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ZooG's notes from
Bolkow, Poland...
5000 goths AND NO WAY HOME!
We will forever refer to this gig
as "ESCAPE FROM BOLKOW".
We were joined by our BRILLIANT friends Pete and Wendy
from The
Crystalline Effect (Sydney)...we
would not have got survived this without them.
SATURDAY July 28
04.45 : (Potsdam, Germany) Wake up, get ready,
go
05.45 : Begin the train trip from
Potsdam to Poland. The plan was to hire a car, but after
booking the car weeks in advance, we found out at the
last moment that most car places do not allow their
hire cars to travel to Eastern European countries...oh
joy...so we're gunna go by train!!
11.30 : finally arrive in Görlitz
(on the Poland Germany border). We make our way to the
Mercuri Hotel, where we are jumping on a tour bus with
Suicide Commando, Pride and Fall and Diary of Dreams.
First Problem: we had no way of contacting any bands
to let them know that we had arrived. Eventually we
found a contact and got in touch with the appropriate
people.
13.00 : THE BUS RIDE BEGINS....and
the Angelspit foursome were a little boarded, so we
decided to extend on ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS by adding
PIGEON and FIRE. SCISSORS kill PIGEON, FIRE cooks PIGEON,
PIGEON shits on ROCK and PIGEON rips up PAPER. ROCK
puts out FIRE, FIRE burns PAPER, FIRE melts SCISSORS....yes,
we were very board.
16.00 : Welcome to Bolkow, Poland.
Bolkow has a population of about 5000, so it doubles.
It is the home of a huge and beautiful old castle.
17.00 : Booked into our crappy
hostel.....crappy but VERY rock! Checked out the castle
action and enjoyed some bands.
23.30 : Destroyx and I crashed
early so we could be bright and shiny for our gig the
next day.
SUNDAY July 29
13.00 : we're up and lugging all of our shit up to the
Castle.
14.00 : Second Problem: We were
told bands could set up their merch at a centralised
merch stand which was manned by the Castle Party staff...not
so. After asking several million people we found out
that we could set up out merch on a random table near
the bands area. This problem was the same for all bands.
We had members of Frontline Assembly and the Legendry
Pink Dots setting their merch next to us...in the rain.
15.00 : Merch stand set up - so
now we have a place to hang out and meet our friends
form online and our Forum.
17.20 : Set up and sound check
went really smoothly. The Castle Party crew were BRILLIANT.
Gig went ok...I think people enjoyed it. The rain started
at the end of our set.
18.00 : We're off stage, our gear
is packed away, the rain starts. We make our way over
to the merch area, there are heaps of new friends to
greet us...the rain continues.
19.00 : Over the next 5 hours we
meet Frontline Assembly (who we are HUGE fans of), see
FLA and Mortis live - MORTIS ROCK!!...and assist the
other bands in drinking their beer. I lost my ear plug
while watching Mortis - which kinda sucked because it
was a specially molded ear plug that cost about AU$125...!!!
MONDAY July 30
02.00 : It's still the night before...if you
get what I mean. We asked one of the extremely brilliant
Castle Party people about our transport back to Germany
(which they agreed to kindly provide).
"Your bus leaves at 02.45...in 45 minutes"
the friendly assistant replied.
...so we (literally) dropped everything and RAN back
to our hostel in order to make it onto the bus. We were
greeted by our wonderful friends HAR and ACI from The
Royal Dead (Japan), who were also traveling on the bus.
Miraculously we made it in time...but the bus driver
had not been informed that we were supposed to be on
his bus...so he took HAR and ACI and left us there,
in the middle of NO-WHERE, at 02.45 in the morning.
Third Problem: Our train back to
Berlin leaves at 17.00 from Görlitz, which is a
2 hour drive away....
09.00 : so we wake up, go back
up to the castle and try and figure out how the hell
we are getting out of Bolkow. 12 hours ago this little
town was a Goth Meca...now there is NO-ONE around. The
Castle has been striped of it's stage and PA....and
looks like a...well...a 1000 year old castle...!
We manage to find an extremely brilliant Castle Party
helper who was extremely extremely hung over. He had
no idea how we were going to get out of Bolkow. All
the drivers had either left or were too drunk to drive.
It was cold, windy and our clothes were damp. After
5 hours of pleading we managed to track down someone
who was sober and could help us.
14.00 : The extremely brilliant
Castle Party people found us a car and driver who could
get us to Görlitz, a ride that would normally take
2 hours.
14.30 : Traffic Jam #1 - There
is a 2Km cue to get through the Polish/German boarder...so
our driver takes us on an alternative route.
15.00 : Traffic Jam #2 - Our alternative
route is blocked by a minor car accident. There is a
3hour delay while they clear the road (thankfully no-one
was hurt). We still have 100Km to go before Görlitz,
and 2 hours to get there....so our driver takes us on
alternative route #2.
16.45 : ...to cut a long story
short, we arrive at the train station with 15 minutes
to spare. We are then greeted with a minor bomb shell
...unbeknown to us, the kind gentleman who gave us a
lift was actually a professional driver, and we had
just spent the last 2hours 45 minutes IN A TAXI!!
Fortunately, the extremely brilliant Castle Party people
covered the cost of the cab...!
More adventures on the train ride
hope including the Ticket Inspector getting very flustered
because our bank card did not work (although we had
verified train tickets), the keyboard stand fell from
the overhead luggage rack ONTO MY HEAD....i love rock'n'roll!!
The Castle Party ROCKED!
View more photos from the
festival here.
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