FINVASION TOUR 2008 - APR 14th - 26th
All the best things must come to an end. We definitely can say, that we had an amazing time on tour! We met gorgeous people and made many new friends; we saw plenty of places; gained lots of experiences; of course fulfilled all rock'n'roll clichés and simply had a continues blast the whole two weeks through!
•
Berlin — apr 13th - 16thAfter it took the
PSG guys and myself about forever + approximately 17 calls to find each other at the airport (and realizing that we've actually walked around the same places for the last couple of hours), we didn't want to waste much more time and headed straight to the busses.. just to find out that the Visa Electronic and German card readers don't quite like one another too much.. which would already then predict the tour to be a lot of more "fun" for everybody. Eventually we made our way to the hotel (after another couple of hours), checked in, peed, ate, drank, went online and then to bar for a little welcome party and a couple of beers. Later on the
So Calleds joined us there and we ended the night just the way one would have expected it. We were ready to start our little adventure.
More or less refreshed we woke in the morning (noon) and of course started to work right away. xD. Soundcheck was a bit late, but no one dared to complain.
The Jade arrived in the afternoon and had to go there right away. They were exhausted from the travel but all out of time, we had to hurry and shake the butts. We played the first gig at
K17, supported by the lovely people of
La Manie. It was a monday and we didn't expect the place to be packed, but well.. it could have been a few more people. (Damn you arses who didn't show up! =D.) However, we had fun and the audience did as well. After all the work was done we went back to the hotel and had a little aftershow party with the bands and friends, followed by a few hours of (no) sleep and quite a misty (hangoverish) morning. Being the tough pussies that we are, we headed straight to the
Wild At Heart club, where the second show of the tour took place. Fantastic place, with a great staff! Everybody felt pretty much at home there and so the show could only be good. We even had an own dancing entertainer in the audience - wooh! Support for that night was the band
Wochenendticket. Sadly they were not whole that night, but still managed to do a nice show.
Once done with the gigging we still staid for a few drinks and some chats and after I finally managed to get everyone safely in the cabs I realized that I left my coat at the club. Damn it. It's still there. (Anybody going to
WAH soon?) Blaaah.. we went to the hotel, drank a little more, went to bed (not) and that's it, that was Berlin.
•
Leipzig — apr 16th - 17thAfter a call to the police, reporting a missing phone, we headed to Leipzig around noon. (By the way - thank God for GPS!) The time was on our side that day and so we were able to meet up with one of the owners of the
Fourooms - Tobi - and the local support band
NevAmind, have some beer and coffee, do the soundcheck, check into the hotel, go to Lidl, cook a dinner, watch some cartoons, take a shower, get ready for the night and finally make our way to the charming club place. That night rocked! All bands did - again - good shows (even though some of them were not satisfied with their own performances.. as usual =D ..) and the audience (muuuchos people) had a blast. Unfortunately our dear
PSG singer Mike fell and hurt his knees that night, which caused him pain all through the next weeks (later on even accompanied by problems with his voice.. poor guy). Well, you can imagine what we did after the gigs were over. We were in a bar already after all. xD.
•
Cologne — apr 17th - 19thLeaving the hotel rather dirty we met up with Tobi for a brunch at his apartment, where we also met some of his friends and the
So Calleds took their only shower of the whole tour. xD. (Yes, that was just a joke.) Those bastards took some days off then and travelled to Prague, which meant that we had to take all the equipment with us in the freaking little van. Not that there was already no space left for us to shake a leg, but now we really had to suffer. But hey, that's part of it too, isn't it. ^_^ So we drove to Cologne, where we spent the night somewhere
Between Wasteland and Wonderland. That was probably one of my personal little highlights, thanks to our dear host Nora. =).
As some of the guys went outside the next day to look for some food on the streets, they happened to see, that the car was gone! Some damn b**** had it impounded by the police. So we burned some more money and time (of which we, of course, had much too much anyways), got the damn thing back and drove downtown, to find our support
Last Exit already waiting in front of the
All Access club. Everything had to go quickly then. We greeted some (great) friends, the bands did a couple of interviews, we had soundcheck and some drinks and a few little cat-fights.. and then the show began. We definitely knew afterwards that the guys of
Last Exit were on telly before (thanks for mentioning it xD) and that they sure do their work well. Sadly some people had to stay outside, as the age limit was eighteen, but rules are rules. Nothing too special happened. The following night rather is kept silent, as we had to spend it on the street. In the cold. No fun. Not for me, at least. =D.
