Pt.4 The Festival
The Ending to Part 3 was a lie! They totally mess it up!
Watching these people operate was like watching someone unaware of the general mechanics of a grenade pull the pin while charging towards their enemies. Sure, the job technically gets done, but in the most inefficient and poor way possible. And it's not just THAT it is horribly screwed up, it is HOW it is horribly screwed up. You get to see the whole thing in slow motion, yet powerless to stop it. Like a tsunami made of all of the worst parts of a divorce.
We later discovered that part of the reason things were so shit here was because of the two people who were in charge of our present situation. Let's just give them some random fictional names like "Thanos1" and "Thanos2". As it turns out, Thanos1 and Thanos2 are rivals at their local place of work. Not friendly rivals either like Ash and Gary. Competitive rivals like Hilary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. So when whoever was in charge of them (I'm going with Thanos3, here) decided that all decisions done by Thanos1 had to be followed through by Thanos2, there was a setup for disaster.
Let me be clear. If Thanos1 decided that the band needed something like "transport to the festival", she had to tell Thanos2, who would then send a cab our way, tell us we had to pay for it, and then report back to Thanos3 with; "Job done perfectly. Thanos1's band complained the whole time. I sure could use a wax on account of me being a dirty nose-hole."
At this point, our percussion player had been moved to another AirBnB, which provided her with the privacy and comfort that we were initially hoping for, but had the unfortunate downside of splitting the band in a country where we could not contact each other. Groceries never arrived either, so I was made to have KFC for breakfast. Well, if we're being honest, I would have had KFC for breakfast anyway, but that's irrelevant right now.
It's at this point that I should point out that we have been told absolutely nothing when in comes to scheduling information. The information we know is that we will be playing music with 5 different artists at some point between Thursday and Sunday. When I attempted to confirm times on the schedule with the organizers, they told me that the schedule was wrong and outdated and that they would instead be deciding who plays when by using the time-honoured tradition of reading tea leaves and rolling animal knuckles. We were essentially on 24 hour standby. We showed up for soundchecks for no one, we waited for hours only to be told we'd be rescheduled, we ate SO MUCH of that mystery meat on rice. I was beginning to suspect that the meat used in the meal was in fact the cooked remains of any competent individuals that were once on the team.
Today was simpler. There was an easy plan.
Step 1: Make music with artist A Step 2: Immediately leave for rehearsal space with artist B
That's a two step plan. That's about as simple as it gets without incorporating a rhyming couplet. Step 1 went great. You'll notice that step 1 involved only the band and no external planning. We walked off stage as nonplussed as you could possibly be.
Step 2 was a disaster.
First off, we're told that we have lost the rehearsal space. We were apparently too loud in the first one and so they opted to kick us out. But it was ok! Because Thanos4 (he's a new character in this story, try to keep up) had access to YET ANOTHER CHURCH! But there were two conditions to him letting us into this church. First off, he HAD to be there with us. Second, he REFUSED to leave the festival without Thanos1.
You know what? There are far too many Thanii in this story, I'm just going to go back to calling them the organizers.
So while this guy throws an honest-to-god temper tantrum because the other organizer is too busy doing her job to play babysitter, we realize an important piece of information. Our artist, that we were supposed to rehearse with, had disappeared. And she took both cars and half our band with her. This information left many of us the opposite of nonplussed. We were plussed. So very plussed.
A few emergency phone calls later, and we have what I can only imagine is some guy's cousin driving us in his smart-car sized Euro-wagon to church number 2. I'm not usually one to complain about something as petty as the size of someone's car, but in our possession was a large backpack (filled to bursting with drumsticks, a sampling pad, and all of the music for the festival), two large guitars, and the family of European nudists (they followed us home, and once you get your scent on them the mother won't take them back). But in the end, we got to our destination safely. The present band members got set up and waited for the artist to arrive.
Fifteen minutes goes by. Another fifteen minutes goes by. A third fifteen minutes goes by. And then a fourth. Some of you English majors may know this period of time as it's more contemporary name... "two half hours."
The artist, along with half our band, both vehicles and a partridge in a freaking pear tree showed up to her rehearsal with 15 minutes to spare. Which of course, she apologized for profusely in her native tongue. I'm assuming that's what she did, because there's no way that the words I actually heard were "That wasn't good. We still need one more rehearsal".
That night, I opted to go into a coma. I awoke the next day to still-no-groceries, but also with a promise that we would be playing the cool after-hours THE FESTIVAL show. A fair trade, I guess, I do love me some music. At some point we discovered that one of the artists we were hired to work with had bailed. God speed, you beautiful devil, god speed. Whether my mind has melted to the point of being incapable of forming memories, or if boredom actually forms a temporal rift, I do not know. All I know was that the day passed by relatively uneventfully. And that evening, we FINALLY received our groceries. We opened the bags like kids on Christmas and made quick inventory of our new supplies of food. This food would have to last us one and a half days, keep that in mind as I share some noteworthy items from among the pile:
-THREE large boxes of tea
-TWO 2kg bags of sugar
-TWO dozen whole wheat buns
-Not included: meats, condiments, butter, FOOD
The European nudists were thrilled. This was a bounty they had heard of only in songs. I had already left. I had gotten to know the woman at the KFC counter pretty well, and was happy to return to her welcoming embrace.
But at least we had the gig that night! Here were the details as I saw them
-An Address
-11:00pm SHARP
I had no intention of being late to this event, as I had watched these people sell tickets to this event for ACTUAL REAL MONEY (well, not REAL money, European money, but you get the idea). I do not plan on screwing these people over by not being 100% on time and prepared for this ev-- AND the venue is closed.
We arrived at 11:15pm due to stand-still traffic. Fortunately, the only person there was a large doorman, who told us in angry German (or "German") that we were not to enter. After explaining that we were in fact, musicians who would be playing on this stage starting 15 minutes ago, he reluctantly let us enter.
We were greeted by a completely empty stage. No amps, no kit, no lights, just what appeared to be a school cafeteria with the tables unmoved. There's no way that this is the right place, right? We must have mucked up the address or someth- NOPE! Here comes Thanos3!
Completely confused at the concept of why people might not be present when you start your event (THAT PEOPLE PAID CURRENCY FOR) a half hour after you said you'd start it, she assured me that these types of parties go all night long! People probably won't show until like, midnight or so, and party until 6:00am! Oh and by the way, these chairs won't move themselves, so if you could just do this labour for us, that would be great.
Yeah. No.
I'm done.
I'm going to a German red light district, and I'm going to try to see half a boob.
Continued in Pt. 5