19.07 – 25.07. 2011

I decided to write this blog now, because on tour, I don’t have time to write, unfortunately, each city in turn. I hope that it will be just as fun and interesting for those who read it (someone reads this?)

On July 19, we flew from Dresden to the town of Erbil in northern Iraq.

People who live there call it, however, not Iraq but Kurdistan because the vast majority of inhabitants are of Kurdish descent.

The morning greeted us with temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius:) Everything would have been cool if it weren’t for the fact that because of cultural reasons, men are obligated to wear long trousers, shoes and shirts that cover the arms So bad sauna:)

The first day we arrived home, our local promoter -named Andreas, who along with his Mexican wife, Ruth

prepared our great Italian dinner;) Multiculturalism is

wonderful;) We also met the on-site team TACO – Wilson, Janet, Susanna, and Victor – great people who live in Turkey and Jordan, and conduct missionary activities in the Middle East. After brief introductions, we ate lunch and prayed together, then different groups went to their host homes.

Adam, Joe, Ge and I stayed with a great family Annamaria, Clayton, and their wonderful daughter, Marianna. Wonderful people who have lived in Iraq for several years and work as missionaries. They previously lived in Egypt and Portugal, where he also engaged in missionary activity. Their daughter, Marianna is exquisite, and in general super sweet.

Marianna is so clever and musical, and we played guitar for some time:)

Our first concert was held in Erbil in the local park. Of course, as

usual, it was not without problems. Since this was the first concert and I was the main sound engineer, a bit of time went by before I got all the equipment.

On the whole tour I used a Yamaha 01V96, TACO table together extensions Behringer, fronts are 2 x12 „QSC page and sub Carvin forced mega severe QSC tip. We had our in-ears, also from TACO. That morning there was a problem with the current, because the light that we got a 1000 Paris 64 and all our security is a 32A current into sound and light. So we could only use four pairs, so as to not overload the current. But it was not a concern. The biggest problem that day was that something was going wrong with the amps for the whole time was a hum and distortion. Every hour, I changed each element of the chain – cable, extension cord, a column – and nothing. Last resort was to pray. And what happened?Throughout the concert the speakers did not deliver a single hum as occurred like during the sound check, and only at the time of preaching by David did the right stack begin to fail, but the same microphone, worked for the speakers on the left.This was proof that the tour will not be easy but we have help from the God!

During the concert, a guy with a knife showed up, who evidently did not like the fact that we are on the spot and talking about Jesus. Funny story. Throughout the concert, people came up to me and asked for pictures. Nice, but it was hard to focus the send and delay, and pose for photos. The translator did not quite understand what David said, so I translated it from English to more English and then he just into Arabic. Then this guy with the knife came and began to threaten us, in the beginning I did not notice the knife and I thought again that he wants to scare us, so I just sent him away; this was the moment when the interpreter explained David’s message. I was so busy and thought he just wanted to take a picture so I told him to go away. Only then I noticed the knife and the guy goes on stage and threatened to Adam … There was a moment of fear, but fortunately in a miraculous way nothing happened.

After the concert, a lot of people have wanted to know

more. Interesting and sad at the same time is that many have asked is who is this Jesus you’re talking about … I see that you need another tour in Iraq, that show people who Jesus is.

Dale took this video from a concert in Erbil:

The second concert in a town next to Erbil – Ainkawa. This is a more modern city, and a few Christians live here and people are more open and modern in their views.

We played in a city park. The venue was quite small so we decided to change the spot where we played so more people could watch the concert.That day everything went much more smoothly. Admittedly a little disturbed by the wind and we had to set up the cube a little later, but otherwise there were no major problems, at least so we thought.

At about 20 minutes before the concert the European to American power converter burned out… No one knows how but it literally blew into smoke. Consequently, a guitar piece fell, but fortunately only fuses had blown. Surprisingly, it sounded as good as the amps:)

After the concert, I took about a hundred pictures with people but there were also interesting conversation.

It looked something like this:

Our time in the vicinity of Erbil was over and we went to Dohuk. 3 hours drive in a minibus was ridiculous. Overall, it was not so bad, perhaps even though the climate was.

Anyway we got there we met a local promoter and a very nice guy who greeted us very nice and took us to the place of the concert.

That day we also ate our first local meal:)

We played at Dream City, surrounded by slides and various entertainment strange things. So we drove a local means of transport:

The stage was huge. A lot of places, unfortunately, our PA had not been designed for playing such big venues so I was a little

dissatisfied with the sound of the day but you can see that the crowd did not care.

