back in the dam

I'm living quietly.... It's getting warmer in Amsterdam. The canal's aren't freezing any more:



I'm getting to the gym plenty, and eating quite healthy - which given the blandness of a lot of the food over here and the lack of conveniences such as Greggs, isn;t that hard:



I've discovered that nine inch nails is indeed very good Gym muisc, it spurs you on and you keep pumping cos you know you know theres a big adrenaline kick coming. After a particularly tough day at work, I manage to do the double whammy of Pretty Hate Machine followed by The Downward Spiral:





Then following a shower, it's a relaxing cycle home to something a little more relaxing:

Sigur Ros


Mogwai:


At another Gym session, The Kiwi introduces me to the Sauna on the top floor, its a great relaxing room... you go for a sauna and a shower, and then you can relax on sun loungers and look over the view of Amsterdam from the Balcony...... I'll get a photo sometime....

My next trip is Luxembourg......

Train to Prague

I get a slow start because the conference doesn't start until the afternoon. I use the time to find some postcards. What's more difficult is finding the yellow Deutsche Post sign to find some stamps/briefmarken. My German is coming back, and I don't have to use English in an of the shops.

Mellon Collie and the infinite sadness eventually fades - even though I listen to the last track about three times, just to float on that reverby spacey piano as I look around. The next choice was The Bends by Radiohead:



It's an album that sits in my iPod overlooked mostly, but every time I return to it, I remember how good it is. I didn't like that much of radio head after this. They got a bit experimental and forgot how to rock. I like what I hear of their new stuff, but The Bends just seems to be a more complete album, and the experimental guitars in it are just enough to keep it on edge.

The more of Liepzig I see, the more I realise I wasn't just unlucky when I was surrounded by building works.

After freezing my bollocks off writing postcards in a little park, I head along to the conference. It's got simultaneous translations in German, but only after I do my presentation. I suspect the Scottish accent may have been to much for them.

I head off at about 6pm to catch my train to the next leg of my November tour - Prague. This requires gettinga train from Leipzig to Dresden, and then Dresden to Prague. I leave the conference and kick straight into The Fragile:



It's a great album to be marching along the street to with heavy bags. Life doesn't seem so bad. You just worry that there's this manic look in your eye as you imagine you're Trent Reznor singing the lyrics.

I've left myself plenty of time to kill, so I can finally use the Deutsche bank in the station to buy stamps and post the postcards. After this, it's time to do as they do in Rome. Gluiwein:



Gluiwein stalls seem to be all over the streets here, and I get a cup for €1.50. They also sell something called Kreppelchen which seem to be deep fried balls of sweet pastry served with icing sugar. I stand and eat the local delicacies. The Gluiwein starts out disgusting, but once you get used to it it's a great warming winter drink. It would probably be described as being similar to mulled wine, but a closer comparison would be hot watered down buckfast.

It keeps me warm while I wait for the train. Soon, I'm trundling along to Drsden on one of Germany's best. Once the laptop is supplying me with entertainment and somewhere to distribute my travel thoughts, it's no time before I'm in Dresden. Now I realise why everyone got so excited about Leipzig station, because Dresden station is a dump. It couldn't have looked any worse in 1945. You actually have to climb through the building works to get to anywhere. I'm pretty glad I don't have to kill much time here.

The Dresden-Prague euro express arrives and I take my seat. This is a far different experience. This isn't the plush German trains that I've been on for the past few days. The Germans must save them for themselves. This looks much more like the grimey dirty trains from a country with a dodgy train infrastructure. It's actually making me homesick for the friday night Glasgow to Kilmarnock train I used to take home as a student. There's just less Glaswegian conversation. In fact the carriage is fair near empty.

When we cross the Polish border, we get the very serious looking Customs police. The only borders I've crossed in a train is Netherlands to Belgiium and Germany and Belgium to Paris. There's customs on the train, but they have never asked me for my passport. This time, I have 3 uniformed guys standing over me trying to work out find the 15 yr old kid in my passport under the aging years. They eventually realise it's me. Unfortunately they don't give me a stamp....... awwww. This European Union thing's playing havoc with the colourfulness of my passport.

I'm quite dissappointed(But not surprised) that it's dark outside. I don't mind missing German landscape(it doesn't feel that exotic), but I wouldn't mind getting a glimpse at what the Czech Republic looks like - still there's all weekend. All I do know is that we have travelled next to a river for quite some time, either that or we're travelling down the coast. Maybe I need to install an atlas on my powerbook.

Eventually, the train trundles into Prague Holesivce station. It's late, dark and every commuter seems as devoid of life as I am.

I get off, and realise it really is cold. Colder than Leipzig. Mowgli is there to greet me which picks me up, then it's off to catch the metro. As soon as we're on the metro, I really feel like I'm travelling again. The langauge can only be compared to Polish in it's otherwordly-ness, From a metro it's onto an old trundly tram to get to Mowgli's digs.

