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Guitar technician reporting from the tourbus....

Monday 6 July 2009


After a pleasant evening's eating and drinking in the lovely city of Riga we headed off through a landscape of seemingly endless forest to the Fonofest - a bit like a heavy metal jamboree in a wooded clearing. Sadly it was pretty sparsely attended - a shame as it was organised by some very nice enthusiastic young Latvians who let us have a country house for the night. I hope it was enough of a success to warrant many more - those in attendance were having a whale of a time. Jamie very kindly toured the site offering strawberries to the punters, advertising his wares by having them smeared on his face, an approach which left many wary as to the motive behind his display of fruit-based altruism.

We arrived at the With Full Force festival near Leipzig to the sound of Motorhead playing and Les wondering loudly why we weren't pissed (he'd gone ahead as part of the advance drinking party). It was a standard German rock festival - big and well organized. Anathema played at half past one in the morning but plenty of people stayed to listen. The stage crew were pretty tetchy but that's hardly surprising as they'd been there for three days dealing with petulant musicians and road crew who'd forgotten to bring mains adaptors (for example).

Poland this weekend.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great photo! and report (as usual; a bas le chapeau, Darryl) Jamie is the sweetest fellow alive! Only hope that he'll be distributing beer in Krakow, I'm freaking out just thinking that alcohol might be prohibited on site! which would definitely be a turn-off :)

ninatalia said...

Hey :) I think I saw you yesterday in Cracow... I have a few concerns about the show last night! What happened there? So many problems with microphones, guitars and all that stuff... I was waiting for the concert and was excited about it all the time but yesterday that was ruined! You, as a technician, might explain what went wrong... Can you?
Hope you're enjoying Poland/enjoyed it while you are/were here. Admit it, food here is awesome :)
Be back soon!

Darryl Anthony said...

Major problems with on-stage monitoring (Dannyy's didn't work at all) and monitor engineer; Jamie's bass rig had a bad connection which proved very difficult to diagnose, and not enough time to sort problems out. It's not normally like that.

ninatalia said...

Thanks for your reply! I know it isn't usually like this - I've seen them quite a few times, already :) It was quite a disappointment... I travelled more than 500km and more than 11hrs to see them for maybe 45mins and with all that problems... Don't think I blame you or so. I believe some things are inevitable.
Hope to see you/hear from you soon. I really think we should hang out some time :) Would be cool to finally see the blog writer :)
Cheers!

Unknown said...

I know nobody cares about ordinary folks lost in the turmoil of the music industry. Still, I am stubbornly trying to say, like the stupid puppet that I am, that: I don't care about my time and money; ha ha; BUT I expected Anathema to play at least more than they did and to have some interraction with the haggard losers who travelled two days by train just to see them; to acknowledge things. Sound pathetic? no problem; Voivod will always be there to take over things; A bit of advice: get better promotion; never saw one poster in Krakow advertising the show, not even near the location.

Darryl Anthony said...

In response to Claudia's comments, problems encountered at the Krakow show, while regretted, were out of the band's control. We were told Anathema's slot was two hours later than it actually was, so we turned up at the venue to find we only had twenty minutes to prepare for the show (without our trusty drum tech). The excellent Voivod played for fifteen minutes longer than scheduled, cutting further the time allotted to Anathema. As mentioned before there were problems with the equipment and staff at the venue, all conspiring to make for a very frustrating evening. To top it all, after the gig Les slipped on some stairs, hit his head and ended up in hospital.
Promotion for the show was out of the band's hands, dealt with by the local promotors. I did see a few posters for the event (with Anathema clearly displayed) close to our hotel in Krakow. I'm sorry if you feel disappointed or short-changed, but it really was a complete pain in the arse for the band. I'm sure they'll play a belter when we return to Poland in the not too distant future.

Claudia said...

Well, I strike again just to apologize for appearing so furious on your blog, Darryl..which is so uplifting and so full of positive things. So sorry to hear that about Les and about all that happened… I guess I was indeed upset because it lasted very little and about some things in that venue etc. and I directed my anger exactly in the wrong direction. Several nasty external circumstances accumulated, but that isn't the band’s fault! I didn't want to blame the band for organization or sound or anything; they gave a fantastic show when they played. I just want to apologize for being offensive..and to wish you guys all the best.

ninatalia said...

It's me again... Just to reply to Claudia as well - about those posters. There were hundreds of them everywhere. Even in other cities, like Poznan, which is far far away from Cracow.
I've already understood Anathema's problems and now I'm hoping to see a fully long concert in Poland, promoting their new album.
Thank you Darryl for all your replies! I just hope everything's fine with Les!!!

echonia said...

Poor strawberries ;-) As for gigs, stay cool people. Just go next time. There are always better and worse gigs, more gigs you come to, it's more likely that you will see a good one ;-)

vany_dream_riogallegos said...

was delicious the fruits!!! soooo!!! jijiji :P