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Tungsol | facebook | bandcamp |
I’m Sean. I usually sing for Helioscope. However, this summer I’m filling in as a “tour-dad/mum” for my friends in God Mother and Tungsol during their European tour, as well as acting live bassist for the latter. Here are a few words about our ongoing tour.
24.06 – Day 4
Since it’s roughly a one hour drive from Arnhem to Essen, we decided to give ourselves a slow start to the day. Sebastian and Max went shopping for breakfast/lunch while the rest of us stayed behind. The drummers had a go at the co-operative game “Brothers” on our hosts PS4. They did pretty well, but I think it’s fair to say they’re both better suited for beating the living hell out of drumkits.
We reached the venue in Essen well in time for the gig. The Emokeller was located underneath a kindergarden and looked like your average European DIY punk venue inside, except this one had probably been vacuum cleaned the last year, or even month. Also, for some reason, although nothing was mic’d up, it sounded fantastic. We basically just plugged in and switched our amps on for soundcheck and that was it. Good stuff!
We shared the stage with local act Hexer, playing their first ever show. Massively heavy doom parts of destruction combined with excellent reverb-wank and a drummers who’s playing style fit them perfectly. Super nice guys too! The overall turn up was great and the atmosphere at the venue is probably in our all-time top two alongside Azyl in Liberec, which we played last year. The constantly smiling Emokeller crowd consisted of a nice mix of styles of clothing and hair, both women and men. The otherwise in hardcore well-known elitist macho attitude was nowhere to be seen. Besides our own merch table (which was very busy through out the night) an anti-fascist distro was present, which is always nice to see. The crowd had been very appreciative of all bands, and exploded with God Mother’s set. (This band is impossible to stand still to!). Sebastian handed me the mic for the first half of ‘Ophiuchus’ and we both tried a bit of crowdsurfing, literally being pressed against the low concrete ceiling.
After the show we drove to our promoter Tim’s place in the neighbouring city of Bochum. He’s been an absolute dream to work with when booking the show and his lovely room-mate who got up early the next day to make us breakfast proved to be of the exact same calibre. She had even prepared a cake for us when we arrived in the middle of the night.
25.06 – Day 5
Sadly our show for this date was cancelled the night before we left Sweden. I tried getting us a last minute replacement somewhere between Essen and Prague. Although many people tried their best to help, this time we’d end up empty handed. This meant we had another long drive/no gig day on our hands. However, not having a specific deadline to catch we gave ourselves another easy morning (lazy buggers!), letting Daniel and Michael who’d slept in the car with all our stuff up to Tim’s place for a shower and breakie.
26.06 – Day 6
Our mission in Prague was to play the Ziskovska Noc-festival. Arriving a day early and being unsure about accommodation we decided to stay at Sebastian’s sisters place in central Prague. Ironically, just like last year, she was not to be home during our stay, but away working, this time in Norway. We were greeted by her room-mates and carried all our stuff up to the fourth floor apartment. We’re talking big floors here, four meters from floor to ceiling inside the flats. Let’s just say we didn’t love Daniels 2×15 cab as we do on stage. All in all it’s worth it, to not have to sleep in and constantly guard the van.
During the day most of us had a walk around the (gorgeous!) city, visiting the secret garden and scouting the park where Tungsol would play the main stage at 19.00 later that night. Michael opted for a solo stroll and we met up at 16.00 outside the flat to load everything into the van, except the cabs, which we would borrow from the festival stages (which in turn meant not carrying them up and down this time, woohoo!).
The festival main stage was basically a big tent covering food stands, tables and the stage itself, by far the biggest we’ve played so far. Keep in mind though, we’re talking a small city festival main stage in a part of a park, not the biggest one from Rock am Ring or anything like that. The view from the top of the park, across Prague, was stunning. Definitely worth the slightly illegal climb with the car to get to the stage. Most of the people there seemed more interested in the beer and food than what was happening musically. However, with a little help from our good friends Distortion, Shock value and Dissonance we managed to wake them up. Despite feeling physically miles away from the crowd it felt like we connected with them, making the show feel pretty intimate. Topping off the experience was the eight year old kid afterwards asking us to “take selfie please” with him.
God Mother played later, at Modra Vopice, a venue located in the outskirts of the city. Having two stages there, one outside and one inside, constantly relieving each other of their extreme metal duty. Before that, our first site when entering had been a duo, consisting of a bassist and a completely naked low pitch pigs quealing/grunting guitarist backed up by a drum machine. I’ll say no more. God Mother were on at 22.50. A gig I’ll hopefully upload when we get home since I managed to capture it with my GoPro, taping it upside down to the ceiling. Despite Sebastian imitating my camera, hanging upside down from the ceiling, the crowd at times seemed dazed by the more progressive elements, but still handed the band a nice overall reaction.
27.06 – Day 7
Liberec. What an experience it was last year when we visited with God Mother and Helioscope. It was one of the places (and venues!) we really wanted to revisit this time around and the second to first gig we confirmed for the tour. To say our expectations were high for this gig would be an understatement. Initially the turn up at the “bar-side-equipped-with-a-permanent-mould-smelling-room-with-a-stage-and-PA” wasn’t that good. Ondra who was doing the show for us was getting nervous. However, after postphoning the first band half an hour, 30 people or so had showed up. It was cool to see two Helioscope-shirts and of course people from our local Liberec favourites DROM to name a few. Not to forget top punk-kid Denis who’d we’d met both last year and in Prague the night before.
Playing in that room however, was the second year running, a fantastic feeling. Being slightly over-psyched, I pulled of a stage dive with bass and everything during our last song. Note the word “dive” in there, cause that’s what it was or more like a Fossbury flop. With not many (or at least not enough) people prepared I just kind of saw my legs go over some surprised sorry soul and ended up flat, face down on to the ground, ripping my cable out of my pedal board in the process. Not my most gracious moment, but the adrenaline had to go somewhere I guess.
God Mother’s set was received just as well as last year with a fair share of people moshing, dancing and smiling. Sebastian thanked Ondra (the promoter) by bringing him on stage were they shared a spontaneous kiss on the mouth.
The friendly atmosphere remained in the bar after the gig. We had a nice sit down with the whole tour gang basically just laughing at each others bad and even worse jokes (which are getting cheaper every day on tour) for a few minutes. We really took the time and opportunity to talk to and catch up with our old and new favourite Liberecians and Liberecesses too, just enjoying ourselves. To say Liberec lived up to expectations would be accurate. To say it’s still our favourite place to play is also true. Ok, there’s one thing that I personally didn’t like. The horrible koala cola Sebastian bought me. The thought was nice, but it was probably the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. But that doesn’t count, does it? We still love Liberec!
