Another gig, another blog

Berlin. To mark the almost end of our tour. I can't even remember where we were the last time I wrote this blog but it has been an experience to remember.

Last night we played in a fantastic club in Bishopsweirda called East Club with two other bands that were touring Europe. Both at similar levels to us which was very interesting. One was a ska-rock-reggae band from Uruguay who were really very good and a psychedelic rock outfit from Australia called Black Cab. It was billed as an international night at East Club and it really was. An international night that is.

The walls of the club - let me rephrase that - the walls of Bishopsweirda are plastered with a very noticible poster of a guy who looks a bit like Jamie Callum (the jazz singer) except that he is naked and his cock is hanging out. On the poster it says "Rebel der libertas" which we think means "Rebel without a cock-ring". This poster is EVERYWHERE!


Again we were treated to a superb backstage area that was two floors of lounges, pool, internet access and incredible food and drinks. I played a game of pool with 2 of the Australians plus one German road manager and we tried for 40 minutes to come up with a set of rules that fitted all of the countries. Out of pure frustration and fits of laughter we eventually decided to play straight German pub rules which is a crazy mayhem of off-the-wall rules that don't make any sense. That was really fun. Nobody quite knows who won.

It was a great evening, and we completely won the crowd over. All the bands had a good show and it only started to get pear-shaped after Nathan had a bit too much to drink, and (sour that the Australians had beaten out South Africa in the World Cup Cricket) decided to tell the Australian band that he thought they were shit. He marched up to the lead singer, and struggling to find the polite words stated clearly and boldy "your band has no substance!" The room filled with a deathly silence. The rest of us in Cassette thought it was time to do some damage control here. But before we could even get a word in, Nathan was letting the Australians know that in addition to having "no depth", he thought that it was RIDICULOUS that it was compulsory to vote in their country. Eventually, before a fight ensued, we threw Nath in the car and drove to our backpackers, trying to convince him all the way that he should have kept this trap shut. Obviously to no avail.

And today, after driving through a hail storm, we arrived at our last European destination before our last gig in London on Tuesday! The club was amazing, the food was amazing, the people were great! The club was called Kulturwerk and aside from all the advertising they had done for us, we had also made a poster that we had written in German that they had distributed. The poster said the following

"Am 17.ten Mai 2007 wurde weltweit die Herstellung aller Musikkassetten auf
brutale Art und Weise gestoppt. Somit wurden Musikkassetten, mit nur noch
12000 lebenden Exemplaren auf unserem Planeten, in der Liste, der vom
Aussterben bedrohten Arten, aufgenommen.
Fuenf Revolutionaere der suedafrikanischen Band "Cassette" reisen um die
Welt um diesem Massensterben ein Ende zu bereiten.

Unser Aufruf:

Helft Ihnen. Kommt und seht es selbst."

Well enjoy that little bit of German humour.

We had a superb gig and it was the first time that we had a female sound engineer. The people really loved it and we sold out of CD's tonight!!!

It was also an emotional day with our tour basically coming to an end. It has been a tremendous success for us. The response has been completely unexpected and phenomenal. We have made incredible connections and new friends all over the world. But we have also done something that we are really proud of. It is one thing to push and hype and budget and try and get a tour like this together. It's another to be in your little cramped tour bus (THANK YOU CUERVO and 1TIME) on the road for 4 long weeks and playing every single night in all these cities! What an experience!

Our album, Welcome Back To Earth, will be released all over Europe in August and we can't wait to be back for the big tour then!!!! Finally, London on Tuesday and we are geniunely looking forward to that even though we are going to be driving for the next 2 days solid to get there.

Please keep checking back here for the next week or so because we have some big news that I would like to get confirmed before i blurt it out here on this blog. If you are not already on the Cassette mailing list, please just send a mail to me, jon@playcassette.com and I'll stick you in....

Almost home guys....