People jumped, screamed, and there was even stage diving – and all this in Iraq. Wow.

That day there was a lot of people at the concert, and many went for the fire after concert to find out more and to pray together with David. For such a response was worth the bother in long pants:)

Live report:

The next day we left at 8 am and had 9 hours of driving to Sulaimani. In some conditioned van-sized transporter, with the luggage on the roof and all of our knees were touching.

I forgot to write earlier that entry and exit of the city along the way we had to go through a lot of checkpoints. You show your passport and go, sometimes you get checked longer and searched.

Male soldiers have with them, of course, AK47, generally a lot of people in uniforms with AK47 everywhere. After two days I had already gotten used to it.

Just like the fact that on this day, our driver happened to have loaded Glock, Somehow not in the holster but simply in his trousers, under the bar, as in the foreign films:)

The whole day we spent the drive playing Taboo, and other language games. I’m glad because now I am better at

English taboo. Even with two years and maybe I’ll actually give advice:)

We came finally to Sulaimani, totally exhausted from this little journey. We arrived at the venue and started to have problems … After several minutes it appeared that several days before there were many serious protests over political stuff in the city. We don’t know exactly why, but generally there were riots in Sulaimani and police used weapons and several people were killed. For this reason, local authorities banned the use of microphones and loudspeakers in public places, not to lead to further unrest. For this reason, the show was canceled …

The next day we had a concert in Sulaimani but rather than an outdoor show at another amusement park, it was inside the local cinema / theater / club. Authorities said nothing about concerts in closed places so it was decided – we play!

That day several of us had serious stomach problems. The worst case was Steve, whose performance was questionable due to him almost throwing up. Somehow, however, he played the whole concert. Left the stage several times to drink water but he pushed through. Great respect for him!

Since we played at this theater, I managed to negotiate a deal with the owner, so we had a really nice surround sound.

By adding that to our own PA, there were also effects that gave the impression of being in a huge stadium.

The whole concert very cool. We didn’t have the flaming mohawk this time around because earlier in Dohuk, it almost burned Joe’s head after the flames got too hot, and there was no time to build a new one, but it’s fun. People reacted very lively and very they liked it. Overall, this was the last concert in Iraq, which include these can be successful.

It looked like this:

After the concert we all went to bed tired. Our long trip to Diyarbakir in Turkey was mainly dependent on how much time it will take us crossing the border. But this is already in the post about Turkey:)

More images from Iraq are here:

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Just in case you wouldn’t know.

Hello again after a long break. I am peeking at my watch and it has already passed two months and one day since my last msg. Bullocks. I didn’t have time to write. All the time sth was going on. From my last blog entry I had 20 concerts with Afro. There was SLOT. There was even one weekend off work. There was Mundial. Quite a few things.

To start with a news – Bajzel was punched finally.

And now he behaves normally. Of course he still bustles around the stage, but it is better with him now.

Do naszej Afromental Crew doszedł nowy człowiek. Mega spokojny, miły, genialny, cierpliwy i wszysko inne Hubert! Panie i Panowie – poznajcie Huberta:

We gained recently new member of our crew, Hubert – Super calm, nice, ingenious, patient etc. Ladies and gents – let’s meet Hubert.

When it comes to changes. Sb eventually came up with an idea to measure the levels of noise during concerts. It was usually me who did it because I have had always Radioshack with me, but I wasn’t present on every concert. And since I am on every concert we are handling Radioshack to Bajzel who measures. Thanks to that, the competition for the loudest city can be organized. The newest record was broken in Koscierzyna 121 dB(A).

Congrats.

Some of you may know that Wozz was off colours and he was covered by Mrozu.

and Dziamas.

That’s all from Afro crew. To sum up last photo of Baron. On that git was about 35 degree…

I would have forgotten. On myspace profile of Afro there is a new track Rock&rollin’ Love. Listen and vote for them on Orange Warsaw Festival contest.

Of course in life there is much more then just Afro concerts. I was on SLOT. I couldn’t figure out which one was it and I had a glance on a calendar. My first SLOT was in 2004 and since then I haven’t miss any. And this is how I looked.

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

no i 2010:

Throughout last two years I had workshops from sound engeenering. This year I had to choose and I chose golf. I really don’t regret. I planned this workshop for 10 people each day. On average there were 35 people… surprise. Of course it was really positive surprise.

Firstly quick info about Golf.

Distribution of equipment.

and eventually hitting and looking for ballsJ That was fun.

