Sunday, May 15, 2011

Jo Fo Euro. Day 11. Heidelberg, Germany

Jun and I have plans to wake up early and get some photos of beautiful Laussane.
But having fallen asleep so late I fail dismally and only meet Jun at the van at 9...
...before we all climb in and start the drive back to Germany.
Along the way I play Final Fantasy III on my DS, watch 30 Rock and animate ghosts floating over slo-mo landscapes of European countries we've passed through. Nestor safely delivers us to Heidelberg.
It's a really pretty town. Surrounded by mountains, it reminds me of Stellenbosch. Unfortunately, after driving through the city's lovely streets we find ourselves in what must be the most un-pretty part of it - a colossal construction site. According to the address this is where the venue should be, but there's nothing but this ugly wasteland and some half finished buildings. We sit around, confused for a few minutes. Then deiced to drive around the site and see if the venue is someplace close by. Eventually admit defeat, landing up in front of a seedy looking establishment called "Eroscenter 13". An elderly looking metal head on a bicycle drives up to us and flashes us a huge smile of metal teeth.
The dude turns out, not to be a retired James Bond villain, but instead our sound guy for the night. He directs us to the venue, which turns out to be a totally awesome old train station come live venue. It's huge.
Young Legionnaire, the band that will be supporting us on the rest of the tour, show up. They're a lovely gang of dudes (comprised of former members of Bloc Party, The Automatic and Yourcodenameis:Milo) and it's nice knowing they'll be with us for the rest of the tour.
We soundcheck, then go for a walk, hoping to see a bit more of the pretty town we drove past.
A half hour later we return defeated, only finding the constructions site, freeway and Eroscenter13 around us. We make ghosts for "You thought..." record artwork.
Eat delicious dinner and then start to worry about how few people seem to be showing up for the show. This worry turns out to be totally justified as 2 hours later Young Legionnaire start playing to 6 people. By the time we take over the situation isn't much better. We play to what has to be the least people I've ever performed in front of. Wether it's been with Kidofdoom, Johnny Neon or Eyes Like Mirrors, I've never slung Seafox over my shoulders for so few pairs of eyes to see my visuals.
I spend most of the show running around the empty hall of a venue, we kid around and honestly, just being able to make pictures to the sounds of The Foreigners makes me really happy regarless.