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My second Vienna Teng Band Concert - Germany, Stuttgart, 24th April 2010 :

BEFORE THE VT SHOW :

Friday morning :
- headed to my work place dressed like a penguin, thinking that Germany will be colder than France from my old memory of the first VT show experience.

Friday noon :
- happily got out of my work place, heading to Paris for HD camera shopping in the IT quarter Mongallet, attended a strike in front of an IT equipment shop where some employees asked people to postpone their shopping or to stop buying in the shop , ate sandwich and bought some survival kits (Asian biscuits and other drinks) for my walking stomach in a Parisian Chinatown quarter.

Saturday :
- arrived before 5 am due to some minutes of train delays, happily surprised by food shops available at this early morning (some are open from 5 to 24 inside the train station area), full with joyful young people lining up for McDo or Yurma or other bakeries, sat at some open bars which were not yet open, ate two sandwiches beautifully displayed in German style.
- found out that above the little train station mall, there was a coffee space with chairs and on the corner there are some self-service internet pcs as cyber cafe (5 euros per hour and no Wait-Wait-Wait speed) and with no hesitation my first VT forum post of the day ! :), plus a nap on a sofa.
- got out of the train station building, using my gps-visually-emotionnally-linked brain : 1/ big Mercedes sign at the top of the building near the train station - 2/ the statue with the wings - 3/ the church after crossing a big road.
- arrived at Bix, sat on a bench alongside the church and discussed with a man asking for 5 euros: his name Mario. He talked slowly in German about his need of pharmaceuticals, his sleep issue, about his beloved wife. He surprised me by switching into English as I told him sometimes I did not understand what he said because I'm not fluent in German language. In the meantime, I offered him some Asian biscuits with banana aroma. His Italian friend joined us and borrowed him some euros. I proposed him the banana biscuits and also to the two other men on the other bench. Mario gave him his 5 euros and his friend came later on with 2 bottles of vodka, one which was used to fill in a fruit juice pack. They offered me the drink : I said directly I don't drink alcohol exception made for champagne. They are nice people. A girl came for his Italian friend and they went away. The bells rang. I told Mario I had to go as I came for a gig and had a meeting with someone at the tourist information at noon. He asked me to stay a bit more, offered me to eat and stay at night with his wife and him. He told me that he and his wife sometimes saw a man with white beard opening his arms and this one disappeared like a vision (I recalled then Vienna talking about a haunted house with ghost of cats of the owners). Then I gave him a big hug and told him not to take it wrong if I left and thanked him for his kindness.
- hurried as hell to the tourist information point, put my red cap, looking inside and outside the tourist office. Invokeuse found me and we went to a nearby park, asked her how she discovered VT's music while offering her Asian biscuits with orange aroma, showed her the path to BIX Jazz Club with the three recognizable signs : Mercedes + winged statue + church, walked at a free market, went to her hotel and laid down our bags there - I could then take out all my penguin style clothes for a while, followed a tourist circuit map with numbers for monuments or buildings to sightsee, noticed later that there were WC signs on it but also found out there were maybe as many fountains and banks and sex shops that were not mentioned on the map... halted to a shop, drank 'mineral Wasser' and saying both 'PROST to Ang Mo !' ;) , discovered a musician playing a strange instrument looking like a reversed cooking wok and a kind of giant and long wood pipe, decided to find out the mystery of the winged statue : her name is Goddess Concordia (Harmony), found ourselves like two strangers walking anywhere (like in a movie with images passing by and our discussion was like a soundtrack), discussed about the contradiction or irony of our 'mineral Wasser' in plastic bottle and VT flights, about consuming less, La Décroissance newspaper, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Before Sunrise, Into The Wild, about Vienna Teng's music lyrics and her decision to change professionally and leading her life at her own pace (which all resonates in one way or another to us when we know there is no need to go to a deadlock when the heart or passion is not there), attended an open concert in a park against a construction of a tunnel for train in Stuttgart on the way back to the hotel, discussed again, went to an Asian restaurant : me having to fight with green chopsticks and the not well sliced pork meat pieces, Invokeuse laughing at the odd American music with different style played in a row, noticed that German food will be in a to-do list next time ;), were talking about words, slangs, sign language (there was a group of people using German sign language at a table next to us) and translation, switching from English to French (Invokeuse is an English speaking Canadian student in France), went to BIX and were surprised to found already people lining up at the entrance.

DURING THE VT SHOW :

- stand in front of the sound engineering cabin, Linus came to me, introduced ourselves, talked about how many VT gigs we attended and when Linus said 21, Invokeuse could not resist laughing, Linus scored 21 in USA and Germany combined, Invokeuse said VT toured only twice in Canada, I teased her with the incident of the French restaurant, she replied it was a French restaurant (meaning it was not a Canadian restaurant...), sharing sweets with Linus, compassion with the working waiters and waitresses, Linus replied he met VT fans only in the US.

