Leipzig: they might have won "best audience" award

Leipzig... Giezer16: Our first show EVER in Leipzig. It was a massive squat/ mini-village in Leipzig. Very political and anti-fascist. (Lots of neo-nazis in Leipzig).

Europe has a massive squatting community. We've played in squats plenty of times, but we have still only touched the tip of the iceberg.

A smiley guy took us to a squat-restaurant (vegan, of course). I had currywürst and the rest of the gang had gyros (can't wait to go to Greece in two weeks and have REAL gyros... from the source!).

I was exhausted, from sleeping precious little the night before. Xania and Ineke vanished, so after wandering around (it was kind of creepy, puttering around the big, spacious squat with the rain falling; nobody to be found) for awhile, I met a chap named Tom, who was doing metalwork in a dark shed (by the light of his cell phone... I'm telling you it was creepy!). He took me to the "backstage". It was a massive room full of mattresses. I promptly fell asleep.

Xania finally showed up and kept asking me to make CDs. I was exhausted and couldn't bear to move, so I just kept falling asleep. Moments before we had to get onstage I finally got up, helped with a few CDs, through my layers of clothes on and headed downstairs to the stage.

By this point, a few more people had shown up. We started setting up. More and more people came in until the place was packed.

We began to play. Started with Sudbury. I like starting with this one because I can do random stuff on the second keyboard with the distorted blues guitar sound; making it swirl around, ducking beneath tables and sliding against walls. People don't quite know what's going on. Then I slap everyone around with the twist beat: boom ba ba boom ba ba... then the song begins.

I was pretty hyper. A dramatic change from the sleepy, somnabulistic me from pre-nap. I ran around the huge stage during Carousel. We had a situation because I unplugged Xania's pre-amp during Carousel, but it was remedied.

The crowd was amazing. They were almost immediately into us, copying dance moves, dancing like crazy. So un-German! In Hamburg we have a nice little fan base, but they rarely dance...

There must have been 200 people there. It was great. A great feeling. I met a nice Russian guy who was there to promote an anti-fascist documentary about Russia. He was touring around Europe. He said he liked our views (we have views?). For example: we talked about how we hate high school, and he said Russian crowds would be able to identify with that... and how it's a fake structure that only re-enforces Imperialistic, shallow, Capitalistic mindsets... actually he didn't say all that. That was implied. He gave me several swigs of his massive plastic bottle of vodka and orange juice.

The show and the response made me feel really great. This tour has really been blowing my mind! So many great people everywhere and people who get what we're doing. Although our Canadian tour had some highlights, some of our Ontario shows (except Waterloo and Toronto) were tough as nails. Getting people to dance or let alone stand up was next to impossible.

Anyway, so I chatted with a VERY talkative young man in shades who kept passing me this massive bong and telling me endless stories about his football team getting ridiculously drunk by the coach the night before, then getting thrashed by Prague's football team. He also told me about Dead Mau5; a Canadian electro-dj guy. He worshipped him. That and Whistler, BC. He was in love with the idea of Whistler.

At five am I said I wanted to dance. I went into the room with the flashing strobe and pumping music, stared at my shoes, feeling the music in my bones, and it suddenly hit me; I was exhausted. I wandered over to the backstage, found Xania and Ineke crashed out like two sacks of potatoes and crashed like a ton of bricks.

Woke up again in the empty squat at 10:30 and made our way over to Tobi's house, where we are staying. He made a scrumptious meal: buns, cheese, nutella, coffee... mmmm lekkerrrr!!!

Chatted with the gang here lots. Cool peeps. Went to another squat-restaurant for dinner. After dinner Xania cut my hair, making me look like a German artfag (did some research and, as far as I know, "artfag" is NOT an offensive term, so don't get all PC on my ass).

Spent the morning booking and doing some planning. Getting more shows in Sweden and Denmark, after writing a million venues! It's paying off.

Today I think we might head downtown and busk. Make a bit of moolah, maybe some new fans... AND we have to make business cards!

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Love
Stephen