|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Down The Years // |
|
|
|
|||||||||
The “Auswärtsspiel” tour diary 2002 written by FaustDr. Faust has busily been writing his tour diary during the Auswärtsspiel tour. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
“Is this still punk...?”April 17, 2002 Düsseldorf -> Saarbrücken The first stop on our tour was “Osnabrück”. I’m no good with town names, but the surrounding of the Saarlandhalle really reminded me of the Ruhr area [where Osnabrück is]. I had just shut down my pub in Wanne-Eickel, called “Dr. Faust” because it simply wasn’t my life, standing behind the bar day after day. And that’s why I was very happy when I heard the boys wanted to go on tour again. April 18, 2002 Saarbrücken
'A'
When we start a big tour, we always chose a venue where we can turn up the day before and do some rehearsals. The first people we met was our first supporting band for the tour, “A” from England. Very nice lads, who kick arse as soon as they set foot on the stage. You couldn’t tell if the Hosen where maybe a little nervous, on the contrary: they seemed happy to “finally be on tour again”. And they seemed well trained for the weeks to come. While I had to run up and down stairs in that Saarlandhalle for about 273 times. Me, whose motto is: “Never sweat without a good reason!” April 19, 2002 Saarbrücken -> Zurich The band bus took us from “Osnabrück” via Strassburg to Zurich. I heard that on stage, Campino had proclaimed our back-line chief Noppa to be “man of the day”. I guess he earned this title through “endless diligence and uncompromising subservience”. The concert once again confirmed the good renown that Zurich has with us. 12,500 fans in the sold-out Hallenstadion partied till they dropped. T.V. Smith came on stage to play two encores with the band: “Only One Flavour” and “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes”. And after the concert, everything was the way it always is when we’re on tour: the lads gathered around my hotel bed. Do I have to mention they ruined the room again? April 20, 2002 Zurich
 It’s always unbelievable, the amount of sports equipment these guys bring with them when they’re on tour! There are championships held in billiards, table tennis, inline hockey, football, and backgammon. Our travel guide Jens Geiger diligently notes down all the results in his notebook. But these are all games where I am not member of any division at all. You remember? – never sweat without a good reason! It’s different with the band, especially Andi, he’s always head first with everything. I didn’t have any breakfast, but in the evening we had cheese fondue with the band and Tim Cross (keyboarder of T.V. Smith). I thought I would drop dead when I got into the restaurant. It was stinking of cheese so bad that Manfred was sure all those guys had “taken their shoes off”! April 21, 2002 Zurich -> Karlsruhe
 9,000 people in the Europahalle, Karlsruhe, were amazed that the Hosen play 2 hours 15 minutes, thus reaching the qualities of 70s Kraut rock legend Grobschnitt. But this only goes for the length of the show. When it comes to speed, the Hosen are a different division altogether! And Manfred reported that his job by the pit was more than usual: “We had all hands full by the pit”. An old pal from ZK-times turned up, too, as tradition has it: Fabsi had especially driven down from Bremen to organise the after-show party in the club “Cubus”. April 22, 2002, Karlsruhe -> Düsseldorf I used the off day to order some T-shirts. There will be two different prints on this tour: “Dr. Faust says: no fun with drugs!” and “Dr. Faust says: don’t lie to me!”
April 23, 2002 Düsseldorf -> Münster
 Finally, we’re in the old Münsterlandhalle again! During the previous two tours, we played in a new structure next door, but this old venue is something different altogether. The audience sang themselves warm with their own songs long before the show started. And the band evidently picked up the euphoria. I already had goose pimples when at last I heard “Mehr davon” from the album “Horrorschau” live again. And they did in fact play it live in concert, after 15 years! What’s more, Campino couldn’t help but climb on the balcony and jump into the crowds from there. He was rewarded for this by a fan who gave him a shirt saying: “Nice, elderly gentleman...”, and he put the shirt on, too, shortly afterwards. April 24, 2002 Münster -> Düsseldorf Off day in the hotel in Düsseldorf – I am enjoying the relaxed view over Düsseldorf harbour. Are they trying to copy the docklands? Typical Düsseldorf! We people from Wanne are different. I could swear there must be some capital pike-perch swimming around here, I’d love to do some fishing. Sadly enough, my fishing pal Wölli isn’t on tour with us anymore. Manfred once said about him: “He’s just sitting around there, he doesn’t even have a hook on his rod – all he does is empty the ice box!” To be honest, that’s the way I do it, too. Except, I also have a barbecue. April 25, 2002 Düsseldorf -> Dortmund
 The sun was shining, so the lads put on their inline skates after the sound check. Football was the topic of the day. Campino admitted that “Wofür man lebt” was probably written on a Saturday night, “after a Fortuna match”. And since it’s only a stone’s throw from the Westfalen stadium, Campino, a hard core Liverpool fan since the age of eight, remembered having “some very nice experiences here last year”. He was referring to the UEFA cup final which Liverpool had won in Dortmund, and to his trip to Anfield Road, Liverpool, with the BVB, Dortmund’s football team. But I wasn’t too impressed when towards the end of the show he put on a BVB shirt, which they had made specially for him, with his own number on the back. After all, I’m a Schalke fan. Later on, Campino even climbed around on the light traverse hanging above the stage! And I always worry about him when he does that. I feel dizzy just climbing up a ladder, but Mr. lead vocals has to climb up ten metres, with no safety measures, and the microphone in his hand. Towards the end, he promised he would learn to sing “Alles aus Liebe” in perfect Polish for the next tour. There’s this band in Poland, “Ich Troje”, who made a cover version of this track and broke “every Polish sales record since the 2nd World War”. I’ll have to remind him to start looking for a language coach... April 26, 2002 Dortmund, 2nd day The second night was just as sold out as the first. This means that 24.000 people came to see the Hosen in the Westfalenhalle! And finally, all the band’s drummers were united backstage: Trini and Wölli dropped in and cheered Vom on for the concert. This was the first show for supporting band Dover from Spain, and the audience immediately liked them. Whereas I thought: where the hell is the drum set? And finally detected it on the far right end of the stage. They have a strange way of putting up a drum set in Spain! The Hosen caused a big bang when they played the surprise track “Armee der Verlierer”. Back in 1983, that was my very first favourite track by them, because I could really identify with the lyrics. What’s more, that song was the B-side of the single “Bommerlunder”. And I never really took an interest in boozy songs... April 27, 2002 Erfurt (cancelled) Sitting in the tour bus – on our way to Dortmund – we heard the terrible news on the radio about the sick kid who ran amok in a high school in Erfurt. The band immediately cancelled their concert, which had been scheduled for the following day. April 28 & 29, 2002 Düsseldorf I ignored the harbour pool and didn’t go fishing. Instead, I “played fish” myself: sleeping lots, eating lots, and nothing else. April 30, 2002 Düsseldorf -> Nuremberg
 Tuesday morning we left for Nuremberg. Rocco Clein [German music TV host] came on board with his camera, he’s doing a video diary for music channel Viva. And we had a new bus driver, because the old one had suffered an acute hearing loss. Our basic rules for bus drivers are: he has to remain calm and let no-one make him nervous! But this time, everything was quiet anyway, because there were six beds in the bus! When we arrived at 5:00 p.m., the lads had to go on stage immediately, for a quick sound check. During their concert, they took up the threads from where they had left them in Dortmund. In other words: we rocked Nuremberg!
|
||||||||||