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Smell of the Crowd by Maddy Bell
Copyright© 2022 Madeline Bell
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The Main Attraction
"Well this place is certainly different,” Misty opined an hour or so later.
"One way of putting it,” I agreed.
We were taking a short stroll, the tech guys and instrument players don’t need us for a bit and a walk in the sun is at least some exercise. Mist’s observation was directed at the location of tonight's gig, not the staging itself but rather its placement in the grounds of the Schloss Philippsruhe. Already that sounds impressive but Schloss can be so many things from the famous hilltop Neuschwanstein to grand palaces with places like the von Strechaus’ pile sat in between.
Schloss Philippsruhe is firmly in the palace end of things, not as big or grand as the likes of Charlottenburg, much like back near Warsop, Hardwick Hall is smaller and less grand than Chatsworth, in Germany they’d both be schlosser. Philippsruhe is of course no longer a lived in house but its white stucco exterior houses a museum, an art gallery and is a popular wedding location for people who like that sort of thing.
The gardens and lake are quite formal and the whole thing sits alongside the River Main. Its not really my sort of thing but I’ve been dragged around a few stately piles by Mum and Dad so I can sort of appreciate it. Considering its Monday afternoon, there are quite a few people about, taking in the sun on the lawns, strolling around the perimeter, its that sort of place.
"You fancy a coffee?” I queried having spotted a Tchibo® sign further along the riverside avenue.
"I didn’t bring my bag,” Mandarine head bleated.
"That wasn’t the question, now do you want coffee?”
"Dunno.”
"And they say blondes are ditzy, yes or no?”
"I wouldn’t mind,” she allowed.
"Come on then, looks like there’s a cafe up by the house, my treat.”
The cafe turned out to be housed in part of the palace itself, well on the terrace but much to my disappointment proved to be closed as they keep museum opening. On the plus side the property we’d ignored heading for the cafe was open and whilst it’s called the Biergarten, they serve coffee and cake too. We found a table and a waitress soon had our order, coffee and Schwarzwäldkirschtorte each, yummy!
"We could come here for dinner,” Mist proposed having looked at the menu card on the table, "The prices aren’t bad.”
"Its an idea,” I agreed, taking a quick scan of the options.
"The kebab shop’s are okay but.”
I knew what she meant, most of the options in those places, whilst tasty enough are hardly good for the arteries.
Our coffee and cake arrived, whilst the coffee was a little bitter for my taste, the torte more than hit the spot. This particular rendition had the mix of sponge and cream just about right, the slight tartness of the black cherries offset by the sweet cream and the grated chocolate. Hmmmmm!
"Gab?”
I snapped to attention, "Er soz, just enjoying this.”
"I can see, have you got Stefan’s phone number?”
"What for?”
"To see if he wants us to book a table for later.”
"We could just ask when we get back,” I suggested.
"Or you could phone and sort it now,” she pointed out.
What happened to the timid wallflower I met four years ago.
"Okay,” I dug into the abyss that is my handtasche and handed her my Handy, "Its under B.”
"B?”
"Well I put it in under Blauhase and I’ve never changed it.”
"He said to book for half six,” Mist told me a few minutes later, "They’re ready for a run through, can we get back as soon as.”
"Why’re you telling me?”
"Because you’re paying and you can book the table at the same time?”
Okay, she had me there.
The drive to our accommodation wasn’t long or far distance wise but annoyingly we had to go around the moon to end up barely two hundred metres from the Amphitheater. Thus far our overnights have been in smaller hotels or chains but tonight, a new experience, the Haus Max Planck is a Hotel Garni, basically a bed & breakfast establishment occupying most of what at one time must’ve been a fairly swish house. Its just as well we have got dinner sorted as I certainly didn’t see anywhere else on our way round, the area is firmly residential, older houses with a couple of apartment blocks looming over them.
Its not as grim as it sounds, there are plenty of trees and most of the properties have reasonable gardens although at Haus Max Planck the front is mostly gravel for parking. Apart from Little Jo and Marcus swapping to accommodate the spousal swap, room allocation was as usual, me and Mist landing a room at the back on floor two. No ensuite tonight, we get to share a bathroom with whoever is in room seven, the actual room is barely big enough for the double bed we’ll be sharing.
"Cosy,” I noted.
"We get our own duvets,” Mist tried to enthuse the situation.
