april 16 – video camera saga III

implementing plan 8 to extract the video camera from frankfurt’s airport fedex office. up at 445a to catch the 528a train to frankfurt from munich. that’s where we are now, trying to get the digital camera to relinquish its contents onto the computer.
speaking of which, gear seems to be gradually expiring... adam’s video camera died on day one, my cell charger/converter wouldn’t work in europe for some reason so i had to get a european one, now my digital camera won’t connect to the computer anymore... AAAAAGGH. my kingdom for reliable technology. will settle for universal voltage.
...camera working again. apparently bluetooth and usb cameras are incompatible???

arrival at frankfurt’s airport train station, discover my jacket is headed to cologne ahead of me moments before train’s departure, necessitating a coordinated sprint-and-stall maneuver (i race in ‘n’ out while al blocks departure). ditch carson/adam at airport’s vigilantly guarded comfy-chair exhibit in the airport, while al/i taxi out to fedex. musa the afghan taxi driver agrees to wait for us, and—suddenly--there she is, in all her glory, the most dangerous video camera in europe. back to the station for another wind-sprint to the cologne-bound train, on which we start charging the new video camera! from now on we should be able to augment the trip with fabulous video technology. by the way, the ICE train goes 293 kilometers/hr, which is about 180 mph, which may explain why we didn’t see much of the german countryside, apart from a blanket of fog across a blur of farms.
eventually wind up in “chickito” in the cologne station, waiting for ulf, our first host from future tour-sponsor couchsurfing.com. very excited. apparently we’re staying at his parents’ house and should have lots of space and a local to lead us around... we’ll drop our stuff at his place, shower if we get the chance, and head to the venue. al’s testing out the new video camera on our dining experience, ironing out the kinks.

COUCH SURFING
among other things, allen has used this tour to explore a relatively new concept in world travel, couchsurfing.com. you must check it out to really appreciate what this is all about. as promised, ulf met us at the chickito, drove to his house like a bat outta hell, crashed hard (that is, slept) after having barely slept the night before. awoke in a daze and headed to the venue. at soundcheck the Db on my wurly was flat, so we got alanis’ keyboard tech to come take a look. one by one it seemed like the whole crew wound up looking in on the process, which ended up getting the Db pretty close. might get a sub keyboard in london, where the gear rental company is based.
took my dessert to the balcony ‘cause our dressing room seemed to be functioning as the exhaust for the kitchen & most of the backstage area, and—at long last—met alanis. we spoke about the tour, she said she was a big fan of my music, wants to buy lots of cds to give to her friends, and generally wanted to make sure we were having a good time and everyone was treating us well. very, very nice, and very complimentary, great to finally meet the woman in charge of getting us out here on this adventure...

cologne show was to a packed house of somewhere around 2000. playing to lots of people is somehow easier than playing to smaller groups, i’m not sure exactly why. perhaps it’s the anonymity, or the fact that no one knows the music and we have to give them everything and show them exactly why we do this every night... it’s just easier to perform for a large crowd, and the response is so huge, so many people cheering and paying attention, somehow it feels like what we’re doing is more important. not to say that small shows don’t have great value as well – i love the intimacy of room 5 and the hotel cafe, one can definitely get closer to individuals in the audience, literally and figuratively... the big audience is just a totally different experience. lots of people have been asking about whether we’ve been nervous playing for so many people – i actually feel like there’s less pressure playing for lots of people we don’t know, and i hadn’t really thought about nervousness, but it hasn’t really been a factor. not that i haven’t had my experiences with nervousness, but not on this tour, at least not yet, thankfully.
alanis played a totally different set again – it’s nice to see her change it up all the time. after the show did lots of signing again, that’s a trip in and of itself, something that takes a little getting used to. we all try to keep it unique for each person, but after 100 or so cds signed it’s tough to come up with new material... made a deal with a guy named thomas – he was at munich and cologne in the front row, and if he shows up in the front at frankfurt and furth we’re gonna give him a free cd at the show. so thomas, if you’re reading this, you’ll know we haven’t forgotten.

then out through the streets of cologne with ulf and his guest, mira. first stop was a huge colognian biergarden where the lights are on full and the server was a slyly surly 70-something. drank “kolsch” or similar, the local brew, in tiny little glasses. then to a packed dance club where we all got soaked through on the floor dancing to some old school hip hop. words won’t do that justice—you have to check out the pictures. back to ulf’s to sleep it all off...