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Well, often I write these little tales about the band's tour stories from a first-leopard perspective, but this time the group went away without me. John said something to me to the effect of "not paying for another seat" and "already over the allowed weight requirement". So now I have only postcards sent from Europe with which to piece things together. The band arrived in Frankfurt airport in high spirits. It was a hot day with a long drive ahead of them to collect the van, duly christened the Blue Behemoth that would be one of their two habitats for the next month. After the pick up they drove to Hagen to occupy their other habitat, which was the apartment of their good friends, T-Base and Katrine. It was for them there that they would rest up and try to get onto 'German time' before heading to Munich to do a show at Monofaktur. The crowd made a great start to the tour. The Dollz, the Baron and John continued the party after the show after carrying sCare-oline bodily and drunken from the club. Ah, tour!! The next show was with the band's friends, Free Bears who set up a wicked show at Haus Witten, an 11 th century castle grafted to a 21 st century music school. Awesome, or so I hear. BJB must have taught them a thing or two, and Free Bears even covered Bad Girls Go To Hell. About as much fun as a group can have without their loyal leopard manager...
After Witten, the band teamed up with the Caipyranhas in Hildesheim to play a wicked show in Kulturfabrik, an old textiles building that housed three separate night clubs. The prospect of club hopping after the show without having to leave the building was so tempting, no one in either band could resist! sCare-oline and Darla got theirs by dancing their backsides off to ska music all night, while Little Miss Risk wound up curling up around a bottle of beer and snoozing. It was the Baron that proposed the after party at the hotel, so we loaded up the Blue Behemoth with revelers and headed out... Cologne found the quintet at the Sonic Ballroom, which was a helluva fun night in a wicked little club. With good music helping the band to tend the beer garden afterwards (though it's John who got watered!) Away in the morning for the long drive to Chemnitz to play The Bunker which is, well, a bunker. No lie. The venue is a relic from the war, and what more noble conversion for such a place, than a club? The only casualty was when during a sudden stop on the way there, due to traffic, Little Miss Risk got bonked in the head by luggage, and the rest of the band got pelted with other belongings. The Baron is pleased to report that his Ipod is okay.
From Chemnitz to Berlin, the band traveled to an oasis of cool in a city getting World Cup fever. White Trash is not only a cool restaurant upstairs with an amazing club downstairs, but it's also the new home of our friend from Edmonton, the lovely Tallulah Freeway, who did a little of the old bump and grind upstairs before the show. Also among the band's visitors were old friends Hank Ray and T-Base introducing us to Rudi Protrudi. It was a night of furious debauchery with Darla and Tallulah up to no good, Hank, T-Base and John drinking in the back and the Baron daring LMR to sniff unidentified fluids and guess their origins. Madness. After waking up in Berlin, the group hopped in the Blue Behemoth and drove to Leipzig, where they'd be sharing a stage with Hank Ray and T-Base. After finding and falling in love with the venue, Connewitz, the girls spent the rest of the evening before the show devising ways to try and uproot it and carry it back to Canada. The show was fun except for one guy who tried to get a handful of Darla. Big John Bates is not known for cottoning to that kind guff-taking and kicked him off the stage. But some people don't learn... he tried again later to nab one of LMR's pasties (some people will do anything for a souvenir) and two punk girls (quickly joined by a few very large psychobilly guys) beat the grunt out of him.
In dawn's light, after Darla had washed the guy's sticky finger prints off her backside and LMR made sure her tassels were intact, the group went on to Osnabruck. The show at Westwerk was a fun one and set the stage for the group to head to Haarlem for the Garage Savage Trash Festival. The show started with The Oops-a-Daisies from Amsterdam who were all as cute as bug's ears, and who melted the audience. Next up was BJB, who were followed by T-99. If you are able to see them live, then I urge you to do so. They had the girls swooning with their music. The band had packed up after a vote and elected to spend a night of debauchery in Amsterdam.... I won't get into details, but from what I gather a member of the party made an expensive purchase, and the band got treated to a cab ride by a driver who's only regret in life was having not been able to race in the Indianapolis 500 and made up for it by roaring through the deserted streets back to Haarlem. From the Netherlands to Belgium to play a favorite European haunt, Spirit Of 66. The Dollz spent some time in the band room hanging like bats from the ceiling (I wonder if it's good to let them turn themselves into human martini shakers by doing that after drinking a lot of booze...) and the band put on a roaring show for the crowd. From Verviers to Flensburg where in the seaside little town, the people at Volksbad apparently encountered the bands strangely attractive masked roadie ... some naysayers might say that it was just John in a cheap plastic mask, but we know better. The Baron shared wit and charm, the Dollz showed everyone how to hula hoop in pasties, and sCare-oline enchanted the Flensburg Pilsner (you can hook them over your fingers to carry them easily. I think I would have difficulty fitting them over my paws). The Baron went on to do all night karoke (Guns and Roses anyone?) while those with more fragile constitutions got some sleep...
Bremen... playing a show in an old bordello followed by one of the swankest accommodations that anyone's ever seen. Spiral staircases, a fully stocked kitchen, comfy bed... it had the group wondering if they'd broken into someone's house by accident. No accident, Bremen loves it's entertainers! Back up to the Netherlands to play Rotterdam at the Waterfront. When they say waterfront, they mean as far as one can possibly get a club to the water without actually being submerged. The band played a rip-roaring show for an enthusiastic audience, and the after party found the girls hula hoping, twisting, bumping and grinding back and forth between the two clubs, one playing to a Goth crowd, and in the other, Antwerp's DJ UNgawa playing wild 50's undergound sounds. Fun with a capital "Fuck, Yes!"
Back to Germany to play Wilhelmshaven and terrorize the Kling Klang by giving each other beer showers, Baron drumming with his feet and LMR playing the drums like she was whacked on fairy dust. The next night in Halle Big John was getting his customary drink at the bar (during the set) when a fire spinner joined the group and had one of his poi's go AWOL against the wall two feet from John's head. Yikes! What do they do? Give it back to him. This place sounds like the best ever - don't stop the party!! Then Hamburg. The World Cup had started and there was a game being played in Hamburg that night, right before the show! What's a band to do when it's World Cup and your playing a show on the Reeperbahn? First off, grab your friend from Jasper who's in town visiting (you might remember Rob from the ghetto hot tub party). Then, get as many people riled up as possible, of course! How do you do that? Play a packed show and then afterwards let the Dollz run off to hula hoop in pasties in front of the most notorious corner in the Red Light district! Yes, at the Police Station and Burger King - where else !!? (For further laughs check Jailbait Jenny and Rowdy Rosie's tales of their first night with Big John - but don't believe everything a VOODOO DOLL tells you)
Our last show found the group in Hannover to play with new friends the Caipyranhas at the Odeon Theatre. They were good enough to bring out all the other friends we had made back in Hildesheim with them too. The girls in the audience danced up a storm and the Voodoo Dollz were hard-pressed to keep up. It was a good send off for the band, and with the Jager still on their lips, and a pile of burned fishnets behind them, they climbed onto the plane for the ride home... ...and all they got me were some lousy postcards ... so, when they got back and we started up the whole Voodoo Ball idea ...
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