The tour is over! After the surprising, sudden cancellation of both the Hanover, Germany show and the grand European finale in Paris, the tour ended up coming to it’s completion in Prague. The second of two appearances at the Chateau Rouge club in Prague was another door buster. A despicably inept sound engineer could not mar the elation from the droves of spectators who came to see Zelazowa, open the night in true Spinal Tap fashion, for not only a band of fifteen year old girls playing AC/DC covers, but also the night ending Karaoke jam. But, more on that later. For the moment, let us step back a few days…
What happens when you have a highly evolved society? Your citizens begin flinging infants into oncoming traffic and expansive red light districts form in your city centers. This, of course, will stoke the fires of ire amongst the pundits and the blowhards, but I will include a discussion of the near slaughter of infants due to sheer smugness, so there will be a few laughs in there as well. I will try to keep it light since my more serious rants tend to chap people’s asses a little bit.
Oslo, Norway. Not much to say for Oslo. Nice drive in, less than awe inspiring downtown, but beautiful countryside. A decent show, but once again overshadowed by the off-stage antics of the man, the myth, the legend; Terry Sharkey. For the faithful, devoted readers, I reference a previous tour stop in Barcelona where Terry enjoyed some time with rival concrete factory workers. Rather than repeat myself, I urge you to lurk back in the archives for the sordid details of that encounter. They will tell you all you need to know about Terry in Oslo, Norway. Improbable, you say, that such a unique encounter could occur twice in the same month? Perhaps, but Terry Sharkey dares to dream the impossible dream. He sees the world in different colors, he breathes a different kind of air. Acid turns to nectar on his tongue. Plus, he hangs out with Life Legend, Chris Gannett, so the dice are weighted in his favor right off the bat.
Fast forward twenty-four hours to Hamburg, Germany, home of the highly evolved European society. Like any major port city, Hamburg has a bit of an unruly past that has developed into a hip, colorful society. A beautiful, picturesque city center is punctuated by a raucous, somewhat truculent, uninhibited red light district. Ladies and gentlemen, enter, once again, Terry Sharkey. Traverse the infamous Reeper Bahn red light district of Hamburg and your senses will be overwhelmed with sex shops, strip clubs, whorehouses, naked kino, and prostitutes in sweatpants and fanny packs. Your trek for good gyros and cheap cans of beer will be halted every few steps by sleazy whorehouse barkers luring you into their corrupt chambers of imprudence! It was in this atmosphere that Terry Sharkey found his Golden Ticket of Hamburg.
With Life Legend, Chris Gannett in tow Terry Sharkey entered the confines of one of the most venerable Irish pubs in the Reeper Bahn. One Guinness turned to three, four Guinness’ turned to four more Jameson Irish whiskeys. Four Guinness’ and four Jameson turned into a long walk back to the hotel whereupon a night of debacle trumped all the rest! While the rest of the band slumbered elsewhere in the hotel, some drinking red wine on the terrace, others watching the fabulous German animated show Ki.Ka, Terry Sharkey unleashed a legendary nocturnal rush of sweat, passion and adrenaline, punctuated only by yet another mythical gyro-run by Life Legend, Chris Gannett!
When morning broke, it broke early for Terry and his new lady-friend. For one, in his drunken stupor, Terry found it impossible to discern the physical process required for actually closing the blinds in the room, thus creating an inhospitable atmosphere for late morning sleep. Unable to win the battle between the sun and eyelids, Terry stirred to another more startling rude awakening. As his newfound companion prepared to hasten her departure, in her best broken English she began asking Terry for payment. In his hung-over, shocked morning stupor Terry began his impassioned argument that he “had no idea she was a working girl.” She insisted that she was in fact working, and that if she did not get payment she would be required to call her “employer.”
With a sudden rush of desperation Terry announced that he had to go to the cash machine and took off on a maniacal run through the corridors of the hotel in an effort to escape what he perceived as an impending beat-down from what was sure to be a very objectionable pimp. His dash ended in a prolonged crouch behind a room-service cart in an employee stairwell where he found comfort in hiding for nearly an hour before being discovered by a rather startled housekeeper and was reluctantly ushered out into the lobby. Upon his arrival in the lobby he was greeted by an admittedly scared and alarmed room-mate Chris “Gunner Fritz” Gannett. In reality, the situation was far less hostile than Terry initially assumed, and the money the young woman was asking for was merely a favor for a few Euro of subway money so that she could get to work on time. If she could not borrow a few Euro for the train she would then have been required to call her employer and inform him that she would have to walk a sizable distance and thus be late for work. Chris graciously fronted the girl two Euro for the train and she luckily made it to work on time.
Thinking all of the drama was behind them, Zelazowa and friends boarded their tour vans and hastened their journey to that night’s show in Prague. Behind the wheel, Bryan Weber only made it into first gear as he pulled out of the parking space and was met with the startling collision of a female bicyclist and her infant passenger!
To backtrack, Hamburg as a city is the model of the highly evolved, politically correct, “Green Society.” The city is notable for its incredible system of bicycle paths and tremendous number of citizens who wisely choose to ride their bikes rather than clog the arteries with petrol guzzling automobiles. Unfortunately, the highly evolved bicycle and path system has created a society of individuals who have little regard for pedestrians and traffic and see their presence on the sidewalks and streets as superior to other forms of traffic. Numerous times while walking down the sidewalks of Hamburg, Zelazowa was alarmed by the onrushing ding of bicycle bells which they quickly learned meant that if they did not get out of the way, they would be run down where they stood. Even when there were wide areas open space on the sidewalk around Zelazowa or other pedestrians, the bicyclists would never veer from their allotted space on the thoroughfare!
