Today’s Theme: Disgusting drinks and dirty words
The two days off in Dusseldorf were great. It’s a cute town, with an good public transit system, so exploring the city was easy. A few of us went to Krefeld to race go-karts, which is about a 30 minute train ride away. It was so fun, I think 6 of us went, and I was only the girl racing? I got my butt kicked. The race supervisor looked and sounded like the guy from Saturday Night Live who says? Do you want to touch the monkey?? You know, the Sprockets guy? Anyway, he waves a blue flag at you whenever someone’s trying to pass you. I got blue flagged nearly every single lap. It was hysterical. By the time we were done I think I was 8 laps behind. I am also apparently such a bad driver that I caused Tim, one of the lighting guys, to crash in to a wall. (Don’t worry, he’s fine.) Needless to say, I did not receive a trophy. I placed last. But I’m no sore loser, it was a good time had by all. Even the train ride was fun, the train station itself was this beautiful old building with a clock tower, and the train went all through the countryside. I was ecstatic over seeing ducks and horses while on a train, what can I say, I’m from San Francisco, little things like this please me. I’m pretty sure all the locals on the train thought I was nuts when I started screaming “Look, Ducks!!! Ducks!!” And it’s amazing what You’re willing to eat and drink while in foreign countries, on the way back to the hotel we got these dreadful, foul smelling drinks that consisted of hot mulled wine mixed with all kinds of spices and hot rum. Talk about an acquired taste, yet I drank the whole thing. Why, you ask? Because I’m in Germany, and I’m determined to try new things, no matter how vile they may be.
The gig tonight was in Oberhausen, which is about a 45 minute drive from Dusseldorf. This morning was actually our first morning of how tour usually is. We’ve had rehearsals and back to back shows since we arrived, so this morning finally felt like we were on tour again. Getting up early, loading all your luggage up and piling on to the bus to go to the gig. Today is also the first day I feel I’ve completely recovered from jetlag. It took a week. How’s that for adjustment?
The day went by fast, we had to make sure we were on time today, if not early. There’s a midnight flight curfew in Oberhausen, which means if the bands plane was not on the runway and in the process of taking off at the stroke of midnight, they were stuck in Oberhausen till morning. So we had soundcheck at 5:00PM sharp and the show was to start at 8:00PM on the dot. (Which is when the show is actually supposed to start). Fleetwood Mac is usually a tad bit late to take the stage (not late late, just fashionably late, still, 8:00 was kind of a push.) They ended up starting the show about ten minutes after 8:00. Not bad. And can I just say that the crowd in Oberhausen is seriously one of the best I can remember. They were insane. There as a girl in the front row that kept getting up on her boyfriends shoulders to take pictures of Stevie, no matter how many times our security went to tell her to get down, she was right back up there ten minutes later. The whole crowd clapped and screamed from the first minute to the last. It made the show so much fun. I think the standout song tonight was “Never Going Back”, I’ve heard that song live too any times to count, and it’s always a beautiful song, but for whatever reason, tonight it was heart wrenching. Let’s just say I may have even gotten a little teary. Just maybe.
There was also a lot of commotion today due to the fact that we were recording Peacekeeper for a television show (Editor’s note: it was for the AMA awards). I’m not even sure what show it was for, I just know that there was a television camera crew there, and that I heard the word Peacekeeper 4 million times today. It was the talk of the town.
Okay, my final tidbit tonight is actually a polite request to all you showgoers out there. Please, please leave your tambourines at home when you come to a Fleetwood Mac show. There was a girl behind me tonight that played her tambourine the WHOLE SHOW. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she had NO RHYTHM. It drove me up a wall, so much that our security nearly had to hold me back from jumping in to the audience and hunting her down. So please, leave the tambourine playing to Miss Stevie, the world will be a better place for it. Oh yeah, and those little laser pointer things, leave those at home too, nobody likes those, they’re annoying and you know it. I think it’s my bedtime, I’d say goodnight in German, but so far all I’ve learned to say are dirty words. Figures.