•
Bochum — apr 19th - 22ndThese were our off-days! We spent them at
Vani's place, together with dear Vani herself and dear Kati, later on accompanied by sweet Shira and 3/4rd of our off-day-support-band
Sixx Times Slash. Yeah dude, you know you are someone when you even can afford to have a support on the off-days!! xD. Well, we had fun.
Vani's place was left a little bit trashed, but everybody survived. Eventually somehow. =).
•
Stuttgart — cancelledDue to some major issues the gig at
Die Röhre was cancelled and I don't think we'll cooperate with the club anytime soon again. We would have loved to play with our planned support band
Jolly Japlin, but well.. maybe next time, guys!
•
Nuremberg — apr 22nd - 25thDid we really stay that long in Nuremberg? Well, seems so. Mhm. We arrived sometime late on tuesday and checked into the hotel. I think we saw a lot of the city during the next days. We also met plenty of nice people, including our support band
The Missing Letters. We played at
Z-Bau on thursday. It was a damn foul weather that night, which quite buried our hopes for a big crowd deep under. Nevertheless was it a night to remember. Somehow we lost one of our guitarists in the dark, but he appeared again in the early morning and everything was fine. The rest of the days we spent with a little bit of sight-seeing, meeting new people, good talks and a little bar-ing.
•
Aschaffenburg — apr 25thWe were late! About four hours late. xD. That night was mere madness!
Our spokesperson Christoph of local support act
Subtonic Flavour had already phoned up some other bands to replace us at
JUKUZ. One of those also played then, but I forgot their name. They were rather.. well, lets say "different". Our Finnish bands played very well shows, just sadly the big crowd rather stayed in the lounge or outside smoking while they played and would only show up for
Subtonic Flavour's gig. Pardon my words but:
F*** you people!! What the heck is wrong with you, that you have so little respect? You paid all that ticket money just to waste it then with lingering somewhere, getting drunk and spending even more money on the damn booze, when you could have been watching the actual happening taking place. You missed the best! I'm glad I made you wipe off your own puke then from the backstage, where you - by the way - were not supposed to be anyways! And I am feeling real sorry for Christoph then having to wipe off some other idiot's vomit, as well. That guy did a great job all throughout the day. He's a brilliant organizer!
We ended the night rather pissed off and continued our travel to Frankfurt.. .
•
Frankfurt/Main — apr 25th - 27thThe best about our stay in Frankfurt was the huge shower in the hotel! Hehe nah, just kidding, but damn you should have seen that thing!! We tried to do some crazy Star Trek tricks with it, but they wouldn't work. Pff. xD.
Frankfurt was amazing! And I really mean it!!
The final gig took place at
Elfer club. Cute little place, with a true rock'n'roll atmosphere and a fantastic staff! Support band for the night was
Eden - we all agreed completely on them being the freaking
best support act we had with us on this tour. Great talents and very lovely people. Even their friends were just lovely. Lets just say: about two dozen birds of a feather. =).
That was it. I won't tell you about the (sad) goodbyes, because sooner or later we'll all be back. Just you wait and prepare your little arses already. The next time is gonna be beyond believes.. !
Main Acts:
So Called Planwww.socalledplan.com
PSGwww.psgband.com
The Jadewww.thejadenet.com
Support Acts:
La Maniewww.lamanie.de
Wochenendticketwww.wochenendticket.de.tl
NevAmindwww.nevamind.de
Last Exitwww.lastexit-band.com
The Missing Letterswww.myspace.com/themissingletters
Subtonic Flavourwww.subtonicflavour.de
Edenwww.edengoth.ed.funpic.de
Sixx Times Slash
www.myspace.com/sixxtimesslashmusicPhotographs, Reviews, Interviews:
holy cunt photographytempelores.com: review;
interview psgfhradio.de: audio interviewsauroraborealis.de.tl: interview psg;
interview the jadefinnbands.com: review;
photographs the jade;
photographs psg;
photographs so called plan;
photographs psg;
photographs psg;
photographs psg;
rockinwords.com: photographsfin-joy.de.vu: photographs psg;
photographs the jadeSpecial Thanks To:
Stephanie, Monique, Paddy + the whole K17 staff; the bartender woman of the first night in Berlin; all Wild At Heart staff; Michel; Tobi + his friends; Nora; Verena; Vani; Kati; Shira; Sixx Times Slash; Susi; Laura + Emo; Christoph; the Elfer staff; Eden; the little girl at Frankfurt's hotel; Bernd Schweinar.
Also Thanks To:
All support bands; the clubs + hotels; all press + media people; everybody not mentioned above, who somehow was a part of all of this and/or came to see the shows and to have some drinks and good times with us. THANKS A LOT!- Julia S.
[Tourmanager; speaking on behalf of all main acts.]