It was just such a proud bicyclist who collided with the van driven by Bryan. As he slowly made his way out of the tight parking space and into the street that was virtually devoid of motor traffic, the woman on the bicycle made no attempt to alter her course of travel as she approached the Zelazowa van from behind. Instead of making a simple, graceful arc to the other side of the street, she maintained her slow course of travel even as she made prolonged eye contact with Bryan in the moving automobile. Prudence would dictate that the woman moving on the bicycle, with an infant child on board, approaching a moving vehicle from behind would at least slow down or stop in the interest of the health of her child! Not in Hamburg.
At the moment of impact, the entire band sat, heads turned, fixated on the onrushing mother and child, all jerking their heads in one unified flinch as she met the side of the van with a thunderous collision. A smear of facial grease was all that remained as the woman, her infant child, and the bicycle fell over sideways onto the street, luckily devoid of all motor traffic. Luckily, the oncoming bicyclist whose path they fell into did alter his course to avoid running over the mother and child, but in true Hamburg fashion did not stop.
In the end the woman was fine, neither the car or the bicycle were damaged, and all parties went their separate ways with only a minor argument. In fact, the one thing that probably kept the child from sustaining any serious head or neck injury was the medical neck brace that the child was already wearing! Perhaps a doctor prescribed accoutrement from a previous display of thoughtful traffic navigation on the part of his mother.
After their long trek to the Czech Republic, stewing over that morning’s news that the next night’s show in Hanover, Germany had been canceled, Zelazowa rolled proudly into on of their favorite cities, Prague. The show went well, though Bryan Weber came to near fisticuffs with the semi-retarded, completely inept sound technician who for the first time in two weeks nearly ruined the entire show with his complete inability to control the sound, EQ, and ear splitting feedback coming from the PA system. Keep in mind, this was the first time he nearly ruined the show, because the last time Zelazowa played at Chateau Rouge, despite the sweaty success of the evening, the same sound technician basically did ruin the entire show in the sense actual audio quality.
The tension ran very high, replaced soon by complete befuddlement as Zelazowa discovered that they had just opened the show for a band of fifteen year old girls playing AC/DC and Nirvana covers. This then was followed by the evening’s main event, karaoke. Classic karaoke performances were abound as Terry Sharkey tore through a canon of material from Madonna and Oasis, only to be outshined by both a performance of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” and Rush’s “Tom Sawyer.” The crowd was almost uncontrollable during Ian Sharkey’s outrageous rendition of “Tom Sawyer” as he marched around the stage like a lunatic, flinging cups of beer into the audience, and eventually topping it all off with a majestic and prolonged testicular exposure!
Zelazowa awoke the next day, having only found slumber after dawn, eager to see more of the incredible city. This time the perfect weather was a stark contrast to the previous visit when it spat rain incessantly and sightseeing was made somewhat irksome. A trip to the famed Prague Castle was nearly marred by a trip to the hospital when Kyle Weber passed out while climbing the nearly endless stairwell to the top of the cathedral tower. The 244 steps up the extremely tight, almost vertical circular staircase would be difficult even if you were a lone clergy doing your daily task, but add hundreds of sweaty, overweight tourists with no restriction on how many people could occupy the stairs at any one time, ascending and descending simultaneously in an area wide enough for only one average sized person, and you begin to have a problem. Add the two cups of hot wine, a Prague delicacy that Kyle downed on his equally steep hike up the narrow, sun baked streets to the cathedral, and you have an even more sensitive issue at hand.
Having made it over two thirds of the way on his own, Bryan and Terry were required only to drag and carry him an additional 80 steps to the summit in an ever escalating challenge of space occupation as the corridor became even more packed with panicking, sweating, claustrophobic tourists who, many unable to understand English, had to be under the impression that the sweaty Americans were dragging a dead body up the steps.
Upon arrival at the top of the tower the group collapsed into a sweat drenched heap of exhaustion. Though occupied by a lone security guard, the top of the tower was obviously devoid of medical personnel and short of a helicopter airlift the only way to the bottom was back down the steps. Kyle came back to the world upon arriving at the top and the group replenished themselves with much needed water, rest, and the tremendous view of Prague from that altitude. The descent was much easier and upon setting foot back on soil the group made their way back across the city to the Chateau Rouge where they commenced a ten hour episode of binge drinking. The day came to an end with a climactic, drunken three mile power-walking footrace across Prague between the Tortoise and the Hare, Terry and Ian Sharkey.
And so came to an end the 2008 European Tour. The next show is on Friday, May 16th at the Khyber Philadelphia as the band makes their triumphant return to the United States. Following that last show, the band will be heading into the studio in Nashville, Tennessee where they will begin work on their second full length LP, and the follow-up to the Billboard 200 charting EP, Polymorph. A tour will follow in the fall, as will the release of the as yet untitled album, and the new DVD tourfilm, Convoi Exceptionnel, featuring many of the moments I have had the pleasure to share with you here.
ZELAZOWA 