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Baltic Tour Volumen 1's Tour Diary (2003)
(Tour:Baltic) - toured with Josh Vanek, Andy Smetanka, Mike "Private Dick, Dirty Finn" Valentine - Toured Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania |
09/11/2003 Another day in Riga and then on to Ventspils
Day 11 - Entry 1
We slowly stirred awake in our various hideaways in Una and Janis' place. It had been agreed that today we'd go our seperate ways and meet up at 3:30 at the freedom statue. We all had a general idea of where that was and it's right next to the old town. Just in case, Josh told us how to say the name of the statue, which is Brivibas Piemineklis. It sounds sort of like "Breevee-bus Pee-on-my-necklace". I hope that doesn't offend any Latvians out there, but it was helpful for us. Bob couldn't believe it worked when we asked a flower vendor how to find it. Another helpful mnemonic is "Paul Dias"... that's sort of what "Thank you" sounds like in the native tongue.
Anyway, I split from the boys and got a nice lunch and a haircut. This was also the day that I checked out the museum of Latvian occupation. The museum was both inspiring and depressing. Over 550,000 were killed during the German and Russian occupations. That's more than a third of their population at the time. It was incredible to see the items that the prisoners were able to make, given no raw materials, tools or time; piano keyboards, violins, cigarette boxes, spoons....
I met Bob, Bacon, Bryan and Doug at the statue and soon afterwards the Blue Whale scooped us up. Inside was Miikka, Josh and Andy. They were decked out in post-war Russian uniform pieces and weird-ass (tank driver?) glasses. It was like walking into a post-apocalyptic movie. Josh gave Bacon a tank driver's jumpsuit and we hit the road for Ventspils. Oh yeah... they had visited a crazy Russian flea market, that's why they had all that shit. I imagine that might have been confusing to you.
A long van ride found us a little early for the show in Ventspils. We goofed off at the beach and then ate a feast of a meal at a restaurant that resembled the inside of a pirate ship. Food and drinks for the 8 of us ran 30 Lats ($1 = .60 Lats), so we were psyched.
When we got to the show, things were just starting to come together. It was made out to be a rave/multimedia event/rock show. There were 3 different rooms for music, tons of liquid refreshment and too many security guards. It would have been a blowout if more than 15 showed up.... but they didn't. The other band was reminiscent of Yo La Tengo maybe? I liked them but they weren't quite to where their songwriting is taking them. When they get there then they'll be incredible.
I tried to buy a phone card, but the lady didn't speak English and she got pissed at me. I left, dejected, and went to lay down in the "chill out" room of the venue. I closed my eyes and was then rudely awakened to a beefy security guard shaking me. Turns out you can't lay down at the show. At this point I was pretty emotional and exhausted... I sorta broke down a little watching the car crash video and listening to breakfast electronica.
We rocked the show. We shared 1 mic, so we stripped down the show and only delivered straight rawk. At 2:45 we hopped in the whale and Miikka drove us to Kuldiga. |
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