stop and start again,
after a very funny discussion between john an me.
I'd like to thank bertie and his friendly staff at the café
hahn, it's such a great venue !
the night was a long one ... juhu !
erfurt - koblenz (day
off) (10.03.2005)
we've had two very funny, estupifying days with christian, who invented
a new word "to estupify some one". in fact nobody knows what it means,
but everybody understands. if you have any idea, please write it down
in our guestbook.
yesterday we drove back from erfurt to koblenz, at the end john was the
happiest man on earth, after a long week away from home, he finally met
his wife and their little girl jordan.
we went to koblenz (old town) and ate very good tapas in a cosy little
bar, just wonderful. our day ended in the renovated café
hahn, where we're playing tonight. by the way the show's sold out.
erfurt (09.03.2005)
this was just a lazy, boring day. more than waiting for something
didn‘t happen. the venue was a small pub downstairs in a
museum „museumskeller“. it was so tiny, they
didn‘t even have enough room for a toilet. but at the end it
was very cosy athmosphere in there and we enjoyed our play very much.
mainz (08.03.2005)
I was looking for edi, berti & co, but I could not find any of
the „mainzelmännchen“.
we played in a very „chic“ venue, which looked more
than a large conference room than a concert hall. the light technician
was just so creative, at the beginning he switched on the lights, after
ezio‘s show he switched them off. wow !
anyway, it became a great concert. john just started to play
„big picture“ which wasn‘t on our setlist
at all, but we managed to play it till the end, in fact everybody ended
at the same bar ;-)
mannheim (07.03.2005)
in 2003 we recorded the album „crew deluxe“ at the
„alte feuerwache“, so I remembered the venue very
well. when entering the hall I was thinking a lot about the last tour
and my fellow musicians of t42 (wolli, schwampf, paul). although it was
quite different this time, we had great fun on stage, maybe a little to
much fun, some songs seemed quite chaotic to me. anyhow, the public
appreciated our gig.
tübingen
(05.03.2005)
playing at the sudhaus is just so wonderful. it‘s quite a
good experience if the crowd welcomes a support band so warmly, thanks
a lot. it‘s a pity we‘re not allowed to play more
than 8 songs, especially if the public‘s asking for a
„zugabe“.
because of our mixture of languages (german, luxembourgish, french and
english) we confused the soundengineer quite a lot, sorry mate ;-)
we had our frist day off in tübingen, which is a very lovely
city, just visit the old town, eat some
„spätzle“ and taste the local wine,
marvellous.
kaiserslautern
(04.03.2005)
not enough sleep, working the whole day, driving to kaiserslautern
(thanks richard), setting up, soundchecking, ... lot of work, lot of
beer, long day, but great gig. it was the fourth time I played at the
„kammgarn“, and I always enjoyed it, it‘s
such a great location, looking forward to our next gig later this year.
big thank you, Angelika & co.
bitburg (03.03.2005)
the first concert of a tour is always a little bit stressy, but
everything was set up quickly. it was funny meeting ezio, booga, alex,
lee and lydia again.
our concert was quite good, although no one could really remember all
the arrangements, we‘d changed. in fact we had just one
rehearsal last saturday.
apart from the lasagna, the only negative part was the nightly drive
home. christian and me had to work on friday, ....
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