Pt.5 The Festival

The Finale

What is my "A" Game?

When I was told that a LOT of money would be spent on me to have me flown down to Germany and housed for a week, I swore that I would bring my A game, because as far as I was concerned, I was paid a lot of money in advance. Being the musician I am, this means that I memorized every song as best I could, charted out the ones I did not know by heart, learned all the keys and chords JUST IN CASE somebody blanked on stage, spent many late nights re-creating samples that were impossible to reproduce outside of a studio, and conducted myself in a professional manner at all points in time. Despite the tone of this narrative, not once was I rude to the people who hired me, and at no point did I fail to get the job I was hired for done. I did this solely because I guaranteed them my A Game, and that is what I brought. When they say "Jump", I say "In what time signature?". I'm a professional musician and not a day goes by that I forget how many people would kill for my job. That's just how I roll.

So despite everything, on the last day, I still brought my all. I was tired, emotionally drained, hadn't seen a full boob in a week, and we still hadn't rehearsed the last artist's music for this final performance (and of course, we no longer had access to rehearsal space #2 because, you know, Thanos gonna Thanos), and our plane left for home the next day at 6:00am. But through it all, we persevered. We organized an emergency jam at our apartment with the artists, made ourselves a king's breakfast that included liters of tea and sugar-coated everything and prepared ourselves for the day. Then, our band leader came in with good news:

"They messed up the AirBnB booking. We need to be out of here by 7:00pm."

Oops, typo, I meant "bad news".

At this point, it was around noon. Our show was scheduled for 5:00pm. We now had 5 hours to find alternative sleeping plans before our (I'm happy to remind you once again) 6:00am flight, while packing our stuff and desperately talking through the music we had in lieu of a rehearsal. Morale was low. Several band members were looking to just quit altogether. I won't lie to you, I was thinking the same. But I came here to bring my A Game, dammit, and bring my A Game I would.

I lifted myself out of the corpse of a pigeon I had made my bed, dusted off the large spiders that had nested in my chest cavity, and stood up on a chair. The weird screen-less German window was blowing my hair dramatically. I have very short hair, so you couldn't really see it that well, but I promise, it felt dramatic as hell.

"GENTLEMEN. Did we not come here to play music? Did we not travel across the very ocean to share our talent?"
"Dude, pack your bags, we need to leave in-"

"MY FRIENDS! Since the first day we arrived, we have been metaphorically wet-willied. From the planes, to the cabs, to the AirBnB. But the thing about a wet-willy, is that no matter how long it lasts, it is still a moist finger entering your ear cavity. It NEVER gets worse from there."
"I think you're taking this metaphor too far."

"SO, if we're going to get spit in our ears, we might as well start licking them back!"
"Yeah, you've definitely taken this metaphor too far."

"We have the biggest stage, and biggest crowd in Hamburg waiting for us right now. Yes, we can walk. God knows I want to. I've had nothing but fried chicken for breakfast for the past four days, and I'm pretty sure I'm sweating actual blood. But the best part of this trip has been playing music with you all, and to walk now would be to steal away what last awesome moment we have left. I say we do this. We walk on that stage, we do what we're great at doing, and we absolutely kill it, THE FESTIVAL be damned!"
"You know, what, you have a poin-"

"Let's add some EARWAX to this finger-lickin party!!"
"OK, ENOUGH!"

So we played. At this point, we made our own plans. We didn't wait for the festival-approved van to take our stuff, we got our buddies to help. We didn't reschedule a dingy hotel, we crashed our friends' place and pulled an all-nigher before going to the airport. And (with their consent) we didn't play the artist's pre-approved music, we jammed some solid covers. That might not seem like much, but if there was a legally appointed music scout in the crowd, that festival is in for a FIRM talking to regarding copyright royalties to the Stevie Wonder estate. And that was the one time in that entire week that plans went smoothly. No delays, no accidents, just a few hours of hanging with good friends. The concerts went great.

The final leg of the trip was the flight home. We were packed like sardines, and apparently every child in Europe was on our flight. There was crying, screaming, yelling, but none of those emotional outbursts got the kids to stop making noise. If there are any parents out there reading this, I would like to relay to you a German fairy tale I learned in my short time there, it is called the fable of Hansel and Gretel:

Once upon a time, some parents took their kids out into the woods and left them there.
...
The end.

The moral of the story is: 
"No one will ever find out."

Think about it.

Think about it.

One last confession. Our guitarist, Stephen, was notorious for being able to pass out anywhere at any time on this trip, and the flight back was no exception. He started a cool action movie (Kingsmen, I think?), put on his airplane headphones, and rapidly passed out. During the credits, I took the liberty of pulling a harmless prank... I quietly switched his movie to Shrek. To the man's credit, he never woke up. I was just finishing up my movie when I noticed he had gotten to the end of Dreamworks' finest masterpiece and was still out cold. So I slow-rewound the movie and had it play again. This entire process repeated 5-7 times.

One notable moment stood out. Midway through the third or fourth rewind, Stephen actually woke up. I thought I was busted for sure. He sat up, blinked once or twice in confusion, stared at the touch screen that was presently playing a sped-up Shrek un-punching Robin Hood... and hit "PLAY" before going RIGHT BACK TO SLEEP. It should also be noted that to my utter astonishment, he regained consciousness somewhere over Quebec (still about an hour or two away from home), looked at me and said "I think I just watched Shrek twice", before IMMEDIATELY putting on "Shrek 2" and passing right the funky back out.

To say that sums up my experiences with THE FESTIVAL would be factually untrue. Despite all the setbacks I mentioned above, the best and most important parts were the times spent with friends, playing music, and just genuinely loving everything Germany had to offer. I would totally do it all over again. Bonding with a German father and his young daughter at a local zoo, singing songs with friends during a late-day picnic, stealing the show at an open mic night in the red-light district, seeing half a boob, these are the times that will dominate my memories of this week.

But that doesn't make you all laugh.

So for now, let these memories of Germany serve as a warning to all those who would pursue the life of a musician. The pay isn't great, the hours aren't great, and every now and then you'll get a gig like this. But what's really important is what's in HERE.

Specifically, my suitcase.

It's family.

My new family of ragtag of European nudists.