Black Sonic - Tour Diary

Monday, May 10, 2010

Finally, everything's done! Our bags are packed and we're more than ready 4 the trip :-)

3 weeks of Rock 'n' Roll across the UK are comin' our way and yours! Come on board and check out the tour diary we'll be posting as often as possible on www.experience-neutrik.com!

Slam Magazine (www.slam-zine.de) will do a little competition where you guys get the chance to win some really cool stuff (caps, CD, stickers & buttons!) So make sure to check out this link every now and then...

Stay tuned!

Cheers
Mäthi, Marco, Ray & Rock n' Roli

Here we go! (Tuesday, May 11, 2010)

After locating the last missing items, packing the bus and programming the navigation system yesterday, we are on our way! Namely the BLACK SONIC UK-Tour! The first leg took us through Switzerland to France, Calais, where  our first stop was planned. There were actually several stopovers – not only pit stops – and to our surprise Swiss and French customs welcomed us which was really nice! The French customs officer – who was also a musician – asked us to explain our equipment to him ? A nice and surprising experience – all of them were really nice guys – Thank you!

11 hours after we started we arrived in Calais. We are really enjoying the tour so far. Nice people, good food and excellent beer everywhere! Despite the alluring charm of the French seaport, we must catch a ferry tomorrow, requiring us to go to bed very early. Tomorrow we will cross over to King Arthur’s country of leftsided-drivers and the labour party… But wait, wasn’t there something on TV? Anyhow... it's much too late now – we will find out on site anyway!

Stay tuned - more to come!

The 4 Knights of the Round Table!
Yours Maethi

Here we are! (Wednesday, May 12, 2010)

Today we hit the road towards the sea very early in the morning – which was not too far… But it’s amazing how many checkpoints exist within 100 meters ;-) And than straight onto the boat – which was impressive for 4 boys from Liechtenstein! I think Britain week started for Dutch pupils today… What concerns me: I was excited and looking forward to seeing the “white rocks”. And I was not disappointed!!! I would like to apologize to all the retirees for whom I blocked the beautiful view.

After sheding our sealegs we got off to Gatwick, to… yes, ladies and gentlemen, to experience the real highlight of our tour a little bit earlier… Ladies and gentlemen, we proudly present: SCHUETTE – Yeah, Werner, who previously workedthe sound for us during the Negative-Tour. With him and with the certainty that there would be a lot of “pressure” we drove towards Birmingham! Beautiful town, honestly, but unfortunately without house numbers our navigation system was almost useless… Finally we arrived at “Eddie’s Rock Club” and were cordially welcomed by “Die So Fluid”! Very nice people! Suddenly it was 10 p.m. – and if you are aware of British conventions (curfew @ 11 p.m.) our first gig was already over. At exactly 9 p.m. we were onstage and it was great! Thanx Birmingham! YOU FUCKIN’ RULE!!!

Tomorrow we will head to Scarborough!!! Let’s get to it!!!

Yours Maethi

The Dogs Bollocks! (Scarborough, Thursday, May 13, 2010)

Unfortunately we had no time for sightseeing on our way from Birmingham to Scarborough… The closer we came to the north of England the nicer the hills got, the bigger the woods and the “more British” the houses. Furthermore I really would like to have visited the Sherwood Forest, as I am an old Robin Hood fan. Or perhaps a short side trip to the visit the Prince of Nottingham ;-)

Scarborough is among the most beautiful things we have seen on our tour so far. We were fortunate as our hotel was by the sea we had a sensational view. Every Rosamunde Pilcher movie must be made here. And the centre of the city is just what you would expect it to be in Great Britain!

So what can go wrong here? Nothing! The club was great but Mister-Club-Owner was even more impressive! He was extremely nice and experienced a lot of musical sensations – he hit the stage with Black Sabbath, The Who and many more! Amazing, he should be really proud!!! He has got the Dogs Bollocks! As you can see he taught us some British sayings ;-)

Unfortunately I had small technical problems with my guitar for the second time, but I think I can fix that tomorrow – pull out your soldering gun ;-)

The gig was amazing but even more than that. It seems we are warmed up now and Werner knows “where” and “when” he needs to adjust “what” – and one thing is pretty clear, the heat is on 'cause there's a war of sound, and WE ARE ARMED TO THE TEETH and the Rock‘n’Roll-train is on target to York!

