Day Three: Offenbach

Hafen 2 is in Offenbach, what looks like a suburb of Frankfurt on the other side of a canal. Right on the coastline is Hafen 2 (Harbor 2). Andrea is the general head honcho, along with her husband and daughter. Last tour, we played on the outside stage; this year, we played on the inside stage.

It was the biggest stage that we had played thus far, with Dan on a grand drum throne looking over Jack and I. We played loud songs loudly. We played soft songs softly. It was nice.

Mark Peters Band played after us with a bunch of grooves. We got to spend some time just watching the light show - with an additional little spotlight on the donations bucket. Over some lentil curry provided by the venue, Mark and the team recommended that we check out Thomann - a big music store in a little German town.

We all slept in a little room at a local hotel with miserable WiFi. I completely forgot how many shenanigans went into getting a decent internet connection.

Day Four: Thomann and Chemnitz

We woke up and drove our way to Thomann. Of course, we ran into the fellas in the band from the night before in our respective instrument sections, all wishing we had some more time to spend wandering from room to room.

It’s kind of like the Book Loft times 10 but for instruments. It’s a strange, sprawling store of converted houses going up four stories, signs pointing at each doorway to different sections with different instruments. They have orchestral percussion. They have a whole slew of guitars. They have brass, strings, and pro audio gear. They have so many synthesizers.

Dan found a small part for his borrowed hi-hat stand, Jack got a sandwich, and we all got on our way.

We rolled in to Inspire Chemnitz. We were in Chemnitz on a dangerous night last time, so it felt important to return under more normal circumstances. These were quite normal! We talked to Barry, the booker who kept the venue open during the violence outside last time. Things didn’t really change after the violence. Most of the people came in from out of town to demonstrate. Chemnitz is still Chemnitz, but university admissions and tourism are both down. He says that there is still an undercurrent of racism and anti-immigrant politics, as well as a few seats in local government taken by the AFD, but there hasn’t been anything as explosive as last time.

Felix ran sound, Liz looked after us, and Navya from Kansas volunteered with the cleanup afterward. It was a small show with fewer native English speakers than most of our shows - Barry impressed upon us that he very much loved the way we were able to see the world and pick out charming bits of life from it.

After the show, we went to Uli’s house; he’s Barry’s partner in the venue. He hosts the whisky tastings in the venue, and has a bit cellar at his home. Naturally, he broke out a few bottles of beer, scotch, and whisky to talk about the world, music, education, Chemnitz, life in general, and the Science/Christianity talks that he organized. We laughed, drank, and pet his dog. I slept well that night.