schorndorf, friday, march 16th
things started off rather chaotic: kai got the van and had to pick everyone up and since we don´t all reside in the same town, that and getting our equipment loaded took us several trips back and forth between mühlheim/ruhr and essen. by the time we´d reached the outskirts of essen, it was five pm and we were two hours behind schedule. considering that we had to be in schorndorf near stuttgart some time tonight and play a show, i think that 5 pm is way too late for departure and i´ll admit, that it´s mainly our fault. after filling up on gas and making our excuses by blaming the traffic, we headed south. kai drove the whole way and seemed to have some trouble since the controlls on this type of van except steering seems to be the other way around than he´s used to...
band-moral was high, we listened to a lot of music, some dozing was done and i tried to do some studying for my exam scheduled on monday (puke!). all in all, we were very enthusiastic about getting out of town, playing shows, seeing different faces and meeting new people.

after five and a half hours, we actually arrived in schorndorf and we weren´t even late; relief was billed fourth band in a line-up of five. as we were greeted by ellen and konrad, who had set up the show and showed us around while we were unloading, the third band absidia was halfway through their set, which left us about twenty minutes to get ready for the "stage", dinner not included. juze "hammerschlag" had to close doors as late as 0.20 pm which gave us about half an hour to play. we left out about three songs and raced through the rest. we were fine i guess, whereas the audience didn´t seem too interested in any of the bands that night, as far as i was able to make out. among the few people who actually enjoyed the music were two familiar faces we had met the previous week at a show we played in aschaffenburg. it´s always nice to meet people you´re aquainted with in a more or less different part of the world.
the last band to rock-the-house was reaching forward, an old-school hardcore outfit from the netherlands, whom i had heard about, but never seen live. apart from the usual small talk and some dinner, nothing much happened after the show, people went home and we headed for the backstage area, to get a nights rest. sharing the mats with us were reaching forward, who are also currently on tour. two highlights apart from the aforementioned were: joe and ellen wrestling (they´re both into wing-chung) and nearly knocking me flat while i was writing and absidia willing to give up their share of royalty in favor of the bands not from the region, since very little money was made tonight. nice guys...