Hello all!!
I just go back the other day from the short but sweet Fates Warning tour of Eastern Europe. Greece is a long way away from LA and if you didn't already know how I feel about flying, well then let me tell you that it is not my favorite past time. We put in some serious flight miles. Up and down and up and down. Customs here, passport control there. Crazy, but that's what's needed sometimes to ROCK!!!!!!!!! And rock we did.
We started off in Athens rehearsing at a local rehearsal studio called Fragile Studios. Everybody in Greece who helped us out and took care of us were so great. So warm and giving.
After a couple days of rehearsing we headed off to go to Budapest. Let the adventure begin! We had to fly through Rome togetthere.When we did arrive, my cymbals did not. Alitalia airlines decided I didn't need them I guess, and so we had to scramble to borrow cymbals there. We did get some and gig went on. It was at a cool venue called WIGWAM. It was strange to see all this American Indian stuff in a club in Hungary. The gig went off well and the crowd was very enthusiastic. |
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The next morning it was off to Sofia, Bulgaria. We got to the Budapest airport and check to see if my cymbals came in. They said "yes they just arrived from MILAN. They will be coming off the plane in a moment" Well I waited with the local promoter at the luggage belt until all the baggage came off and as you can probably guess my cymbals were not there. So we go to the desk and the nice lady who told us they were coming out said "oops! my mistake, they are coming in on the next flight." Well we couldn't wait so we left.
We got to Sofia and went to the venue. It was a basketball arena. This gig was very fun. I was playing different drums at every gig. this one I had a black kick drum, white toms, and a maroon snare. We borrowed cymbals again and rocked on! This was a pretty big gig and the crowd was amazing.
  
After the show we went to shower up and the got in a bus for a 9 hour ride to Istanbul, Turkey. Getting though the border was interesting, but we made it after a little money was exchanged, if you know what I mean :) This gig wasn't as together as the others but it was still fun. It was a small rock club in the center of town. The crowd seem to like it. Istanbul was the only city we got to go and site-see on the tour. We were moving around so much that we didn't have any time, but there, me and the guys went and saw a couple of the old mosques and the grand bizarre. We even got ripped off by a cab driver. It took us 7 dollars to get to where we were going (that's something like 500000000000000 turkish Lira) and the ride back to the hotel cost us about 50 dollars. The guy was a magician. We didn't even realize what was happening until he sped off up the street. Oh well, live and learn.
   
The next morning was off to get back to Greece for the last two shows. My cymbals ended up at the Istanbul airport after our tour promoter Harris jumped through hoops with Alitalia. We had to fly through Athens to get to Thessoloniki. I'll keep this short but let me tell you that we spent 7 hours in the Athens airport. The plane taking us there had a mechanical problem that needed to be fixed. None of us minded waiting for that. We like planes that work:) But some of the locals started to get a bit irate at the staff for Olympic airlines and after a 4 or 5 hours tempers flared out of control and there was a fight and screaming and yelling. It was all pretty funny actually. We finally made it up there and went straight to the gig. My cymbals made it to this gig. I had to play on an old Sonar kit that had the deepest toms I have ever seen. These were beyond power toms. Kind of felt like playing on wet towels. the gig went off pretty well and the crowd again was fantastic.
The next morning we headed back to the airport to go to Athens. No problems today. We go there and made our way to a very nice club. This was the gig that was filmed for a DVD the Fates will release sometime this summer I think. The crowd was insane!! A total blast to play for. Fates definitely has a lot of great fans all over Eastern Europe and especially in Greece. The new every song. Sang along at the top of there lungs and made it a lot of fun to play. |
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photo by Chris Kissadjekian (LiveAlive Pictures/Kissadjekian)
The guys in the band are great. We had a good time hanging out together. There was a few really good laugh sessions and a lot of good eating and drinking. Even though I averaged about 3 hours of sleep per night and was tired the tour was a blast and I want to thank Fates Warning very much for having me along. Please go to their web site www.fateswarning.com I am sure you will be able to find out more about the tour there and what is going to happen in the future with the band.
Now I am off to Spock's Beard land. Never a dull moment.
All the best, NDV |
