MONSTERS ON TOUR europe: Rome, Italy
THIS SHOW HAPPENED ON: july 10, 2011
woke up yesterday morning at the airport and got all our stuff off the bus within minutes and headed in to check in for the flight. wound up being there a bit early so we holed up in Mcdonalds for some breakfast sandwiches... without any hash browns?! WHAT GIVES GERMANY?! seriously.... WEIRDOS! i was so bummed on that. OH WELL! at least MJ gave me a bite of her hello kitty ice cream pop. WOOT!
everyone seemed to get a decent nap on the plane, except for me cause i was too busy harassing everyone that WAS sleeping of course (idiot, i know)... and then when we were waiting for bags, i harassed some randoms at the airport. some dude who had a hot daughter caught me staring at her ass too and wanted to fight me. he didn't say shit to me, but i could read it in his face. so i just undressed him with my eyes and then said to myself "GO AHEAD AND FIGHT ME NAKED MAN!, I WILL WIN THE PRINCESS AND SHIT ON YOUR THRONE!"... the end.
got in the shuttle on the way to the hotel where we would chill out for a bit before heading over for set-up and soundcheck. there was no air conditioning in the van and it was hot as fuck so we had a shirts off party during the hour + drive to the city where we'd be playing.. shoulda taken that as a hint of the tone for the rest of the day. no air con at the hotel either, and we'd be setting up, sound checking AND performing outside... BARF! finally got to the hotel which was in a really pretty sweet part of town and we had an amazing fucking meal just in time before we got picked up by the shuttle to head over to the festival grounds.
arrived to the outdoor stage which was like a 3 minute drive from the hotel and began setting up. the drums they supplied for us today were mixed fruit flavored, but that's okay, it was all good shit and sounded really great. it took a while to get shit in motion though and between the lack of sleep and the heat, i got pretty exhausted pretty quick, and took a nap on a table somewhere and waited till everyone was ready to get through a few songs and then fucked off back to the hotel.
had a couple of hours to kill so Abbey, MJ and i grabbed some AMAZING gelato and walked over to a park behind our hotel which overlooked the beautiful city and reflected on the tour and how much spiders suck. MJ is from australia, and i'm always terrified of going there and seeing fucking spiders, so she had a bit of freaking me out to do. went back to my room shortly after and took a nap which i woke up for just in time to get ready before heading over to the festival 15 minutes before our show.
hung backstage right before we went on, took some pics with some rabid COMBI fans, rode a vespa with some slut on the back, and then BAM, we were on. so great walking on stage to a packed festival show knowing it was to be our last performance of the tour in the warm italian open air, and that we'd be heading home soon to see our loved ones. the show itself was fucking awesome. thank you so much Italy for welcoming us so amazingly! it's a bitch to deal with how slow everyone is here and no air conditioning, but you make it well worth the hassle every time we take the stage here. we love you, AND WE WILL BE BACK SOON!
headed right off stage, took a few deep breathes and then headed over to the shuttle to be carted right back on to the hotel to get cleaned up. we got bombarded on the way out and didn't get out of there as easily as we would have liked, but it was nice to meet and take pics with some of the fans of course, and hey, you guys were great for us and sweated your asses off just like we did, so it's the least we could do.....
got cleaned up and everyone met downstairs in the courtyard out front of the hotel and decided to do a little exploring of the wonderful town we had been passing in and out of all day long. BOY IS IT PRETTY HERE! one by one people dropped off and headed back to their rooms to get their sleep before the long journey home, but abbey and i stuck it out the longest and once it was just the 2 of us we decided to see just how high up in the mountain city that we could get. we walked for hours up hilly roads and got lost as fuck, but saw some pretty amazing scenery. its moments like this that i just fall back in love with my life and what it is we get to do, and it was an AMAZING way to reward ourselves for the hardships of missing our families to tour, and to celebrate the end of this trip together which now marks abbey's second successful run with us! so stoked to have him on board!
eventually found ourselves back upon the hotel just as the sun was rising, and we headed inside for like 2 hours worth of sleep. woke up and limped on down into the lobby to wait for our airport shuttle which we found out was like a mile down the mountain out back of the hotel through the park since the giant vehicle couldn't get through the tight street... AWESOME! this made us late and coupled with the terrible traffic jam and it taking us twice as long to get to the airport than it should've, abbey fucking missed his flight :-( he wound up getting driven back to the city to hang with andy who would be leaving the following day, and everyone else said their goodbyes and parted ways and got on their own respective flights, HOMEWARD BOUND WE ARE!
thanks again for the great shows and for reading these blogs everybody! this will mark the last blog for quite sometime until i have the opportunity to document our X-mas shows in germany. stay tuned for some sick COMBI announcements as well as some personal DJ appearances by yours truly around the globe, and the sale of more JOE LETZ TOUR PACKAGES for any and all upcoming performances. www.joeletz.com . LOVE YOU! MWAH!
Joey~ it is always a pleasure reading you're blogs. Lucky beast that you are. can't wait to see you next time. Letz party next time you are on tour and come to Mpls.
nice!
