On to see Ray…
So, feeling good, I left Wannsee (bus to the pink S-Bahn) and headed back to Wilmersdorf (pink S-Bahn to orange U-Bahn) to the Spichernstrasse station and on to the “Haus der Berliner Festspiele” to see if I could get in to the Bass Drum Bone concerrt. It was a nice theatre with a large waiting room-lobby area and bar, and a very full lobby room crowd. I put myself on the waiting list at the box office, but I was less than optimistic about getting in. I had about an hour to kill, so I made my way over to the bar (clumsily with my big puffy coat and electric guitar in hand (since I came straight from the lesson)) and threw down 4 euros for a half liter of beer (beers typically come in .33 and .5 liter sizes here) which isn’t cheap, but I reasoned that I had just made my first 40 euros here and so a celebration was in order.
I found a place to sit and casually enjoyed my beer, wondering just how they’d inform me if my number came up for a ticket. Now, there’s a right and a wrong amount of time that I could have spent engaging in this activity of sitting and wondering. If x = the time I actually did get up and check with the box office than the wrong time would have been x + 1 minute, because when I got there mine was the very next number to be called. They had available either a 15 euro ticket or a 32 euro one and since I didn’t want to spend my entire day’s earnings in one shot, nor did I care about having the best seat in the house, I happily grabbed the 15 euro ticket and proceeded to dance internally. Externally, I finished my beer, and checked my coat and guitar (1 euro) and went in to enjoy the show.
The first group, the Hadouk Trio, had some cool stuff going on. There were some great sounds in there with some very interesting instruments (such as the duduk – a woodwind from Iran) and an overall very soothingly moody sound. They would’ve benefited though from getting a little crazy. The music seemed like it wanted to go further at times than they were wiling to take it.
The same thing could not even remotely be said of Bass Drum Bone, who repeatedly managed to take it further than it seemed it could go, often abandoning tonality for texture, and notes for pure sound. They were truly brilliant and endlessly exciting and interesting.
After their set when the crowd cleared I snuck backstage to say hi to Ray. When I saw him he was focused on getting his stuff together from the stage and so I sorta tapped him and said “Hey stranger”. I think it took him a few seconds (at least) to recognize me and so it may have gotten awkward for a moment, but then he hugged me and seemed genuinely glad to see me. He mentioned he’d just recently sent me an email to my old Stonybrook address to make a booking in Tabler which got bounced back to him, so he knew I was gone. We talked a little bit about Berlin, and what a hip city it is, and how incredibly happy I am to be here. He told me he was really glad I was here, and that felt good to hear. I asked him how long he was in town, and he said he’s catching a 6am train to Paris to play the next day. So with that I wished him well on his travels, we hugged again, and I made my way to the exit.
There was another band playing but at this point my day had been full enough, so I grabbed my guitar and coat from the coat check and headed home for the night.
