March 27
So let's talk about Germany. Has anyone been there? First of all, nine hours on a plane isn't as bad as you think it is...coming back. Getting there, I have Jim catching flies next to me, after taking half a dose of sleeping pill, and this crazy Texan sitting next to me who swears he's in "investing". He paid for internet for the entire Lufthansa flight just to read his email. Seriously, I'm wondering if anything was that pressing that he couldn't leave his email alone for 9 whole hours. Wow. And, he got up every five minutes (I am not exaggerating here) and went....I have no idea where? Where do you go, on an airplane, thousands of feet in the air? Anyway. Mildly annoying. But not enough to squelch my total excitement over the fact that we were going to GERMANY to play a SHOW, for a real audience...in GERMANY! Was I nervous? Competely.
When we got there, our contact Ulrich met us at the airport and took us back to Munich on their underground transportation system, the S-Bahn. Let me just say how civil their system is. MTA- if you're reading this, you should check out the really cool little automated doors Munich trains have. Like, if you get to the train two seconds too late, you can hit this button on the outside of the door, and the doors open and you get on the train. Far superior to shoving a briefcase or foot in the door and hollering down the train to the conductor, hoping he actually sees you and realizes that you're trying to get on. Meanwhile, you have hundreds of people pissed off at you and shooting you dirty looks if you DO actually get on the train. Ah, New York City :-)
Plus, in Munich, their subways are so CLEAN. Well, everything was clean. I almost took a picture of the one piece of litter I saw the entire trip. Seriously. Now, I know i probably am seeing through slightly rose colored glasses due to the nature of my trip, but I give major props to the Muncheners for keeping thier city so gorgeous. The CITY- there's something to talk about. There's just something about Europe, whether it's how much older it is than the U.S., or how much more relaxed, or just the exoticness of it all...that I fall in love with every time I see it in pictures, or on TV...and especially when I'm there. Munich is a very Bavarian city of cobblestone streets, beer gardens, the requisite gazillions of churches and museums, with of course really cool statues and the random massive palace here and there. All totally normal sights for the city's million or so inhabitants. Highlights of sights: Frauenkirche, or Church of the Virgin (or something like that), huge yellow church with two onion towers, Theatinerkirche, another yellow church (what's with the yellow??), and the Residenz, a huge huge palace that I did not get to go into for lack of time, but looked amazing. I love the layout of Munich. We were in the city center, which is very densely packed with tiny side streets, cafes, bars, shops, and fortunate little pieces of architecture and charm. I think Munich is a lot bigger than what I saw, but my experience was pretty limited to all the stuff within a 20-30 minute walk of the hotel we stayed at (which was in itself charming and full of lovely staff. They had the BEST waffles and what I am pretty sure were pitted forest cherries for breakfast. Yum). I'm not much one for taking pictures, since I forget, and when you take pictures, I kinda think the point is so that you can go back to that place in your mind when you look at the pix. And lately, I have been so busy LIVING life, drinking in more of it, that I rarely want to put myself in the emotional frame of miind to sit with pictures and go back to the place I was in that picture...it's very sad, even when it's a happy memory. I sometimes can't handle it.
My sister Jackie was there with her friend Ryan, and she scared the crap out of me plenty of times by not meeting us when she said they would, since we had no cell phones that worked in Europe. Besides that, tho, i was thrilled to have her there, since I was making my international debut. I missed having my other sister Ali there, though. i went to Spain with her last year, and she was so much fun to hang with. I put it out there to the Universe- I want to go on a trip with both my sisters somewhere in this world. We'd rip it up. Obviously.
I shall now talk about one of my favorite topics in the whole world- food. Yes, i did eat a lot in Germany. Not everything I had wanted to, but that's ok, i'm going back (more on that later). They are really into their meat there, and the pork was some of the best I have ever had. I also got really into this horseradish sauce they put on some meat I ate, and the potatoes EVERYWHERE we went were great- from fried to boiled to their big dumplings. Also loved me some weiner schnitzel and spaetzle, which is little egg noodles. They do a mean apple strudel there, and all the wine I drank, whether Austrian or German, was very impressive. Coffee rocks, too...totally strong. I hit up a few different restaurants while i was there, with Jim, Jackie, Ryan, and Ulrich (and his friends, at times), and they all delivered that Bavarian experience- warm, friendly, cozy, and relaxed. MMMMM.