- the VT band came on stage and Vienna started saying that Stuttgart was supposed to be the fifth gig and not the first one and she said "Thank you very much for not giving up on us".
- VT compared the three sides of the stage, saying "Ward has the biggest team".
- VT hinted that there was a joke about the song The Last Snowfall, at the end of the song, Ward said "the joke was ... - imitating a strong breathing of an animal with two paws up (I would say like a happy bulldog if Ang Mo reads this ;) ) - ... more physical combinated". Vienna said "and he sings right in my field of vision for sound checking" - imitating an animal with tongue out and breathing loudly with two paws up.
- later she talked about Alex having a room for one night instead of two like the other three people of the band, and Alex told his story with a German receptionist who said "So, hmm, when are you going to leave ?".
- When starting the first notes of Homecoming (Walter's Song) on piano, a woman from the audience shout out and VT stopped and said "Oh, I'm glad I made you happy !" (audience laugh)... I admit we have yet to play a show and wish I start to play a song and someone goes "Oh... not that one !..."
- VT thanked Gert, saying he is a member of the band and told the story of his personal bright pink van for VT tour (a kind of plan B due to the Volcano crisis story).
- during intermission, talked about favorite songs or covers each of us like, Linus said Paul the man in blue has his visit card mentioning at the bottom Vienna Teng Archivist and that every gig he went he bought a cd signed by VT, that both combining Linus and Paul scored over 300 gigs, I said Paul has a documentary center in his hand, like limited edition number 1, number 2... for auction sale like ;) .
- VT introduced for the second set with a cover : I Can't Make You Love Me (Bonnie Raitt) (see Michele's post about it above) .
- VT told that Ward bought a heavy metal t-shirt in a Stuttgart shop, wearing already one, to which Ward replied "You never have too many !" ... VT said "I was really tempted to come to the show wearing that shirt...", and added it was hard to be vegetarian and told a story about an order of "a slaughter plate".
- VT asked the audience to clap during her Spanish sequence in No Gringo to cover her pronunciation.
- VT thanked BIX Jazz club and asked to make a lot of noise during Grandmother song, "the opposite of polite as you are right now"
- before the encore, VT said "occasionally when someone requests a song that I wrote when I was eighteen or nineteen, it feels like a different person wrote it, and sometimes I will be singing it and I will hear the words go by and there's a part of me looking : 'interesting choice !' "
- When VT started singing Idioteque (Radiohead cover), a man was gladly surprised.
- 'Autogramm Stunde' outside in front of the entrance, gave to Alex 2 CDs (Jullian Angel and Julie Peel) for the VT band as support for the After Angry Volcano Tour and when he recognized one of the singer, he gave a shout out and VT looked at him while in process of signing autographs, VT mistook a fan with Invokeuse and when came my time to get my CDs signed, she asked me if I was the WS who did a long travel and I answered in French that there was a Canadian fan who did a longer trip and introduced Invokeuse to her (same wavelength restored ;) ), VT asked if the CDs are to be signed for me, I said there were for gifts on which she just needed to sign, told her about the 2 CDs to Alex (in order to avoid Ward saying she needed things stapled on her clothes like when she was overtired during her IT release period), took picture of VT with her 3 VT Forumites :)) .

- Linus offered to drive Invokeuse and me, we said no it was just a few minutes of walk, arrived in hotel, Invokeuse helped me pack my fortunately-in-a-way unused HD box (which did not trigger a kind circle of fire - confer my post about my experience during one of Jullian Angel's gig;) ), put on my penguin style clothes again and headed to the train station.

AFTER THE VT SHOW :

SUNDAY :
- on the way back to France, in the morning, an Indian asked me if I could check out why his Sony camera vibrated like a phone cell, the initialize option did not work out and no reset hole found to get the manufacture settings, then he asked if I was Japanese ... nope (strange how people could think I'm from Japan, maybe in another life ;) ) and asked for advice how to go to the Eiffel Tower, taking an occasion to have days off during his Dubai business trip in Germany, advised him to have a tourist subway map from the information office with monuments icons on it.

BTW, it's funny how my first VT post was from Stuttgart for the first BIX gig and Invokeuse sent her first VT post before coming to the second BIX gig.

Now, just hoping that whr, Linus, Invokeuse and other people who attended that show will write down also their own show report and emotions.

Take care,
WS
------------
Oh if a man tried
To take his time on Earth
And prove before he died
What one man's life could be worth
I wonder what would happen to this world
[Harry Chapin]