Sie hat jetzt eine Mission. Sie muss jetzt singen. Ich sehe das Unheil kommen und es steuert direkt auf mein Mikrostativ zu. Eine Vokal-Fregatte die am Tresen abgelegt hat und unaufhaltsam Kurs genommen hat. Es kommt zur Kollision, unvermeidlich, jedoch anders als erwartet. Irgendein kleineres Hindernis, möglicherweise die eigene Motorik, schickt Madame auf die Bretter. Indirekt. Über Bande, sozusagen. Via Mikrostativ und Klavier. Versenkt.
Read MoreIt looked promising up to a certain point. The vinyl got ready just on the day I had to leave, after things seemed to not work out at all just ten days prior. Gigs went down nicely, merch could have been better, but still kinda OK. Good vibes peaking with the Perpignan show I had the pleasure to share with Boucan. Playing some of the album tracks together felt like flying. Bliss. Utter bliss.
Followed by a sunny morning after weeks of drizzling rain. Just as if all would finally be fine, take an enjoyable twist. As if the spell was broken. That being the sunny morning of Friday, 11 October 2024, when loading in and hugging the Boucan boys a last time before setting out for the Teruel concert. Before the fragile flower of optimism crumbled, fell to pieces, disintegrated on the hard shoulder of a Catalan motorway, a few miles south of Macanet. The second hold-up in my touring history.
Read MoreIf you haven't done it yourself, touring for a couple of months or longer on your own, you probably can't imagine how this feels. Changing places on a daily basis, losing ground both literally and metaphorically. It can feel, or rather it does feel, marvellous. Being free to do what you always wanted to do. On your own, walking across the sunny main square of Maribor, having a coffee in one of those unique, renown Kaffeehauses of Vienna, meeting wonderful, interesting people. Sounds great? Oh it is, but there are those other moments or times, the dark ones. When you realize being on your own is not always a walk in the park, when you realize it's just a nicer expression for solitude.
Read MoreI can't estimate whether or if so how important it is what I'm doing, but to give up something that made life worth living for you or me - maybe just for an evening, maybe more often - I simply just can't do. If us on stage don't muster the courage to be there for you, in front of it, it'll be irrevocably, finally over.
Read MoreInto the wee hours, they tried to convince me of songs. Czech songs, all in a way or another connected with the history of this theatre collective out here somewhere near Melnik. That'd be a corker, they said, if you'd be playing one of them some day.
"Schlaftrunk?", Martin asks. "Schlaftrunk!", I do reply, not the first time during this last evening. And then we're listening to that song about the man, that artist, waking up in the bed of a lady in Olomouc... At least that's what I understand from Mirka's explanations.
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