Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
One day into the tour, and we have our first ongoing competition.
Unfortunately that competition is based around the number of times I'll be hitting my head on or in the bus over the course of this tour.
All the guys in the band (and our tour manager and our head of security) picked a number and threw some money in the pot.
The unfortunate thing is that I can't join in due to the fact that I can easily rig the numbers, so someone in this group is going to end up making money off of my pain and suffering. And they're all perfectly fine with that.
So, after two shows and three days on the bus, the number is already at four, with number two drawing blood and requiring a bandage.
In my defense, European tour buses are made for short people, and sometimes I forget to duck.
Let's look beyond my bruised skull for a minute and talk about Rock Im Park.
The guys started the day off by doing a live interview which was held in a little staged area fenced in between the two main stages, and there were about 150 or so people gathered around to watch it.
Just outside that area, a giant trampoline was set up, and for three Euros concertgoers could jump on it.
During the course of the interview we kept seeing people's heads pop up over the top of the fence, so finally Sean grabbed the mic and told everyone sitting there that he'd pay if they all went out and jumped on the trampoline.
Jerry ponied up another 50 Euros to match Sean's, and the interview concluded with a bunch of people jumping on the trampoline.
The jumping continued a few hours later when the band took the stage.
The Rock Im Park crowd was a bit livelier than yesterday's, despite everyone standing in the baking sun all day.
I'm always curious at shows like this how many people out in the audience understand what is being spoken or sang.
I know being bilingual is far more common outside of the States, and a ton of people speak English here in Germany, but there's bound to be thousands of people out there who don't have a clue.
But the language barrier doesn't explain the dude that kept holding up a sign saying "show me your tits" every time William looked his way. It was written in English, and he kept holding it up towards the stage, not towards any females in the crowd, so I'm not sure what to think about that. (For the record, William kept his shirt on for the duration of the show)
A fresh head injury, a rock show, a trampoline, a sexually confused man in the crowd...
Just another day on tour.