Summer 2022
Tale 13:
Of Exhaustion, Relief & A Broken Dolphin
(#oslotoistanbul pt. 3/?)
Berlin / Prague / Vienna / Budapest
After Frun Festival, all our energies were depleted. Some of us were still struggling with a mean cold, others with the overwhelming heat. I was struggling with myself. I felt burned out, tired and at times alone with the responsibilities of keeping everything on track. Everyone was doing the best they could but I think we all needed a break.
We scattered for a day or two. Timon had to play a show in Hamburg and I spent a day picking up the trailer we would use from here on out to transport the equipment and provide an extra sleeping spot. The second van that we had borrowed from Micha, a friend from Hamburg, was replaced by Lukes van, who would join us from here until Hungary.
(with curtesy of Superbude <3).
We set up at the Famous Gold Watch Studios in Berlin for a few days and made that our base for a few days. It was nice not to have to move around a lot and be able to be creative and get some space from each other. We wrote and recorded a bunch of songs in different combinations. It was Fete de la Musique and we had a special event planned: A show on a floating stage. What an amazing and beautiful setting to play in. I was sleeping in the van for our stay in Berlin to be close to the equipment and to save money on accommodation. I was looking forward to spending a chill night but when I found out that my whole van, including the bed, turned into absolute chaos during load in, I had a minor meltdown and took it out on the team. Not nice. I felt terrible & slept even worse. Apologies were made & hugged out. As a group, we had already turned into somewhat of a family and were able to pick ourselves up from these kind of struggles.
Prague
Leaving Berlin felt a little like a restart. We were fresher and excited for the next shows to come. It was bound to be a bit more chill from here on out as we had the most travel intense part of the tour behind us. At least we thought. Our show in Prague at Sir Tobys Hostel started slow. Not many people made their way to the basement on a hot summer day. But the staff that were forced to be there got so excited about us and our music that they banged on every single room and invited everyone they could find. Within a few minutes, the place was packed. Some great chats and some more beers later, Joe decided that we all had to go out and celebrate. We decided on a club around the corner over a stripclub and were swallowed by a dungeon-esque place with terrible drum&base music. Most of us went back to the hostel after an hour. Some stayed and were bound to have a huge hangover the morning after.
We explored Prague a little, jammed out in the hostel room and went on our way.
Vienna
The next two days we spent in an amazing house in the countryside to write and record some more music. Luke and I spent a few hours working on a downtempo techno track in the trailer. It was great.
Next up: Vienna. It was great to only have to drive an hour to our next location. And even better to have a few days with an amazing setup: For our time in Vienna, the Superbude Hotel provided us with their artist residency program with rooms and a creative space just for us. Gildo, Timon, David, Robine and Luke filmed a session in a ferris wheel, we cooked, set up studio spaces in the rooms, went for a swim in the river and spent a good amount of time jamming with our friend Dimitri in his studio.
We invited our friends Ian O´Sullivan and Axel Flóvent to join us for a little festival day at the venue. A whole day full of big and small shows, great drinks and good company. Axel would join us for the next leg of the trip. He is one of the funniest people I know, an absolutely amazing person whose success took none of his humble heart and openness away from him.
Budapest
After Vienna, we took off to Budapest. The show was fun, especially when we took our encore outside to the terrace where we had to be kind of quiet to not disturb the neighbors. Everyone was instructed to not clap and it was eerie but beautiful. We also celebrated Axels birthday on the top of a castle, which was quite magical.
The day before, one of Gildos cameras stopped working which started a streak of really bad luck for us. One camera down. The whole time we were trying to figure out how to deal with the following problem: Luke had to leave the group after our next stop, Wonderest Festival, and we needed an extra car to provide us with enough seats to bring everyone to Istanbul. We planned on renting a car in Budapest, not knowing that no car rental would allow us to drive into Turkey. Damn. One camera down. One car down.
We spent half a day at Ians studio to record but none of us where very focused. On our way to Wonderest festival we were still trying to figure out how to find a vehicle when the worst case scenario happened: Driving onto the highway, my van Flipper made a loud CRSHZKK noise and the gears stopped working. We were stuck. One camera down. Two cars down. F***CK.