Its not to say the place was run down or anything, the lilac décor was distinctly not corporate, the matching bed linen more homely than you get in grander establishments. The shared bathroom is an inconvenience but not the end of the world and lets face it, we won’t be in the room much.
There being nothing to keep us at the Max Planck, once we’d sorted rooms and parked our bags, we eschewed the bus and walked the two hundred metres back to the venue, a footpath depositing us almost directly across from the park entrance. Whether we’ll walk back later is debatable but that’s hours away. Robert dragged Hilde off to sort out the t-shirt and CD stuff whilst the rest of us made use of the coffee machine in the green room, aka our changing room.
"Hows the lips today?” I asked the be-pierced one as we all strolled towards our dinner appointment, "They don’t look as swollen.”
"Better, they still feel quite big.”
"Still don’t know how you could do it, makes my lips hurt just looking at them.”
"You’re just a wuss.”
"A wuss without sore lips, you’re not really gonna get a tattoo are you?”
"Might do, but not this week, what about you, fancy getting some ink?”
I paused before replying, "No.”
"You do fancy getting one,” she accused.
"Don’t.”
"I’ve known you long enough to tell when you’re fibbing.”
"I don’t want a tattoo.”
"Hmmm.”
"Okay, this morning when you so kindly let me oversleep.”
"You looked so peaceful.”
"Well I had a dream, no it was a nightmare really,”
"You had a tattoo,” Mist exclaimed.
"Well I was getting one, right across here,” I motioned above my girls, "A flaming heart in chains.”
"Cool!”
"And I had studs through my cheeks too.”
"So you aren’t against more piercings then.”
"It was a dream, its not like a want tattoos or holes in my face.”
"Not what it sounds like to me.”
"Wish I’d not said anything.”
"Our mums could have a feather spitting competition!”
"Don’t even go there.”
Absurd as the concept was, it did put a grin on my face and an idea in my head.
The guys were quite impressed with the Biergarten, with a few more people about and hot food being served, the atmosphere was completely different to our kaffe und kuche stop earlier. We could probably have got in without booking but when there are nine of you, Robert has come along too, it always pays to be safe. Given its name it seemed a bit churlish not to have bier, I did only order a small one, though my room mate joined everyone else in a Große.
As far as food goes, well the menu is very German, that’s not a bad thing in fact I quite like that. I settled on a green bean salad followed by Puten mit Kartoffeln und Romanesco, a turkey steak with boiled taters and that green spirally cauliflower stuff, no doubt there’d be some sort of sauce. The fly in the ointment was the service, well that's wrong, the service was great it was just that the food took a long time coming, I know it had to be cooked but the bean salad didn’t and that took twenty minutes to arrive.
As a result we were a bit later than planned getting back to the amphitheatre, Four, Five, Six were doing their soundcheck and Hilde scuttled straight off to her merchandise emporium, everything ten euros! It didn’t take long to get Erdbeer ready for the stage, well we’ve been doing it for a week so Mist knew what she was doing with my makeup, the hi-lo dress is simple to put on, the only question was how to do my hair. Tonight it ended up coiled on the back of my head with a couple of tendrils either side of my face.
The big job was sorting out Misty. It wasn’t difficult, more time consuming really, getting the pale foundation even, reshaping her lips with the lip paint, getting those silly eyebrows drawn the same. I swear it took twice as long sorting her out as it did me and I’m the main attraction!
I peeked out at the audience, Mondays, according to Robert, are notoriously difficult to sell tickets for but nevertheless it looked like a good house. The support went down quite well, like I said before, not my thing but they certainly put their all into the performance.
"What do they look like Erd?” Stefan asked as he arrived just ahead of the others.
"Mostly humanoid although there’s a few which may not be.”
"About usual then.”
"They seem quite lively.”
"Lets hope they stay that way.”
Right on cue the lights dropped, being at least partially open to the elements, it wasn’t completely dark on the stage but hopefully the paying public won’t have night vision glasses. The stage manager did that thing with his hand to count us in, time to rock and roll baby!
The crowd were in deed very receptive, it didn’t seem long enough before we were working our way through Isolde’s tangled love life and with it the end of our first half.
"We hope you enjoyed that Hanau, we're gonna have a short break now, we'll be right back with part two.”
The crowd cheered as the lights went down on the stage and up in the auditorium, we quickly exited the stage area and hurried to our changing room.
