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7.03.2005

Brussels/Cologne/Hamburg/Roskilde

Whew, it's been awhile! Brussels was also a crazy, sold-out show. I sat on the side of the stage with our Tuscan veggie chef friend, Giacomo, who was going crazy! Many other friends came to the show, including Kuhn and Crystal from Hasselt, Mark from LA (who's living in Belgium for awhile), and Mike, the guy who's following Dev's tour. Right before the song "I Feel Like a Child" someone threw a huge teddy bear up to Dev...so appropriate. Oh yeah, and we got to stay at my favorite hotel again, the Sheraton Brussels. So sweet. Great beakfast.
The show in Cologne was the first not ridiculously crowded show - the venue was only about 1/3 full. Germans just aren't into Dev as much as the rest of Europe, there are many different theories about that. But the show was still fun and the band got to be more experimental than usual. The venue was more of an Oakland warehouse type space. We met Andrea, from the XL office in Germany, who is a sweetheart and knit me a neckwarmer/headband thingy. She came to the show the next day in Hamburg, too. Also not sold out, but fun. After the show Noah and Lucky and I went to a local bar with 2 German girls and discussed, among other things, why Adam Green is so huge in Germany! He's a superstar! It's the David Hasselhoff thing. Andrea thinks it's because his songs sound like old German folk songs.
After Hamburg we had a day off to to laundry and then drive to Roskilde. We even took a ferry from Germany to Denmark. Denmark is BEAUTIFUL, so green and undeveloped. Roskilde is definitely the biggest festival I've ever been to. Here's some stats: 150 bands, 20 full-time year round employees, 18,000 unpaid volunteers, and over 100,000 people. And all quite well-organized! Yesterday we saw this awesome kora player from West Africa, who invited 2 other kora players, a guitarist, and a drummer onstage. It was amazing! Also Andy and I saw Roots Manuva (UK hip hop), part of a Gamelan troop, and...the Foo Fighters. The audience LOVED Devendra, I have never seen anything like it, people were holding up signs for their favorite songs and singing along. Dev even went down into the crowd and girls were grabbing him and touching him. What a rockstar! They were even screaming for an encore. I played maracas and sang during "Shame" with Jona's friend Luke. And the whole time we were being filmed by a camera crew, which was funny because Dev (and Jona) were totally goofing off, pretending to be on MTV Cribs and stuff. The camera guy was like, "I have never seen anybody get so close to the camera before, I had it on macro!" because Dev was sticking his face right in it!
Gotta go, we have to be there early again today because Dev is playing with Joanna! More fun times at Roskilde!

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