Blog: Now your ships are gone
Fernando’s blog post:
The sound of the church bell clocking 7PM is remote, resembling the familiar feeling of many towns in Portugal. I am reassuringly awaken from a quick tour nap, inside my dark bunk. We’re in Gdansk, formerly Danzig, and we’re parked, noblesse oblige, at the port. In the morning, sounds of wielders create a small buzz for hours, punctuated only by the silence of the workers’ cigarette pauses. It is grey outside. There is a metallic tone into the sky, suggested perhaps by the surroundings, with flying cranes, dismanteled ships and a disconcerting sense of immobility, broken only by the small repairing works noises and talks. It seems like no big ship is leaving today. I can only guess this is where they come to die their iron-steel death and dismantling. It’s October rust all around. It’s touring.
The club is brand new and is an amazing place to play. A good presale reassures the band against the hardest day to play in the week (Mondays used to be days-off when this luxury could be afforded on tour). I can’t stop wondering that we are the reason why more than 600 people already made plans to face the rain, the cold and a night out. I am happy but intrigued. Is our visit so meaningful to disturb an otherwise tranquil night home, with some tea, TV and slippers on? I guess that in a few hours that responsability will be ours and, as spiritual as it gets, I start focusing for the show and trying to conjure that little extra magic that can turn out this Monday night into a life experience for the ones who dared into the secluded location of the club, in a dead port neighborhood.
I can hang out all day, lowering my body functions like a reptile in wait, but in one hour it’s ready-go. People have no idea that all the waiting involved is, perhaps, the most decisive factor on a tour. How to cope with the dead time and turn it into something truly exciting, even on the grey start of this week, it’s a problem of no easy solution. It goes both ways and while some daring souls drink vodka outside, others have to maintain a balance between activities and how to endure those activities. For how many years i live, some road-warriors will always gain my wondrous respect for the amount of drinking they drown their time in and still can play a remarkable show. This is a stupid statement, of course. Based more upon the physiological aspects of their standing, than on less-than-virtuous dependence of booze or drugs. Not against any in particular, but against depending in general.
I haven’t said almost a word, all day long. I am saving up all my energy and my castigated throat for the shows so that extra factor can have a substance of screams and moods. Normally, I spend my time talking. I can kill a lot of time just by blabbering. Yet silence can be gold. And tonight, I have to dig on that gold and share it with the monday night Gdasnk adventurers. My mission on this tour is clear for me: Play great shows. Survive.
Wish me luck. I will reply in written, saving my voice for other flights.
