Hamburg, Markthalle / Marx

Morning in Hamburg was bleak. The venue was a big old concrete building almost right next to the Hamburg’s main train station. It was raining and the overall mood was very hungover, since some of the party animals had stayed up until 9 o’clock. Soundchecks and everything went fine, although the venue’s PA system suffered a bit from the electric field of the railroads’ power lines. The audience was great, one of the best so far. Today we also got a new dude in the bus. Norther’s guitar tech Fraggle joined the tour and he seems like very nice guy. After the gig and a free peek at Dokken that was playing next door, some headed to the Reaperbahn and the others spent the evening drinking at the bus. –Silver

Ok, I have to take over, as I don’t believe Silver quite understood the coolness of Dokken being at the same freakin’ venue on the same freakin’ night as us. I was hanging around at the venue when Silver came and asked me “do you know who’s playing in the room next door tonight?”, which I didn’t. And when I heard it was Don himself, I started praying that we wouldn’t be onstage at the same time as “Dream Warriors” was being played next door. So Immediately after our gig I run through a mexican shower, change my t-shirt and run to see if I have already missed all the good stuff. I get in, some band I don’t recognize are just finishing the set. I ask a local old school rocker who’s playing next, and he makes my day by telling me that Don will be on in about 15 minutes! We talk for a while about who’s the guitarist in Dokken these days, and the dude is really dissapointed when I inform him that George Lynch is most definitely not in the band anymore. Oh well, the “new guy” plays like a monster too. Don himself was a bit of a let down, as he left out all the high parts, leaving that to the bass player. But still, it was killer to hear classics like Breaking the Chains and Prisoner of Love live... Good times. Ok, enough about Dokken, let’s see if anyone else has anything to say... –Ben