Day 15: Cologne
Welcome
Yesterday we drove to Cologne and played a show at Gebäude 9.
We enjoyed another luxurious late start time yesterday, meeting in the lobby at 11am and proceeding to load the van. It was a journey of 3.5 hours, most of which was spent driving southwest on Bundesautobahn 2. We stopped for breakfast at a Serways petrol station, and although the food selection was a bit bleak, it was available and that’s what counted. I ordered a panini with mozzarella, tomato, pesto, and salad greens.
Kraftwerk Westfalen.
The appearance of the two 157m gothic towers of the Cologne cathedral standing alone against a steel-grey sky told us that we were close to our destination. Mathias gently eased our Mercedes Benz Sprinter Tourer off the autobahn and a few minutes later we pulled into a gravel driveway that led to a courtyard surrounded by old industrial buildings, part of a former factory complex that sprawls through this area on the east bank of the Rhine. A tiny sign above one of the entrances on this white-painted brick wall was the only clue that we were at the venue. Things were happening inside though, and we were let in by several friendly venue technicians who gave us a hand getting our equipment unloaded and onto the stage.
Gebäude 9 is a 500-person venue. The stage is nice and high, and set at one end of a long, rectangular, concrete room that sounded very loud and echoey when we soundchecked but calmed down a fair bit once it was crammed with people. Across the carpark we found a comfortable greenroom with a fridge full of cold beverages, and a table laid out with enough food to challenge all three bands who would be here snacking. We had a tight schedule to get all of the pre-show work done before the scheduled dinner break so we sped through our setup in the efficient manner that we are sometimes capable of.
Tristan and I headed out for a jog after soundcheck and had a lovely time exploring the trails that run along both the east and west banks of the Rhine. Cyclists were out aplenty along with excited dogs and their walkers, and more than a few lovebirds sitting down by the water enjoying the warm evening and watching the river barges chug past. We found a very handsome pedestrian bridge as we were passing the Mülheim district on the way back to the venue. Constructed in 1955, the Katzenbuckelbrück Bridge is a prestressed concrete arch bridge with a total span of 171.4 metres. Architect Gerd Lohmer added a sketch of a mythical animal to his design to highlight the animal elements present in the bridge arch, hence the nicknames Dragon Bridge, or Cat’s Hump Bridge.
Cat’s Hump Bridge with Mülheimer Harbour in the background.
© Sketch design: Architect Gerd Lohmer
The hospitality at Gebäude 9 continued to excel when they brought in delicious catering for dinner. We had a couple of hours of downtime before the show and it was a good opportunity to catch up on lost sleep from the past week.
It is quite a difficult thing to get Gabe to lose his cool, but if there is one thing is this world that is sure to make that happen, it is the Midas Pro 2 Live Audio Mixing System. While Midas feels that this console is ground-breaking and award-winning, Gabe’s experience is that seven times it has ‘hiccuped’ in the middle of a performance while he has been using it. Last night during our third song of the set the Midas suffered a critical error that caused it to go into an automatic safety mode and alter one of the effects on Liz’s vocal channel, causing Liz’s voice to cut out. Luckily the crowd sung the rest of the song for us but it took several minutes to trace the source of the problem, and we heard a small amount of cursing coming from the sound desk.
Despite this small setback we had an excellent show. It was a sold-out room and it looked completely packed with people happy to be out, watching live music. We were sad to say goodbye to Na Noise who will now head out to complete the rest of their European tour before heading back to New Zealand.
