On Tour - Bonn

We were a week in Germany, and some of it's become a bit of a blur, especially the earlier bit, but I'll see what I can fish out. After the kickoff gig in Amsterdam and the French splendour of Brussels and Paris, the word amongst the band on Germany was that things were a little different there in a couple of ways, and my experience would confirm this....

Friday 19th May - Bonn

So I wake up to find that we're in sleepy suburbs. The bus is parked smack bang in the middle of what looks like a free carpark, quite empty of cars, and the usual power line is run from the back of the bus and into the venue. The day rooms were a cab ride away, and the centre of town was further, so as opposed to the day before, there wasn't really a place to go hang as such, so I just ended up mooching around the venue. Sophie, Mosh the sound guy and I walked to a nearby supermarket in a clump of shops - it's Monday morning and the whole place is deserted. Welcome to Germany....
About half way through the day a car pulls up in the empty car park and a large square black haired German guy in a leather jacket strides up into the venue (it may have been the promoter, I can't remember exactly). The word around is that the bus isn't meant to be parked in the carpark, as the venue has had endless noise complaints from the neighbours, but our driver is adamant that the bus isn't moving anywhere. It later emerges that the reason we're even there at all is because of some sort of favour by the venue management to the label during what is usually the venue's closed period of the year.
Wandring past a little later I see him quite clearly flustered and raving to somebody about something. A little later we're watching a video in the back of the bus and the power is cut. It's been cut by the guy. The bus has to move.
Before any further discussion can take place, about half an hour later some other random bloke appears in the car park, standing by the bus. Flustered Guy, in a fit of, well, flusteredness, has dug someone's cousin out of somewhere and paid him 50 euros for the next seven to ten hours as some sort of sound bouncer, to make sure the bus didn't make any noise to disturb the neighbours. We all had a right laugh about that....what's he gonna do if it does make a noise? Walk up to it and tell it to be quiet?!....
The bus was moved. The gig went fine - a sit down audience, a little sedate, but they got into it. As we left, the bus steered out past a couple of cars. Quietly!......