PAK European Tour Winter 2002
In the Winter of 2002 PAK did a short Winter tour of Europe, playing in Germany, The Netherlands, France. As usual we all had a great time despite the fact that we had to drive in Germany crammed up in a in a car that just fit us, fighting off colds, eye infections and surviving Amsterdam street life
Our first gig of the tour was on an old fishing ship MS Stubnitz that has been turned into a floating movable club and arts center, docked at present in Rostock, Germany. Pretty damn amazing. Photo is of the city of Rostock from aboard the ship.
We hung Ray out to dry for
being such a bad boy in Amsterdam. Nice of the MS
Stubnitz to have the necessities
for easy punishment. Why is it always the drummer?
In
Bremen we were fortunate enough to play with KAUZ. A Great band lead by
their totally crazed singer Matthias, who we when out drinking with after the
show until the wee hours of the morning, but somehow still woke-up felling refreshed
ready for the drive to The Hague. Must have been the fine German beer. We will tour
Germany in October with KAUZ. I will be curious to see what they will have up
the musical sleeve. The KAUZ website is under construction and can be found at http://www.dontrelax.de/kauz
PAK had very good concert in
Lillie, one of the best shows of the tour. You can see what a good time we were
having as Jesse, on his knees, begs the heavens for even more inspiration. Photo
by Philippe Lenglet
The day after the concert in
Lille, we when to visit with Jerome Jeanmart, (in the foreground) who plays with
Silent Block. Jerome lives and works in this huge compound with a group of
Artists. In the background is Bee Pee and his son. The night before the concert Bee
conducted an interview for Radio Lille with PAK.
Later in Jerome's personal
live/work space, Will and Ray inspect some of his work...what should I call
it?...the best might be to say they are sound sculptures, in that they look as
interesting as they sound.
Jesse
and I could not resist a jam with some of Jerome's homemade instruments. He had
so much stuff in his
place we could have stayed for hours by
sadly we had to more on.
This is the Train Station in
Limoges. It sits up on a small hill above the town. Built at the end of the
1800's, it was a impressive site.
A Shot of the Clock Tower.
The last part of the tour was
with Rogojine from Poitiers. Can it be true that I have not seen them perform
since 1997 during the last European tour with the
Molecules? They sound as intense now as they did then, their bass player Benoit
Chartron gets some incredible
sounds form his bass. He has a technique where he can play rhythmic chords and
single notes, out of a loud and sometimes distorted bass amp, but somehow all
the notes he is playing can still be heard. Sounds like he is using delay
effects, but he is not. After watching him for many nights, I'm still baffled as
to how he does it.
Our second evening with Rogojine we played in a small village Verrieres near Poitiers also near the nuclear power plant. Scary.
The Performance
in Verrieres was wonderful, if not a bit surreal, in that the Salle des Fetes
looked like it has not change since the 40's. I could almost hear in the air the
music of big band or a 1950's style rock and roll band playing in the
hall.
I enjoy the chance to perform
in small Villages in France, something
unexpected always seems to happen. This night before the concert, the Mayor of
Verrieres comes to the Hall to thank everyone for putting on the
show and to wish us all good luck. A Woman who lives above a small shop that
she owns next door to the Salle des Fetes, confronted the Mayor about the noise
and all the people who will be hanging out at the concert
that evening. "How will my husband and I be able to sleep with all the
noise?" She told the Mayor. Calmly he informed her that he will
gladly pay the hotel bill for a night, for both her and her husband. Incredible.