There is so much else I could talk about, from the little cafes to the student district, which I would have liked to explore more, to the museums that I didn't get to go to, but let's get to the point...i was there to play a show. And play we did. The show was Monday, March 6, 8:30 pm, at this great joint called Lustspielhaus (www.lustspielhaus.de) that usually caters to the comedy crowd. But because of that, the layout was awesome. A capacity 260 room with tables all over, seating 4/table. Cute little lamps on each table. the place had a full menu of food and drinks, and an elevated stage, where I played my beautiful Yamaha grand and Jim played the Takamine that a music store so generously lent him for our show. I loved the place. It was nice to be able to be downstairs below the stage, in an actual dressing room, actually getting ready to play physically and mentally before showtime. Even though that consisted of Jim playing a one foot pink sparkly plastic guitar with fishing line for strings, and me doing situps, and jackie taping the whole ridiculous thing on her camera. Sounds like a good warmup to me.
Then- the show. Man, was I nervous! I was hot, shaky, so unsure of whether people would like us, whether they'd be into the songs, or my voice, or just US up there on the stage...fortunately, my fears were unfounded. Despite a rocky start, when Jim's guitar somehow got unplugged so that when he turned on his amp at the beginning of the show..nothing happened...kinda awkward...we had a great show. It was actually pretty cool that the little guitar scenario happenned, because the audience immediately saw how human we were, and we all got to have a good laugh about it! Plus, Jim and Borys, our amazing sound guy, somehow managed to fix the whole thing so that, as I played "Save you Tonight" to open, Jim came in right exactly where he's supposed to anyway. Bravo.
If anyone REALLY wants the rundown of all the songs we did and what order, please let me know, but I'd like to do a recap generally...our set included all the biggies, like "I Am A Racecar", "Twisted", "Hardly is a Love Song", 'you Make Me", and the tracks from "Hiding Underneath" (www.ckubinski.com/buycd/index.html) The first set, 11 songs, was a lot of fun, although i was still really nervous and it probably showed a bit. That set included some classics..."Realistic" being one. Thank you Munchen for the hand claps. You guys rocked. Then, intermission was perfect for wolfing down some mean Lustspielhaus grub, celebrating a first act of blazing glory, haha, and getting changed for a second set. The second set opened with a sexy version of "Ride Alone" with Jim's awesome riffing. And we closed with "Like Only Lovers Can" and "Hiding Underneath". it was a lot better in terms of energy because we knew the audience was on our side at that point, I was totally warmed up, and just having FUN. Jackie sang backup on "Wherever You Wait" and that went over really well with the crowd, since she is a great singer and sounded awesome. We were huge dorks and said a few words in German, basically things like "ein bier" (a beer). Yes, classy Americans. Then, much to my surprise, we got not one but TWO encores! The first one, i was like, i have never done this before...how long do I wait? So I pretty much think that I walked offstage, waited about 5 seconds, then came back on. It was too quick :-) But the second one was truly amazing... after playing a new song "She's Gonna Make You Want Her" with Jim, we left the stage again, and the audience just kept clapping. And clapping. And finally, Jim turns to me and says "Looks like you're going back out there..." which I eventually did, playing "River to an Ocean" and ending on "Is This A Bad Time."
After the show, I was fortunate enough to meet the awesome people of Munich and talk for a while, sign CDs and posters, and thank them all for such a great time. I hope we made a good impression, and I hope they all bring their friends and families back when we play in Germany again. I am so so grateful for the chance to bring my music to a larger audience, and I'm so astonished and grateful and floored that the people who worked on the project put in as much heart, time, energy, and WORK as they did. I hope our show was worth it- it was worth it to me, a thousand times over.
Munich has some great bars (yes, I drank every night pretty much- Mom, get over it :-) My faves included this great Cuban bar, and also Neva, which was really low key on the Tuesday night we went around 1 am. Yah, not a lot happening in the clubs then.
Final thoughts? It rocked. It felt right. Like what I'm supposed to be doing. Only next time, I hope there's less snow. Yeah, Munich.
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