Read you tomorrow!

Yours Maethi

Blood on the Dance floor... (York, Friday, May 14, 2010)

…could have been the motto of yesterday’s evening… But first things first! Leaving Scarborough was a sin.  In fact – it’s a really wonderful place on the planet with extremely nice people. I really hope that we return soon – according to the reactions of the club owner and the audience this a distinct possibility ? So, see you soon Scarborough!

York is located a moderate distance away, about 70 miles - a lovely city with Roman architecture. Soon it became clear why New York is called ‘New’ York – here in York everything seems to be a little bit behind the times. Welcome to ‘Old’ York. The ‘Stereo’ is a very small venue with an atmosphere reminiscent of a bowery rather than a hip club. Unfortunately this bad energy passed to our equipment so Marco had to struggle with the “failure-devil” that day. Do I need to mention that I had technical problems as well? ;-) Never mind! It’s not our first time on stage so we rocked the technical error components out. And it didn’t detract from the audience’s great mood even though there were only a few – again one very positive aspect on this island. The people here don’t give a shit if the hall is full of enthusiastic fans or if it is nearly empty – they are music fans and show that - they don’t just dick around. We had the after show party with Milly and Frazier again, the road crew of this tour - "You guys need some cool sayings for the stage" Thanx for the beer & thanx for the 'slang shit' boys! ;-)

You may be asking yourself what this has to do with the subject – here it is, when loading our equipment Ray hit his head so bad that he had to knock on the door of the emergency entry of York’s hospital – it was 2 a.m. and he was covered in blood-. Waiting time to see a doctor – 2 hours! But as Ray is an old ice hockey crack he is used to it. Now everything is fine again! ?

Tomorrow we will leave for Peterborough and we hope for a bit more luck

Good night!

Maethi

Chelsea - Portsmouth 1:0! (Peterborough, Saturday, May 15)

The question of the day was where to watch the English FA cup final! We found a place, natch! Al, the drummer of 'Die So Fluid' navigated us straight to the next pub here in Peterborough! To Werner’s dismay Chelsea won … hmmm … as a soccer bungler I did not care at all, even though it was a good excuse to order the first Fosters early in the afternoon ;-) The club where we performed was on the second floor so we sweat out the beer after unloading the equipment.

Today there were 4 bands on the program which could have been busy were Werner not with us as he knows the rock biz by heart! Thank you so much Werner. The gig started a little choppy but by the end of the set it was clear who marked its territory – the LI-boys from the mountains ;-)

As we will rock the Wakefield open air today – and it’s already 2 a.m. in England– we have to go to bed right away! We must be up by 8 a.m. – It's a long way to the Open Air if you wanna Rock 'n' Roll ;-) And then we will whoop it up there!

And by the way our first video diary is available on our youtube channel – enjoy!

Your Mountain Mama - Maethi!

'Clamping' has nothing to do with a plumber – even if it sounds like the German ‘klempnern’ … (Wakefield, Sunday, May 16)

Today we got up very early as we wanted to leave Peterborough as quickly as possible in the direction of Wakefield.  There we planned to enjoy a relaxing afternoon. All would have run well if there wasn’t a silly yellow thing made of massive steal with an even more massive chain attached around our front wheel! FUCKING HELL!

In our defence we need to mention that a few locals have fallen into this mean trap – so it wasn’t due to our inability to read the sign ;-) 1 hour and 125 £ later we were on the road headed for Wakefield. Traffic was light so we arrived in Wakefield on time in spite of initial delay. There we stood on an official rugby field for the first time as the festival took place in a rugby station.  This made us hope that the rugby dudes in the audience would not care to get physical. AND we were not disappointed! In the beginning of our show Wakefield was a one-horse town but after the 3rd song we had them on our side. Wakefield’s awake! And I take great pride in stating – that BLACK SONIC is one of the loudest alarm clocks in the world! ;-)

