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Down The Years // |
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Opio para el pueblo – The Toten Hosen in Cuba – 15.5.-22.5.2001Something to browse through: the diary covering our trip to Cuba, 15-22.05.2001 May 15 | May 16 | May 17 | May 18 | May 19 | May 20 | May 21 | May 22
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Day Five - Cuba 1, Schalke 0
Elmar & the “Cuban plug”
Noppa went shopping. The previous evening, he had driven out to the airport for the third time and still his luggage hadn't turned up, so now he had given up hope. When this morning in the breakfast room he wasn't being served anymore, he decided it was high time to buy a new outfit. Now our highway tiger from Kreuzberg, Berlin, showed up in a spotless white tropical suit. To bring his Latino outfit to perfection, he also used lots of hair gel, which some travel companions thought wouldn't really have been necessary...
Campino: will the sound
system arrive? But there were some serious problems coming up, too. Our roadies had been to the Balneario Universidad to check the technical equipment. When they returned, our chief of back-line, Elmar, who has been on the road with us for a zillion years, and has seen the roughest and toughest times with us, in other words, a colleague who usually remains utterly calm, only had this to say: "Remember 1982?" Elmar spent the rest of the day searching through EVERY studio in town to find some amps for our guitars. The only problem: the salsa guitareros use equipment that isn't really suited for Rock'n'Roll, at all. And this equipment, which isn't fit to use at all, is right now standing where we are supposed to play tomorrow... Cuba will probably be the last chance for us to make some band photos this year. At least without having to wear thick jackets or hanging around in a boring studio. When we get back, we’ll immediately be on tour for a few weeks and then we’ll be in the studio, so we won’t have time for things like photos until the winter.
Eddie's Salon 2001
So we make the best of our day and shoot loads of photos, but it’s more like a sight-seeing tour where every now and then someone clicks the shutter release. Nice way of working. The very first location is a highlight: an old-school barber shop. Kuddel is immediately reminded of our very first ZK album cover, where he and Campino were photographed in a hairdresser’s shop. We had a super day and the locals, amusedly watching the strange doings of these funny-looking gringos, evidently also had their fun.
“What are those gringos
up to?” Afterwards, some of us strolled through downtown Havana once more. People would come up and talk to us, asking where we came from and what we were doing here, and we heard a lot of stories and comments about the other side of Cuba.
The locals had their
share of the fun. A young man, showing us around town, made sure that no-one but ourselves could hear him, and then said: “Cuba has eleven million inhabitants, of which six million are cops. The USA are only 180 kilometres away, but I’m afraid it still is too far to swim.” When Breiti took a rikshaw back to the hotel, his chauffeur was stopped by a cop and could only continue his ride after a few dollars had changed hands. "Under normal conditions, one couldn't turn one's back to a country as beautiful as Cuba. But the way things are here, I'll leave as soon as I get the chance", the chauffeur told Breiti when he dropped him at the Riviera.
Balneario Universidad:
Die Bühne A worried-looking hotel manager greeted us in the lobby. What had happened? CNN had transmitted the last minutes of the German premier division football games on telly. Faust, Noppa and drum roadie Steve, all of them passionate Schalke fans, had gone berserk and locked themselves into a hotel room, screaming and howling. You could see the crew of the hotel was greatly worrying about the furniture. Happily enough, most of the aggression of the terribly disappointed lads was self-destructive. The room remained intact, three creatures with eyes dried out from too much crying spent the night haunting the floors, yelling “only S04 is the true champion” and reminding us, who couldn’t sleep under such conditions anyway, that 10,000 kilometres away the FC Bayern Munich had once again decided the championship for their sakes.
Steve suffering for Schalke
Whatever, Fortuna had won 1:0 so all the others could end the day relaxing on the famous Malecon. This is Havana’s seaside promenade, a boulevard stretching over several kilometres, four lanes deep, that leads from the old city centre right through to the old villa district Miramar and also passes our hotel. On a Saturday night like this, it’s a perfect hangout. And no one took any notice of us, mingling with all those lovers, musicians, and rum drinkers. Sunset watched from the Malecon is one of the magic moments this planet has to offer. Just as magic as the Mojito that tastes simply irresistible, no matter where you order it, be it the Riviera or any other bar in town, but it tastes even better when drunk on Havana’s romance mile. If beer is a basic foodstuff in Bavaria, in Cuba it’s the rum. Meanwhile, we had already dubbed the Mojito “tea” and after a third helping we needed a while to realise that those flying fish jumping out of the water directly by the Malecon really did exist.
Sunset by the Malecon
Another rule that holds true all over the world: never give a street musician money! The popular cliché of Cuba as the most musical nation of the Caribbean was beginning to flaw, but 45 minutes later that was finally over and there was only magic, ocean, Mojito, Malecon... Best regards, yours, the Hosen
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