On to the Finish Line

Maniacs!

Once again, way too much time has passed since our last blog entry. So I guess the sensible thing would be to recap the year and all its adventures we hitherto endeavored.

We had a slight uptick in gigs this year concerning not only the quantity but, more importantly, the quality of the gigs, crowd- and venue-wise. We had the opportunity to play a nice summer festival-season at A Chance For Metal, Summernights Open Air, Turock Open Air and Metal 4 Meinerzhagen.

A few things stood out, the first being the great crowd at ACFM. Slated the dreaded opening slot in the early afternoon, people were just having their first beers and were eager to finally hear some music – sometimes being first on stage really pays off, as the hall was absolutely packed!

This was not so much the case at SNOA, were it had to be something around 5 million degrees already in the early morning hours. Starting things off at eleven AM, people were barely crawling out of their tents after a hard night of drinking and a couple hours of sleep, if any. Rumors have it that an undisclosed member of our band was found still soundly asleep in a car in the parking lot, extremely hungover that is, just one hour before stagetime. Hitting said stage facing intense sunshine, we knew we were in for a hard time as the light rays from space proceeded to ever so slowly melt our faces off. Still, many thanks to everyone in front of the stage and supporting us, as well as the SNOA crew for inviting us and generally for setting up this completely free cult festival every year!

Turock Open Air turned out to be a special occasion for us, as it constituted probably the largest audience we ever played in front of. Of course, every single one of the roughly 2000 in attendance payed close attention to our music! To be serious though, many people partied with us in the front, it truly was a good experience.

2015 is coming to an end. Since our last blog entry is from April it's time to catch up on what happened since!

So...... After handing our recordings to Yannic from Yava Music, new gigs were lined up as we awaited the finalized album. We played quite nice gigs in Oberhausen and Mülheim an der Ruhr, whereas Mülheim stood out solely because Maik and me were twice attacked outside by a freaking bird! Judging by its colorful feathers it was likely some sort of parakeet – whatever it was, it was uber aggressive and ambushed us out of nowhere. Couldn't stop laughing about it for days.... Courageously, I whipped out my camera in the heat of danger and got to film the second attack, risking life and limb.

Next up was a gig in Colognes cellar-based club MTC, right during a big heatwave that had us sweating bullets. This was the last gig before the album was finally done, as after four months of going over every song with Yannic again and again and again, all details were in place and the general sound was acclaimed by everyone. The pressing plant did a really nice and fast job, so after only two weeks or so we held the result in our hands in August. Needless to say we were all super stoked and proud of our work. In todays music world though, albums don't sell when you're not touring. So, new gigs were in store! The first "post-album"-concert took place in Kreuztals "Die Kammer". After waiting several hours as well as the opening band "treating" everybody to some 20 minutes long mindless jamming in the middle of their set, it was our turn. The gig didn't go that well though, so the only solace was provided in form of really great sandwiches by the club.

Our pair of gigs in September went far better – in Münster we were able to activate a good portion of the crowd during our – admittedly early – gig at Münster Metal Massaker. A week later in Braunschweig, the crowd really came to have a good time. People packed the relatively small Pub called "Schabreu" and banged their heads while sometimes even singing along – this is what a truly great underground gig should look like! Like our previous Braunschweig-Concert at B58, this was absolutely worth the drive. After a small outing in a corner pub in Schwelm we got a spontaneous offer to come to Otzenhausen and replace a band in the "Schlacht um Otzenhausen"-festival. An opening slot, yet it was the opening slot on the main stage and that sounded good enough to us. Sadly, this turned out to be a dud. The black metal-heavy crowd was standing sheepishly in the back, only rounding up a bit of applause after the songs, at best. With so much empty space in front of us, it really felt like a rehearsal and to be fair, the motivation to put on a great show sunk song by song.

"Rehearsing" is a good keyword at this point, since we again were locked out of our rehearsal space. Funnily, this happened again before a concert at Schwelm, like last year. Just as last time, the rehearsal complex has to undergo construction work thanks to provisions concerning fire protection – just feels like effin' Groundhog Day. December started with a super spontaneous offer to open for Hobbs' Angel of Death in Oberhausen. Couldn't make the gig but the other three guys put on a retro 3-man show in good ol' Helvete. Still, the year wasn't over for us yet, as we had our first Gig at Berlin lined up with Fatal Embrace. The six-hour-drive (one way) was worth it though, as after an alcoholic night the performance at the Cortina Bob was fun and a good way to close the year. Especially after Otzenhausen, it felt nice to finish on a more positive note. Sitting backstage eating rubber-edged pizza, we already looked toward next year: Getting our rehearsal room back, playing in Essen again in January and of course going to Hamburg and Daun during the summer to play some great festivals.


So that's it for this year, have a nice New Year's Party!
See you in 2016 and don't mess with...
MESSERSCHMITT