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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 |
09/09/2003 The fog of mind... after Tartu
Sept 9 - Entry 1?
I was labeling these entries by the day number of the tour, but my brain has become too muddled for simple arithmitic.
If you read Miikka's tour entry then you already have an idea of where our night was headed. We played 4th out of 5 bands to a great reception. There were some real punks at this show. Shirtless muscular dudes with mohawks. However, they were all about the rock... no shoving, no attitude, no posturing. I wish the same could be said of American punks. They kept asking us to speak/sing English between songs. When you said something that showed you understood they answered with big smiles. For example, we played "Shane Song" and I explained that it was a cowboy song. One punk answered "Stupid fucking cowboys", but I was sure that he wasn't insulting or goading us. He smiled hugely and started dancing up a storm when the song began.
The bands we played with were good. Here are descriptions:
1) Slide 50 - Pop punk three piece. Good vocal harmonies.
2) Nyrok City - Hardcore punk with a dash of metal. Roland played drums in this band. They were tough as hell. Miikka really liked em.
3) Mister No Mister - Rock and Roll! One of the dudes wore a KISS shirt. They sounded good to my aching ears (they played after us)
4) Creatures of your Breed - Rock in the style of Rage Against the Machine, maybe. Deep, tough guy metal vocals.
At the end of the night, Andy and Josh discussed politics (specifically the upcoming vote about Estonian joining the EU) with some Estonian students and the same students taught us some cuss words.
Then, Roland and the lovely Jane escorted us to the Sports Academy. We wished them both well and we were surprisd when Roland paid us. We were happy for the free room, beer and fine meal. But, Roland put us forever in his debt when he handed us 1,500 Kroons (~ $120). I promised to upload a picture of Roland and Jane... it will be here soon.
Miikkaa, by this point, had finished (no pun intended) many beers and some Schnaps. We decided that he becomes Mike Valentine when drunk (his last name is Valtonen). We got to our room and bunkbeds and I "hit the showers"... just like 7th grade P.E. When I got back, Mike had decided that he needed some Guns and Roses. Bacon gave him the iPod and Mike did a wicked rendition of Nighttrain. This started a night of walkman karaoke. I was a little nervous that we were going to get tossed out, but I was in the minority. So, I kept my bad vibe to myself and gave a halfhearted rendition of "Birdhouse in your soul".
I kept falling in and out of sleep and I'm pretty sure I heard Mike and some of the boys whooping it up and running wild in the halls. When I woke up, I glanced across the room to see a sleepy-eyed Rusty sitting up in bed wearing a Tartu basketball jersey that he found somewhere. Heh. Mike (who was turning back into Miikka in his sleep) was sleeping soundly on the dominoes.
Now, it's back in the whale for the trip to Latvia. We have today off. Yahooie! |
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