Athens, AMsterdam, Dunkirk

Zappi Diermaier

The Faust list, 01 Nov 2006

We arrived Athens airport at 01:00 am, and were picked up by three guys who took us to the hotel. Most of the equipment was hired by the venue. After a good sleep we met in front of the hotel, each of us with at least three heavy bags with the equipment we brought along, and marched the 800 meters to the venue in a hellish pace and in single file, the promoter first, then me (Zappi), Amaury, and Jean-Hervé behind. We followed through busy traffic streets, usually walking on the streets because the sidewalks were blocked with cars. The crew at the Underworld Club were very co-operative. The drum set was placed diagonal front-right stage, I had a good view on my fellow colleagues, Jean-Hervé in the middle and Amaury left. In the meantime the club was completely filled with Faust fans. We started of with loud, fast songs. Since it was our very first show in Greece we did not expect the audience to be so euphoric. Many people were dancing around frisky. The last song we played was called 'The End of Athens'. Some of the audience booed, others applaud the title. Along with the song we presented a self-made video showing carrots that are pulled out of the earth and us dancing around the field like monkeys. The song ended with the organ sound of Amaury, which continuously faded. Simultaneously the lights were dimmed slowly and we freezed in our movements for a long time. We played two additional songs, a waltz taken from the forth coming album and Psalter. The audience remained waiting for more for quite some time. We only had two hours of sleep and had to be at the airport at 05:00 am the next day. Everything went very fast, that was October 5th.

On October 9th we met in Schiphorst near Hamburg for practicing. We rearranged the song Hurricane from the You know faUSt album. On October 12th we started of to Amsterdam. In our baggage (trailer) a huge hay-blower and a concrete-mixer. October 13th 11:00 am we were standing in front of the venue, the former supply vessel "M.S. Stubnitz". The ship crane heaved the hay-blower and the complete equipment through the hatch directly onto the stage. Along with us was Till von Hofmann, who used to be our tour manager and Person S, who is responsible for our video shots. Due to lack of space the standing drum kit had to be placed in front of the stage, because of feedbacks it was modulated very low. The atmosphere on the ship was very 'metallic', the sound was not very satisfying. There were some technical problems. We started with the Hurricane. The song 'C'est complique' from the up coming album was played and enjoyed to full extent. We planed to blow colored cloth through the ship with the hay-blower, but unfortunately the v-belt tore apart during sound check, so we could not use it the way we wanted to. During the performance of the "waltz" Jean-Hervé presented a burlesque spectacle wearing nothing but a red coat and a tie while playing the acoustic guitar. During the last song, Gigi smile, Jean-Hervé placed a red burning smoke bomb inside the hay-blower. A small electric fan blew the smoke towards the audience. The ship-alarm started of immediately. 02:00 am was to late to start the ship crane in order to load our material back into the van, therefore Amaury and Jean-Hervé stayed on the ship. At 06:00 am they tried to get the sleepy crew to load the equipment. The concert was recorded on video by the ships video-crew and was cut the same night.

October 14th we had a show in Dunkirk, France. At 11:00 am the van broke down 50 km away from Amsterdam. The automobile association was unable to repair it, so we left it where it was and stuffed the most necessary (guitars, bass, effects, power drill, and grinder) into my car and continued our journey. In the meantime Olivier Manchion organized a back line in Dunkirk. The build up was done very fast and the sound engineer has worked along well. The Hurricane sounded compact and okay, since we could hear each other well. Also the following songs were performed very intensive. The recording shows this. I was a little irritated because the people only showed up in small numbers. However they were very interested, sitting on the floor and listening, even after our extreme smoke attack, I was the first who left the club very hasty. The next day Amaury took the train to Milano and we took Jean-Hervé back to his van in the Netherlands, it was repaired in the meantime.

So long, Zappi