april 9 – enter alanis

hugo rouses team gm @ 1045a, after a few hours sleep, allen (tour manager, responsible for getting the band where they have to be at all times) having brought neither watch nor alarm clock with him on the tour. breakfast at the school (carson = meat & egg, then went back to bed), packed up, showered, searched for carson, and finally made the train to horsens for the first alanis gig.
hostel in horsens = 1 room, 5 guys in 2 bunkbeds and a trundle. we then departed on the fellowship of the gig, a journey (with much gear in tow – walking, mind you) through a bird sanctuary, several thickets, and a wooded staircase up to a few small farms, surprised farmers, and the load-in entrance for horsens forum.
met alanis’ band & crew, leisurely lunch at her catering (one of the big plusses of being on a big tour = good food), watched her soundcheck, set up our gear offstage, then soundchecked ourselves. little rough going to start, but managed to get it all together in time for doors just after 6p.
back up to fabulous catering for some dinner, last minute haggling over the setlist, then onstage promptly at 8p for 4000 screaming danish alanis fans.
when rocking an arena: 1. takes a minute to adjust to the lighting - can’t see anyone in the audience ‘cause the lights on the band are so bright. 2. the band has to rely on the monitor sound (as opposed to the house sound) exclusively to hear themselves, so there’s a separate monitor engineer that’s there to help out the band, responding to hand signals and facial expressions... 3. also, applause goes longer and energy level is high just due to the sheer numbers.
apparently the danes love to clap – about 1 bar into adam’s opening doumbek part on “gravity,” the crowd was doing the patented european-clap-on-all-four-beats, something totally unknown in america. this put us all at ease, & made the rest of the set a pleasure. after a set of stuff from the new album - gravity, someone else for one day, when we are one, lighted up, ok alone, go up to go down - and over the world from the lighted up ep, we were done & watched the alanis show (awesome) with some of the girls from the højskole where we’d played the night before.
sold cds after the show, and signed those, people’s tickets, shirts, arms, and stomachs.
alanis and her posse bailed right after her show and got on their buses to oslo. we’re kind of on the opposite schedule from them – we went out to a bar with some of allen’s friends and some of the ry students, slept a few hours after another late night. alanis & co. travel all night and arrive the next morning, we sleep (kinda) then travel during the day.
haven’t met alanis yet – she arrived at the venue just before their soundcheck, and we soundchecked right after, then ate, played, then she played, bailed. should be a bit more time in oslo, hopefully we’ll have a chance for introductions then... stay tuned.
sad to leave denmark, everybody here’s been ridiculously nice and the country is beautiful (as we train through it).