Tomorrow we will have the day off – we will take a tourist tour through London! And I will definitely give my dimensions to Madame Tussauds – it will not take long and they’ll want to peel me out of a wax cube ;-)))

See ya, Maethi

Hello Fellas, it's been a while (London & Bristol, May 17 & 18)

Well, as announced Monday was all about London, the busy metropolis, home of James Bond and homestead of so many buildings rich in history! OF COURSE we didn’t want to miss that even though we had planned to stops in London. So we took the underground headed for Tower Bridge. Arrived there full of expectations… we first made a beer run ;-) Yes fine, the stuff is there for decades, it will not depend on one or more Pints ;-) 4 boys from the country in London – you can imagine that it was hard to stop being amazed!!! Finally we went back to our hotel which was located at Kings Cross to round out the day. As mentioned before: We’ll be back soon! ‘The city that never sleeps’ fits for London as well – unfortunately this applies to the trains as well – especially those which travelled directly in front of our window! Even so, well-rested we drove in the direction of Bristol which pleased at least half of the bus, as we have some Massive Attach fans in our band. . And with Werner, our sound man, we even have a special insider who has done a thesis about that place and the local music scene! Bristol is a very beautiful English town just like one would imagine: old castles, old ruins and with a cool flair! The club ‘The fleece’ had flair as well! Performers have included stars like Queens Of The Stone Age, Muse, Oasis, Amy Winehouse, The Killers, Status Quo, Feeder, Moby, Alanis Morisette.... Boy oh boy, the list is endless, no doubt! You can imagine how proud we were to walk that stage – and the crowd was … amazing! ? The vibe of this club grabs everyone – and we gave it all – as we hope to see our poster on the ‘Wall of fame’ one day!!! ?

The club offered us the opportunity to stay overnight and we were happy to accept the offer. Many thanks to Chris, Bulldog and Joe from the Hells Angels Bristol who let us sleep in their Studio and left us their remaining inventory of Fosters and Bacardi! THANX A MILION – What a night!!! ;-)

Tomorrow we will set out for Cheltenham – we’ll see ya & stay tuned!

Maethi

Manchester UNITED (Cheltenham & Manchester, May 19 & 20)

We had a party ‘from hell with the Hells’ last evening, so we needed a good and solid breakfast. Ask and you shall receive – we grabbed a picture-perfect British breakfast. Afterwards we went to Cheltenham! In the afternoon we were told that the gig was cancelled… Illness in da house! So we had time to lick our wounds from the previous day ;-) In Cheltenham we looked for a laundry to no avail - we are running out of clean clothing. What would Otto do? Exactly – switch clothing: Gassner swapped with Tschol, Mathies with Testi, … ;-)

We started early on Thursday, and – I forgot to mention that – our ‘mister drummer’ decided to brandy his cymbals about. This resulted in leaving them at the Wakefield festival. They have a value of 3.000 Swiss Franks!!! We were sure that someone was chuffed about it… Incredible but true – the local promoter took care of the drums and we will pick them up in Wakefield – YEAH BABY! 

With a small detour we finally arrived in Manchester. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to explore the area – but China Town Manchester was located directly beside the venue and so we visited there ;-)

The club was named 'Satan's Hollow' – the devil must have been living off the fat of the land there! And so did we! Wow, what we heard about the English audience – “being difficult, and just knocking about, not applauding…” – I will tell you something – that’s BULLSHIT!!! Everyone celebrated like a big party from with the first song till the last, amazing!!! THANK YOU!!! Manchester was united! As well 'Die So Fluid' had a big blast and I don’t want to promise too much BUT the "Rock in der Messina Werkstatt - Show" on July 3rd will be just about the limit – promise!!! Now it’s time to hit the hay… Today 5 hours of sleep must be sufficient…

Tomorrow we will have our London-show which will definitely be one of the absolute highlights of this tour!!! We’ll see!

Regards from the Island!
Maethi and the Sonics!