He stays on the north of town at the University where he's working. It's after 11pm now, so I dump my bags, and then we head back out for another tram to head into town and enjoy a Pilsner.

The Prague public transport system is pretty goo. I don't fancy our chances of public transport like this after midnight in Glasgow or Amsterdam.

We get off at Museum which is on Wenceslas Square. Immediately I see how beautiful prague is. The National Museum at the end of Wenceslas Square is the first thing I see:



From here we head down to a couple of Mowgli's locals. We start off in a bar in Lucerna Passage, which is one of Prague's Art Noveau arcades:



We barely have our first sip of beer before a very drunk Irishman joins us and starts to drunkenly talk about music. He tells us that he's obsessed with a scottish band who had two hit singles in the early nineties, had black and white arty videos and who he listened to when he was camping in Munich in 1992. We rattle off a few names but none satisfy him. I'll google when I'm bored one afternoon and email him.

His parting gift is 2 pints, two vodka and red bulls and two gin and tonics. We learn a lot about Czech bar staff when he does this. The Czech's don't like to be hollered at, or dictated to, and he seems to have seen drunken english speakers before. Irish or not, to him it's another drunk Brit - it's written all over his face. Mowgli apologises for him in Czech and he seems to think a little more of us.

We enjoy the pints, and have a vodka and red bull each, but return the gin and tonics untouched to the bar.

From here we head down through the centre of Prague. I get photos of the old town square, and generally, we enjoy having a wander around a great city of winding roads:











We head to club Mowgli know, but when we get to the bar, it appears to be closed or closing. Eventually after donnering around for a while more, we find a little cuban bar which looks like it has some atmosphere. We sit in here for a little while and enjoy some more of the wonderfully smooth Czech pilsner. It's now the early hours of the morning, and I've seen enough Prague considering I only arrived at about 10.30pm.

After a Gyros Kebab, We head back to Wenceslas square to get a night tram. It's approaching 4am, yet we can still get a tram to Mowgli's house in the outskirts.

When we get on the tram, I'm surprised how busy it is. What's even more surprising is lthe amount of drunks who are outcold on the seats. They are completely unaware of where the tram is on it's route:





What's great is that we are going to the last stop. So we get to watch what we now call dawn of the dead. This is where, the tram stops out near Mowgli's house in the middle of nowhere and the sleeping drunks get slapped awake by the driver. They then exit the tram and wander about like zombies. They have no idea where they are, where they are going or how to get there. They then wander off in different directions, or get on another tram - no doubt doing the same at the end stop of that tram.

With that hilarity. We head off to bed.......

nine inch nails - Barrowlands Glasgow

Wow!!!! Just home from nine inch nails at the barrowlands in Glasgow. It’s been a while since I was in the barrowlands, never mind such a good concert.

Having barely been in Amsterdam 12 hours, it was time to head off to Scotland for T in the Park. As I left last week, I noticed in the paper that nin were playing at the barrowlands on the day I was coming over for the Scottish music festival. By now 7.7.05 will probably have been made in to 9/11 by the UK media. I was traveling that day, and all I felt was numbness to it – maybe denial as a protection measure(I found out in an airport – I don’t/can’t start worrying about Armageddon) or maybe I just can’t handle the media. Anyway – who wants to self analyse before a nine inch nails concert.

Nine inch nails were always a little heavy for me – but when contemporary music is shit, you tend to revisit older music you had dismissed. I always liked the idea of nin, but was put off a little by how hardcore the fans were. I have pretty hate machine, but had to be in the mood for it. Now heavy is not as heavy as it used to be, and I augmented my music collection with the new album “with teeth”. It blew me away – I keep on meaning to get round to writing a review of it on here. All in all, its avery well put together album of good intelligent music, the likes of which I’ve not heard in a good while. If you’re not sure, listen to the first track – “All the love in the world”



So I decided that since I was arriving in Scotland for T in the park today, that I would try to go and see them at the barrowlands – they are playing in the Netherlands, but it is in Nijmegen – which is far away(By NL standards). Traveling from Vienna to Amsterdam – Amsterdam to Glasgow, and then picking up a mate and going and buying tickets from touts, felt very rock and roll. The price I paid from touts was stupid, but that’s the price you pay for being too busy to keep your ear to the ground.

The touts are pros. They all have English accents, but I don’t doubt for a second their ability to hold their own in the east end of Glagsow. He tells me that the ticket is standing that he has no seated tickets. Anyone who knows the Barras(Glasgow speak for the Barrowlands), knows that there are no seats – I find this pretty funny. Also – while I’m doing the deal, he starts to inquire about nin. He realises I’m not daft, so tells me that he’s been doing this for years, and he’s never seen an audience like this he asks with what is almost fear in his voice “how heavy are this band??” I try to explain that they are dark, but I think visual gamuts mapped onto aural textures is too much for him to handle.