Big thanks to Jacus for helping me in this worksop. And remember everything flows (auch, auch;)

I was also taking care of a stage next to Wozownia. My shift started at 3 and lasted till 11 pm everyday. Looks like normal work shift.

Fortunately I had a great companion. Without her I could have not managed to bear.

Anyway the best point of each day was a workshop of sth similar to singing reggae songs. This workshop was lead by my favourite STARGUARDMUFFIN. I recommend you their music. They play really great and additionally they are simply the best, the nicest etc. I am uploading the promised memory photo. I hope it will be on their website soon!!;)

Here Jacus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfE1jB33OuU

Personally I cross my fingers for guys, because if their music will not succeed then what will?

In terms of FUN – what would be SLOT without a guy named Wiśnia? He arrived with his jolly crew and organized Extreme Summer Park. And people had loads of fun, tried skimboard and generally it was nice. We gave a try as well:

After a concert in Słubice, we went to Berlin. It was there where we saw the match (Germany-Argentina) and the craziness of German football funs. Before the game the city looked like this:
And afterwards:

I think that’s all. This week we are playing in Swinoujście, Radom, Malbork and Szczytno. If you have time – stop by.

 
We arrived in Glucholazy at 1pm to start a rehearsal so that the quality of the prospect gig will be the best. Unfortuantely just after our arrival it came up that table has not enough inputs, PA wasnt tunned, PA from 3 different producents and in general it was just strange. Guys from Afro played football (or soccer if you prefer) and technicians were struggling with cables and diboxes on stage. Finally we managed to connect everything so that we could start our rehearsal. It took us 3 hours. We started but suddenly sth was making cracking noise, and I thought it was some sort of electricity cut off or problems with cables but the sound engineer from that place was swearing to god that cables are new and its not possible that sth is wrong with them. If so, we continued our rehearsal. It was Sniady’s korg turn. And we solved the cracking noise problem, because it came out that whole bottom line was cut off. We wanted to change the cable but this guy keep talking that its new and everything is okey with it. So maybe dibox? We changed it and nothing improved. Maybe multicore? Nothing. In the very end we managed to change this cable and everything was alright! Later we had problems with Baron’s computer. Then one guy told us that we should start at 4pm and we still hadn’t finished our rehearsal. I was completely pissed. I came to our bus to get cable’s tester of Dave Rat’s and I checked all cables in this place. It turned out that 10 cables in a row was damaged! First 10 in a row we checked were useless! Great, ha? In the meantime one guy came on the stage and announced the beginning of Glucholazy’s day. Me and the band were playing in the background;)

Of course each and every on his instrument.
 
Next day we went to Konin on its Festival of Kids Song (some sort of). It was very nice – we fought record of loudness – 107 dB in A scale. Public was full of teenagers.
 

The great ‘XXX’ in the background on the stage.
 
I recommend the moment 3:09 when Marcin’s mum comes in.
 
And this is my version with 107 db.
 
I virtually changed Afro’s bus to family bus to Berlin. We were heading for a wedding of Ania’s sister. And yes, I was wearing a suit.

 
Just after afro I had couple of days at home. I didn’t clean much, because Ania does that but it gets really dusty after just couple of days of absence. On Thursday I was already with Miloopa on our way to Luzembourg on Fete de la musique.Very nice 5 days away from home.
 
First day we played the best sounded concert in my miloopa’s career. I regret that I didn’t record that gig.
 

Unfrotunately the public wasn’t really lively. I recon they just don’t feel that music. Although there were quite a few of them, but they were just standing.
 

In general this festival is a really huge thing in Luxembourg, it attracts attention of great amount of citizens. On the first day there were maybe 2 thousands of people, on the second twice as many, and on the third I couldn’t even think of the numbers.
 
They randomly suspend sound system randomly in the middle of a street… I really don’t know why but it’s impressive.
 
The last day we played in the center of Luxembourg and people were more vivid. And the band that played after us…

They called Hal Falvin. Check their myspace. They’re really great!
 
As you can see on the pic above we didn’t have much time for przepinki. Around 20 mins to podpiąć się and do soundcheck. 

