Our last tour was hard work, so it’s only right that we follow that up with a short and fun trip through some nice places. Visiting our eastern brothers in Czech and Poland, playing only 3 shows in 4 days and taking it eaaaaasy 😀
We started this one off in one of Europe’s coolest clubs, Cross Club in Prague. The first ever Raggablog post is from when we first played Cross Club, two years ago. That was also the first time we played with our current drummer Pavel. Nice old memories and nice new memories as well.
We are running on a string of mild misfortune in our touring. There’s always a bigger show in town just when we get there, or we have problems on the road, or the rain seems to follow us around. This time, Cross Club was having (supposedly) the biggest open air movie night of the season in front of the club, at the exact same time we were playing. The club is popular enough that it makes sense to have multiple floors open at the same time, but The Girl on the Train proved to be more tempting than a reggae concert for most people 😀
It’s a nasty job, starting a concert in front of an empty room, but someone’s gotta do it! This time it was us, so we only got a bit of a crowd going toward the end of our show. There was an American Electro Swing act performing after us, so early show for Raggalution. We like that, though. Early shows mean much less waiting time and much more chill time after the work is done. It’s sort of a zen exercise, learning to accept that sometimes you drive for 10 hours to play for 20 people and that’s just the way it is.
We drank a little too much after the show, no way around it. But well within normal parameters, especially by eastern standards. It got worse in Poland. Here we were living the good life, spending the night in nice hotels. Damn it feels good to get a quality hotel breakfast every once in a while.
No show on day 2, so we just went sightseeing in Prague for a bit and then settled down in a park, to enjoy the nice day and rest our hungover heads. Then police cars started driving into the park. We were like WTF, is shit about to go down? But the police only came to set up a few grills and inflate a bouncy castle for the kids in the park. Very nice use of police resources, Raggalution approves! Our park chilling was wonderful, even more so when we got some free sausages to cook over the policeman’s grill. Thank you, Czech Republic!
After that it was time to head for Poland, where our friend Robert was waiting for us in Kobior. We were sleeping in a room that serves as a practice room/place to hang out for some local bands. Our evening was concluded with half the band taking turns jamming on drums and bass, and the other half drinking beers, increasingly annoyed with the horrible music.
All in all, a really cool start to our tour. We really rarely have time to sightsee while on tour, so this was nice. Second part of the Raggablog for this tour coming tomorrow – Poland Alkoholand.