I’ve picked up an old friend from school. If I’m not the traditional nin listener, then she really isn’t, but she is a fun loving full of energy bouncy person, who I think knows that you should listen when I say some music is going to be good.(Okay – I was a little worried that it wouldn’t be up to scratch).

Walking up to a queue of nin nails fans outside the barrowlands ballroom was wonderful – it’s a site I’ve seen so many times. The Barrowlands ballroom, is a 1930’s(???) ballroom in a very rough area in the east end of Glasgow. It was the battleground for the Glasgow razor wars, it was where Scotland’s serial killer bible john found his victims, but more importantly it is one of the best music venues in the UK. I’ve seen in excess of 30 bands here. By the time I was living in Glasgow, I was going to any concert that I could until I overdosed on too many mediocre bands – but tonight is something different. It feels like a sold out concert.

The audience, because it’s nin, are a complete freakshow. This is a compliment – for some time, Glasgow has had a group of teenagers, who have embraced a watered down version of goth fashion and sat outside the modern art gallery in Glasgow. I always thought I’d be so pissed off if I was a real goth, that these neds(Scottish for delinquant – but far more descriptive), had stolen my alternative and made it mainstream – but tonight we see that there is a big difference between the real and the fake.

Apart from the almost compulsory base colour of dark black, everyone is their own fashion. There is a PVC basques, torn suspenders, high heels, platforms, dreadlocks, and just about everything you can imagine, but it has far less of the fake that it used to have when I was getting bored with concert going. This is far more real.

The friend who is with me is getting the value of her ticket pricing by people watching alone. The first band is some hip hop thing. I don’t even give it a chance. I prefer to soak up the atmosphere and catch up. We stand in amongst the incoming crowds moving from toilet to bar to cloakroom to stage. We feel rather underdressed, but it soon becomes clear that almost everything is acceptable.

There’s a lot of firsts. I think I may have been the first person to attend a nine inch nails concert with a girl wearing white. It’s so much fun taking in the atmosphere. I reminisce about pre/early Brit pop where there was camaraderie with your fellow concert goers. I blame oasis. Concerts became acceptable domains for “lad” culture, and everyone was far more protective of their space, but tonight feels so much different. Maybe cos it’s been a while, maybe cos almost everyone here is an individual so appreciates the other individuals. It feels good anyway.

It’s 9pm, so time for Trent and the boys to take to the stage. The stage set has three microhphones, a kind of computer/synth/keyboard booth, and a matte Black drum kit. This makes me laugh – glass black would have been too happy I think. As we stand quite near the front, lights down, crowd energetic, we have what I belive to be another first. As a result of discussing Evanescence and my inability to get really into bands with female singers, one of our number(lets face it – it wasn’t me), is singing Joni Mitchell as Trent Reznor takes to the stage. Live Goths will be rolling in their coffins.

We start with a blue light on a piano playing reznor in the middle of the stage before we are introduced to the real sound.

The band are LOUD. I’ve been to a lot of concerts. I’ve ruined my hearing and need things a little louder – but this is LOUD. The guitars are loud at almost every frequency across the spectrum – reminding us what a guitar should sound like. The guitarist is pretty goo – we also have lots to watch – he jumps arouns a lot and seems pretty angry with his guitar. The drummer is the epitomy of an 80’s skinny goth, even down to having half long hair and half shaved head. Twiggy Ramirez(I don’t know his post Manson name) is quiet(as a good bass player should be), but along with the drummer keeps things grounded. The drummer has a kit constructed of both analogue and digital elements – this works so well, cos it allows the changes of timbre and pace, and orchestration which reznor can do so well.



I can’t remember the set list. I’ll get it on line later. Hand that feeds was fairly early – and so so good. They also did closer, head like a hole, the collector, terrible lie. They played for about 2 hours – maybe more. I’m not sure. It’s all a bit of a blur.

I am now hobbling around home preparing for T in the park with a pulled muscle in my calf from jumping up and down to head like a hole. My ears are still ringing – but It was so so good. I’ve not had a concert like that in a very long time. The spontaneity, the crowd, the venue, old friends – all wonderful. What a good way to start a weekend of music.

Here's the setlist:

1/ Pinion (Intro)
2/ The Frail
3/ The Wretched
4/ You Know What You Are?
5/ The Line Begins To Blur
6/ March Of The Pigs
7/ Something I Can Never Have
8/ The Hand That Feeds
9/ With Teeth
10/ Terrible Lie
11/ Burn
12/ Closer
13/ Reptile
14/ Love Is Not Enough
15/ The Collector
16/ Suck
17/ Even Deeper
18/ Gave Up
19/ The Day The World Went Away
20/ Hurt
21/ Wish
22/ Starfuckers, Inc
23/ Head Like A Hole