"You made a muck up on that changeover Marcus,” Big Jo chided.
"And you’re always perfect?”
"I don’t suppose anyone out there even noticed,” Stefan cut in before things escalated.
"Well I didn’t,” I mentioned, not that I’m really sure what they are on about.
"See, Erd’s stood right next and couldn’t tell,” Stefan told the warring duo.
"Hmmph!” Big Jo clearly thought he’d somehow been wronged by a dodgy chord.
The break isn’t long, just enough to use the facilities, freshen up a bit and get a bit of fluid down the tubes.
"Hello again Hanau, you ready for some more?”
The expected cheer was quite loud so I decided to play it a little.
"I can’t hear you, do you want some more?”
I got the desired response, louder cheering with a few whistles and cat calls thrown in.
"Before we return to the music, I’m sure you’d like to meet the band, on bass, Big Jo!”
Well I’ve taken you through this stuff before, the lights, the short piece from each of the musicians, then finally the Mandarine, did her oo’s and ah’s. Of course there was more to our little pantomime, the verbal play between me and Stefan which ends with me singing Edelweiss. Except tonight it didn’t, I don’t know what came over me, when the lads started to play I stayed silent, it took them a moment to realise I wasn’t singing whereupon they stopped.
"Thank you boys, you just can’t get the help these days,” I told the assembled music fans who reacted with a round of nervous laughter.
"Ave Maria
Gratia plena
Maria, gratia plena
Maria, gratia plena
Ave, ave dominus
Dominus tecum
Bendicta tu in mulieribus
Et benedictus
Et benedictus fructus ventris
Ventris tui, Iesus
Ave Maria
Ave Maria”
LJ caught on and added the keyboard to my acapella rendition of Schubert’s finest.
"Maiden mild
I listen to a maidens prayer
For thou canst hear amid the wild
'Tis thou, 'tis thou canst save me amid despair
We slumber safely 'til the morrow
Though e'en by men outcast reviled
Oh, maiden
See a maiden sorrow
Oh, mother hear a suppliant child
Ave Maria”
The crowd was silent for a moment before the space was filled with another round of loud cheering.
"Thank you. I hope the rest of the band will forgive my dalliance with the classics, time to get back to some rock and roll!”
And so we started the second act.
"You really threw us with that change Erd,” Stefan told me as we reassembled in the portacabin afterwards, "Why didn’t you say anything beforehand?”
"It was a spur of the moment thing,” I admitted.
"Well I think we got away with it.”
"You know we did,” I grinned.
Although the gig had gone well the after party was a bit flat. Maybe it was the location, maybe it was the lack of a bar – oh there was drink but it was help yourself from a selection on a table, I guess its not quite the same.
Then of course there was the catch with leaving the bus at the Max Planck, we couldn’t leave the gear in the venue, its not secure and its open to the elements. The simple solution would’ve been to fetch the bus but instead the technicians agreed to us putting the gear in their lock up for the night. Of course we then have to retrieve it on the morrow and there’s me thinking that as we’re only like forty K from tomorrows gig, it would be a laid back start to the day.
"So how did the merchandise go Hil?” Animal asked as we waited for the crossing lights. It wasn’t far to walk back, everyone was reasonably sober and we’d need two taxis.
"I was supposed to be keeping a tab but afterwards it got a bit silly so I lost track.”
"So that’s good right?” her husband proposed.
"Good for who? Good for Robert for sure,” she ranted.
"Ball park figure, we talking twenty, thirty?” Stefan prompted.
"You are kidding right? Probably more like two hundred.”
"Two hundred?” I spluttered.
"Plus the shirts,” Hilde added.
"Go on, how many shirts?” Marcus queried.
"Probably fifty, I guess I’ll have to count what’s left to be certain.”
"That’s like two thousand five hundred euros,” Misty announced.
"Quite a bit of beer,” Big Jo observed.
"Don’t get carried away,” Little Jo told him, "It all has to be paid for and Robert will be taking his cut.”
"I don’t think we’ll be getting rich just yet,” I put in.
Yeah, we wont get rich overnight but if its the same through to the weekend, we should all pocket an extra couple of hundred on top of the ticket percentage. Call me mercenary but I’d have to win four or five races to get that much, maybe I should rethink my career path.
Maddy Bell © 04.03.2022