Pain in the ass... somehow ;-) (Colchester, Milton Keynes, May 22 & 23)

Well, London is over, at least in terms of concerts and we ride on cloud 9 towards Colchester, like bats out of hell! ;-) There the first breakdown occurred, not with the bus but... well... in general. Perhaps we were not blessed as only 30 noses came to Colchester to see the gig... Perhaps the reason was London’s distance being only one short hour’s drive away and all locals attended or maybe the local promoter simply did not do enough advertising? I think it was the latter... but... We’ll never know... It was still a lot of fun and the Australian support band including their drinking habits did their bit as well! GREAT JOB GUYS!

Werner’s mood was not good that evening as he, being a ‘native German’, kept his fingers crossed for Bayern Munich. Being a soccer bungler I did not care at all about the Champions League final...

The next day we made our way towards Milton Keynes. A wonderful region, nice homes... but our hotel was a DUMP!!! Ugh!!! We really need a better superlative, but I’ll stop thinking about it otherwise I’ll begin itching again! I haven’t a clue what the local promoter thought. Perhaps he wracked his brain all day thinking how to get his digs clean ;-) Furthermore he booked 5!!! local support bands... This wouldn’t have been a REAL problem, if, and this must be mentioned, the British support bands (except for a few), would stop being such arrogant semi-rock-star-idiots! I don’t care as we didn’t deal with them a lot, but these wannabe Marilyn Mansons would lose nothing by having good manners. You can give yourself a hard time... and so comes that... DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY FUCKIN' EQUIPMENT EVER - OR I'LL FUCKIN' KILL YOU!!! UNDERSTAND?! The result of having 5 support bands was a massive time lag which led to our gig following 'Die So Fluid'... The boys and girls had to be in London very early the next day to do a radio record. So we shared our waiting time with 1-200 beers. And at 12:30 a.m. we were finally on stage! WOW! Even the last roach had permanent tinnitus after our sensational gig! Half of the crowd had already left, no wonder. It was Sunday night, half passed 12, but the ones who stayed received everything we had to give. As we disinfected ourselves with alcohol after the gig we did not care about the beds and the resident bugs anymore! ;-)

We are really looking forward to London. YIPPEE!!!! Sightseeing, internet and a good hotel!

Next stop Ippswitch, May 26!

Let it Roll!

El Maethi

Back on the inside track! (Ipswich, May 26)

Sun-tanned or even a little burned after two vacation/tourist days in London we return to the road again! To make a long story short – London was amazing! But there still is a short story: Roli and I booked an open-bus-tour, so we did the entire tourist program! Full throttle! We were told that we would see all the attractions of the metropolis in the shortest time. That could have had worked in theory if the queen hadn’t inaugurated the new governance that day. We were not amused! ;-) 1.5 hour traffic jam and a red head later (as mentioned 'open bus', which no roof with the blazing sun on our necks) we went continued... All seen, all perfect ;-)

We drove to Ipswich, Ladies and Gents! Compared to London, an introspective, calm and very beautiful place, “like home”! And soon two bullsh... days in Colchester and Milton Keynes sank into oblivion. Everyone was very nice, the club was a dream, the food was good AND only ONE support band andwho were nice as well!!! So everything was fine again on the island! Evening would come, and it did, WOW!!! Full house, awesome vibes and a right-royal heat which required us to wash our clothes afterwards. But that was no problem, the hotel was great and above all it was CLEAN!!! So can we do that? Yes, we can! Thank you very much Ipswich - it's been a pleasure!!!

As some of you might know we were already cutting it close on our UK-tour! 3 dates to be done, 3 venues to raze to the ground and 3 days left to roll out the red carpet in Triesen ;-) We will give it ALL we’ve got to hold up high the Liechtenstein flag of rock’n’roll during the last 3 shows again!

Love,

Your pub terrorists!
Maethi

Back at the sea! (Margate, Southampton, May 27 & 28)

Check out at Travelodge in Ipswich at noon. We drove to Margate at Britain’s north coast! A small town rich in history, where history is still alive which means that everything looked like 100 years ago ;-) In the harbor some rusty boats lied at anchor but the anchors were not necessary at all as the water seemed to have run back where something was going on ;-)

Fortunately the club was nice, the stage was big and so the boys from the Alps had enough space to rock! The only downer: There was a fuckin’ pillar right in front of me... Who had the damn idea to build a pillar in front of the singer??? Or did they expect that I would come? ;-) Now then! Even though Margate was no hotspot of our tour, the local rock/metal scene was present and we had a good show! AND we got the best catering of the whole tour; without mayonnaise, which I really appreciated! You have to know that it is nearly impossible to get any convenience food without that stuff inside...

