Fri., April 24, Siegen, Germany, Jazzclub Oase-- We left the ETAP hotel after my rescue by a nice stiff cup of coffee out of a machine. Man, if they had coffee like that out of machines in the States, it'd create a whole social revolution. Whew! Woke my ass up... It was about a 90-minute drive to Siegen, an industrial town of fair size. We arrived at the hotel and checked in. It was getting chilly, overcast and spattering rain. Dede now had her own room, as did all of us. The hotel was upscale, and impeccably clean. The bed included a nice thick down comforter, and I had a charmingly picturesque view of the ancient town church. Dede was thrilled with her rooom and was so relieved she'd be able to get some sleep tonight. I took an hour nap before we headed to the club. Petra hadn't been to this particular venue before, so had to ask directions several times. At last, success, and we loaded in to a good sized venue with an open area that could hold about 300 people. At the back of the room was a tiered seating area holding another 70 or so. The stage was theatrical style with lots of lights and a beefy sound system. The promoter, a blonde, energetic chap, promptly lined up two or three hands to help us unload the van. This was my first real contact with the drumset Petra had found for me. She had to borrow it from a friend, since money was tight. Well, this poor set was an old Rogers, circa '70, that hadn't been cleaned since then. The bottom heads were removed on the mounted toms and the floor tom, and the kick drum was completely filled up with this old musty foam. The front kick drum head was beat up pretty good, with "Black Cat Bone Band" stenciled in below the mike hole. The hardware was loose and misadjusted, dirty and undermaintainced. The tom heads were okay, but because there were no bottom heads, they could only be tuned really low. I felt like I was playing in a Foghat cover band in 1971. There were two cymbal stands and a kick drum mount for another baby boom, which is short two stands from what I usually use. I had brought my own kick drum pedal, thank god, and my own cymbals and snare drum, double thank god, because the corresponding items in the Rogers kit were in bad shape. It suddenly hit me that I was going to be stuck with this load of crap for a month's worth of gigs, and it was depressing. Tony was thrilled to be able to use a Mesa Boogie for his rig, and Vic was happy to get a four-10 SWR cabinet for his amp head that he'd brought along. Joanna was less happy with the Fender Twin Reverb, but I was definitely on the short end of the stick here. I set up the best I could for sound check. The sound guys were young and eager to please and it wasn't long before we were getting our levels. There was to be an opening band, so they set up in front of our gear. Their drummer had a very nice, NEW, Pearl set with lots of cymbals. I was embarrassed. When Petra heard of my dissatifaction with the drums, she felt really bad, knowing it was a substandard kit. But I reassured her I could play on anything, hoping upon hope I would not suck tonight. We had dinner in the restaurant adjacent to the music room, and an enthusiastic 40-something German guy with a Chicago Kingston Mines t-shirt on came bounding up to our table, hugging Joanna. He told me he traveled a lot in his business and would plan his business trips around Joanna's itinerary when she was in Europe--obviously a big fan. By the time we finished eating, the opening band had started up, so I wandered over to check them out. They covered a good variety of stuff, and the ballads sounded pretty good, but they murdered the obligatory SRV "Cold Shot" and a theatrically awful version of, I think, "The Blues Is Allright". Shuffles were just not their thing, but they insisted on doing them. Nonetheless, the packed house of about 400 seemed to love this band. I was feeling better about possibly sucking. They finished up and came into the backstage green room, young and glowing and feeling on top of the world. They promptly began drinking beer in large quantities. We started up our set, and I was mortified at how I sounded. I couldn't really get to what I wanted to play because the set felt so flimsy, and the positioning on the toms had me off balance. I played close to the vest and muddled through best I could. Everyone else was having a great time. The crowd was positively attentive. It was really a concert situation, which I'd heard from Joanna was typical of German audiences, but this was more than I had expected. The people were hanging on our every note and enjoying everything about the band. This made me even more self-conscious about the drums. We finished up after two encores, and I was positively morbid. I felt like crying. As I was packing up, I took a closer look at the set, and realized that I may be able to make something of it. It needed a cleaning up, lower heads added and hardware rearranged. Yes, I think it can be done. I felt better. We returned to the green room, only to realize that the thoughtless opening band had drunk all of our beer--about a case, as well as their own. The promoter without hesitation made sure we had whatever beer we wanted. Hey, it's Germany, fer goodsakes!