10.05 – CESKA TREBOVA
11.05 – BROUMOV
12.05 – VOLYNE
13.05 – KLATOVY
14.05 – NOVY BOR
15.05 – POLICKA
16.05 – CESKY KRUMLOV
17.05 – CESKE BUDEJOVICE
18.05 – LIBEREC
19.05 – OTROKOVICE
20.05 – BRNO
21.05 – NOVE MESTO NAD VAHOM (SK)
22.05 – CESKY TESIN
23.05 – KYJOV
24.05 – BRNO
25.05 – 27.05 – PRAGUE

We played 18 concerts day by day. It was quite tiring… but we handle it. We had gigs in many differents places, starting with a club like this bunker in Ceska Trebova…

through interesting scenes like the one in Policka and

mega-superb-hiper pimped club in Slovakia – Midas, Klark Teknik, recording system  Cubase in racks, Tc M2000, D2, PA Funktion One, many lasers, camcorders Sony HD and multimedia system and many many more… and 56 kinds of hot chocolate.

Small but really cosy places in Klatovy and eske Budejovice

Lovely club in Cesky Tesin and club in Brno with great atmosphere

Ending with Jazz Dock in Prague.

On our way we encountered strange spots… like this one which is called ZAKUPY(in polish it means shopping)

And food (its bizarre mixture of cream, mushrooms, whipped cream and crouton.

And citizens

If you woudn’t know Lucien Dubuis trio consists of:

Slim Fat – contrabass clarnet, saxophone

Cool Roman – guitar, bass, noizz

Fat Cool – drums, percussion, noizz

Janne from Finland – nanokorg noizz, guitar, sound

Janne became an unexpected guest on this tour. But after 5th concert he performed his tune on bis and afterwards he was invited on the stage every time.
His great solos on the keybord and guitar makes people thrill.

Czech republic is a weird country. Very specific. They’ve got the cheapest beer which is also very tasty. Sometimes you can buy it for 18 korons (3 PLN / 1 $). Prague is a very charming city. Thanks to the three gigs in Jazz Dock  and my guide I was able to do some proper sighseeing.

In big cities like Prague or Brno citizens speak English. Unfortunately in smaller towns it’s not so easy. In the very beginning I thought that polish and Czech language have a lot in common, but it’s not true. Some single words may have the same meaning, but still it’s not enough to communicate with people. Guys from Lucien can speak also French and German and sometimes it was really helpful. The best thing happened in restaurants like McDonalds or other where we were imitating different animals in order to get a meal with chicken meat or pork. It was very interesting indeed.
When it comes to eating, they’ve got great steaks, McFlurry with caramel and nuts (really addictive btw.)wide range of salami in the supermarket and peppers – very good. I still don’t like ‘kofola’ though and I cannot take anymore chicken breasts.

Thank you guys for this time and I invite you to Poland and to Janne’s concerts.

Just after this tour I popped in to Saraswati Studio to give equipment back and I met Digit All Love, who where just recording material for the newest album.

I cannot wait to see the results.

After that I got some rest in the countryside in Darek’s place. Barbeque, whiskey, internet and rainy days. On Saturday I was working with Afromental in Posen.

It was the best organized student party ever. Sound from Fotis, Vdosc at  the front, MJF212 as monitors, boards DiGiCo d5 and Midas Pro6 and great bands:
SOFA
FLAPJACK
INDIOS BRAVOS
RAEKWONWU TANG CLAN
SHAPESHIFTERS
TOM NOVY
MARCO V
NITROUS OXIDE
AFROMENTAL
ACID DRINKERS
WAGLEWSKI, FISZ, EMADE
STRACHY NA LACHY

Although we had some problems with boiling water for coffe:

But apart from that – master! (as Wiesiek used to say)

Right now two days of chill out, next concerts with Afro in Konin and Glucholazy. Later on Miloopa in Lithuania and Luxembourg. Sounds great.

I would like to inform everyone who enjoys ROCK BEZ IGLY festival that we are getting back! We promise you a huge event on the 10th anniversary of the first edition which will take place on 1st June 2010… but you don’t have to wait so long because we are preparing a little ‘before party’ for this summer. Just to remind you about our fest and keep you updated.

!

So see you on the concerts

Pretty cool, ha?

Because it’s February, I don’t have much staff to do… only University and studio.

Luckily I managed to play sth in January. Alongside Miloopa I was hosted in the Agnieszka Osiecka’s studio in Polish Radio Three.

The gig was amazingly successful. It will be available on this website soon.

The day after, we had a concert in Bialystok. It was fine as well. What’s most important we had nice audience.

PA was great. Hopefully we will have more places like that one in Poland

And here is a li’l something from these gigs, a sneak peek from the stage.

And movie from a concert for Radio Ram. The sound is from console, nice, uh?

For guys interested in studio and equipment’s stories – video from Saraswati Studio with great Raj’s comments.

For the happy ending here you’ve got some photos from MSP camp. As you can see Chico was with us on the slopes.

Cheers and take care!