Full of expectations we went to Southampton the next day. The boys and girls of ‘Die So Fluid’ told us the evening before that there would be a lot going on in SH! And they were right. The Joiners is a true jewel among the British clubs. Especially our FOH technician Werner was amazed to see a digital mixer again! 15 Minutes to 10 p.m. – Showtime and the hut was packed out! And we? NATCH, we rocked straight to the stroke of midnight! It was gettin’ hot and hotter in there! We marked our territory again! Wow, kick-ass! We took over Southampton... And even though the Titanic left from here and collided with an iceberg later; we came here and the ice melted!

By the way; this was our next to last gig on the tour. It’s amazing how fast time goes. Haven’t we just crossed the sea towards England? And the day after tomorrow back again? That’s somehow...

Maethi

Drive home! – We already ‚phoned home’! (Hastings, May 29)

While writing these last lines of our tour diary of our UK-tour 2010 we are sitting in the bus for 13 hours already and are on our way home... The navigation system tells us that we will arrive in 2.5 hours. As we already got united with the road and as we can drive on the right street side again it’s NO PROBLEM!

But first things first; here the report of yesterday: Hastings is the ‘Ballermann’ of the English, that’s the impression we got of this place. Hastings is situated at the sea and looks very pretty! The hotel was a lucky choice again. We had an amazing view which we all will miss! A BIG THANK YOU to Tracy Tschol, who has, being a “native girl”, booked all our accommodations! Thank you!

In the evening we played in a club called “Crypt” and the name lives up to its promise. A huge vaulted cellar. And already at the soundcheck I thought about putting some toilet paper into my ears. Holy sh.t! A starting jumbo jet is nothing against reflecting vault structures! Needless to say that we wanted to savor this last show till its end; even though the air was full of suspense, as Werner had announced that he would sabotage the very last show... Fortunately I was out of reach for him but Marco struggled with knotted shoelaces and it gave Werner a big thrill to change his effects while we were playing :-) Fortunately it was that loud that no one noticed it. At that point of time I already heard nothing but a ping in my ears!

A BIG THANX TO Werner Schütte! Thanx buddy! You are a cool guy, what a sound!!! We hope to meet you again, very soon!!!

Milly, the backliner of ‘Die So Fluid’ gave us “gorgeous” colorful socks in pink, green, yellow and red as a present! Phew, they looked better when we were drunk ;-) What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him... We wore them yesterday and used them as over knees during our last song! Milly, THANK YOU! Not only for the funny moments in our Video diaries! :-)

Actually we planned to cut Frazer’s (the tour manager) hair, but it seems as anyone had the heard to do that. Anyhow... THANKS TO FRAZER, good job, birthday boy ;-)

Last but not least, thanks to the boys and the girls of ‘Die So Fluid’. Grog, Drew & Al THANK YOU SO MUCH! It has been an awesome ride and we’ll meet you soon!!! Yes we really will AS, dear fiends at home, the UK-tour will come to Triesen, Liechtenstein on July 3rd, 2010!!! The "ROCK IN DER MESSINA WERKSTATT" will be WOW! PROMISED!

What remains to be said? Not much... The navigation system shows 2 hours till we arrive at Triesen. And then we will consult our own pillows again! But before this happens we would like to thank all readers who clicked in here from time to time!!! We hope you liked the one or the other anecdote of our tour life ;-)

On our website www.blacksonicmusic.com you can find all links to facebook, myspace and our very own youtube channel where all video diaries can be found! http://www.youtube.com/user/bspli

We will see you on July 3rd in the MESSINA WERKSTATT at the latest!!! Let there be ROCK!!!

Your Sonics

Marco, Ray, Roli und Maethi!