Put on my raving shoes and boarded a plane....
Almost too embarrassed to say - this trip was to Leipzig to see the one-and-only Scooter. Scooter is a German techno band from the mid '90s - peaking in popularity around the same time; though they just wont quit - even today still churning out the choones. Everyone I know that's heard of them seem to have their music associated with their younger/school days - personally, I place Scooter back to year 10 in high school. Now I'm not a massive techno boy; but the massive drawcard of Scooter is that they combine techno tunes (think Eurotrash) with amazingly philosophical lyrics (hah). The most known of the band is the MC, H.P. Baxxter - who has been around for a while. Just as I had to see Cuba before Fidel died, similarly I was on a mission to see Scooter before Baxxter dies :) Once news came out of a Scooter club tour - I was in! Actually a group of us were keen, but one-by-one they pulled out; leaving only Rok & I. Still, couldn't miss this opportunity. Laughs central.
Pushing the term 'OLD-skool' to the extremes.
OK so Scooter were big, but not so popular today. No Germans that I know are into them. When I told Jan he was like "Scooter - do they still allow them them play?", when mentioning the trip to another girl in Koeln she said "Scooter is crap. Are you silly?!", and I remember Doro banning me from using the 'S' word around her mates. Hhahahaha. Seriously though, how can anyone resist - the lyrics that they manage to work into their hardcore techno songs are simply amazing. We decided that if we were going, that we should do it properly. Somehow we came up with the idea to make T-Shirts with our fave Scooter line on the back (we might be crazy, but lots of other people at the gig also had custom-made gear). Choosing only one quote from the plethora of great lines written by these modern day poets was by no means an easy task. Some of the contenders include "The sky has changed, can you smell the sun" (re summer), "Respect to the man in the icecream van", "How do I get off the bus", "How much is the fish", "We are not the monkeys, but we've got the key", "Get off your shirts and wait for further instructions" ,"Does the fish have chips", "Starting the microphone business I've got one message for the next decade. Move you ass!". Whilst "here comes the chicks terminator" was appealing, I decided on my all time favourite "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice". SOOO deep. While Rok chose "Lass uns tanzen oder ficken oder beides!" (I won't translate that - but Scooter are becoming 'dirtier' as they get older). Gotta imagine these words used in techno songs! Shirts would have been more awesome had more crew joined us on this tour. Their loss. Scooter club tour - gotta do it!
Before we left, I thought I might try and contact people 'in the know' - to find out more about the venue, concert, any after parties, etc. I've had pretty good luck with VIP stuff in the past :) So we logon to the official Scooter Techno forums and get in contact one of the moderators (bosses) of the message board. The moderator, is a professional lady, in her mid-forties, a mother of two and a die-hard scooter fan. We dubbed her 'Scooter Mom'. She was also flying over from the UK for Leipzig gig, and informed us that there would be a meet, greet & autograph sesh slightly before the show. Wow. Meet the legends themselves... Too funny. Sehr Schoen!
Finally the day arrived. Our flight was kinda early, but we were out really late the night before with some of the Spanish crew from BCN. Completely dead for the journey - thinking we were gonna die by the time the concert started. We land in Leipzig - and fall in love with the place, mainly because it was sunny and warm. Something you don't get often in Cam. Somehow the sun just gives you energy! After checking into our hostel, we debated about whether to make the trek out to where the autograph session was. It was either go get autographs. Or sleep. We (sheepishly) decided this opportunity was too much to pass up, and head to the outskirts of Leipzig to the mall where Scooter was appearing. We took our shirts, but were far to embarrassed to wear them out. Our idea was to bring them and get them signed - but we didn't want them to sign our chests hahaha. Keeping the shirts hidden was probably a good plan, as this mall was out in the middle of suburbia, in a rough area. Drunk/homeless looking people everywhere - surrounded by really old (obv. ex-communist accommodation) run down apartment blocks. Seemed like a German-ghettos. Redneck-esc people screaming, shouting, smashing bottles and stuff in this rundown area, with a fancy shopping mall smack-bang in the centre. So we finally find the place and the store where the signing is to take place. But we can't find any sign of Scooter. There were posters saying Autograph Session 5pm. It was 5.30 - were the Germans that efficient that they had already been and gone?! We wondered through every corner of the store several times - looking around at the crowd, wondering if they were there for Scooter or not; but FAR too embarrassed to ask. After quite a long time, Rok somehow musters up the courage to ask, and find out the signing was outside and around the corner. Phew. So we go out, Scooter hadn't arrived yet, but there was a massive queue of eager fans waiting for their heroes. What a bizarre crowd - a total mix of people, from typical raver types (as you'd expect) to old Eurotrash chicks, to German-versions of redneck/hicks; and every type of person inbetween. Despite our dislike for queues (livin' in UK...), we decide we only get one shot at this, so we line up. I get some beers to ease our nerves before we met our heroes (hahahaha). Finally we get to the front and show our shirts. I say I'm from Australia - and Baxxter was like "wow. what are you doing here" (think a higher pitched Arnie-style accent). Hahah it's all for you baby. "we should get out there soon". All good. We didn't have any witty retorts or cool lines. Probably cos we hadn't ate or slept the whole day and just downed beers. But none-the-less we got our tour shirts autographed by Scooter. Awesome...
So afterwards we go into the mall, and enjoy a free jazz concert and botomless champagne being given to the shoppers. Nice. Then down some German food & beers in this awesome cafe strip in Leipzig before heading out to the concert. This time we wore our shirts in public, and despite a few odd looks, somehow made it to the concert alive. Actually lots of ppl on the public transport were headed the same direction to the concert. The venue - Volkspalast was amazing. It was like a circular venue, DJ box kinda in the middle, with like massive roman arches around. A very classy joint, not at all like the warehouse I had expected. People at the gig were a lot more normal (I guess only freaks like us go to an autograph session). Armed with our shirts, we got approached by many professional photographers - and a few days later we spotted photos of Rok & I all over the websites of various Leipzig nightlife magazines. Not sure if that's good or bad. As for the concert - the atmosphere was amazing. People went bananas, and when Scooter played their own tracks, people went ballistic. MC Baxxter didn't disappoint, screaming out various lines - such as pointing to Scooter's new member (who actually people tend to dislike cause he changed the band's direction) who was Djg - shouting out 'shiny shiny shiny shiny' in the tune of "lager lager lager lager" from that Trainspotting sign whilst pointing at the guy's blinged up silver headphones. The concert was amazing - we jumped around like crazy for hours. Ravers unite! By far the best track was WEEKEND - so many awesome lines in that song, coupled with Baxxter's freestyling. Ohhh yeah. There were a group of crazy lads dressed in various raver gear, each one with a different Scooter track written on their back. Everytime there was a bit of silence they would scream DUP DAH DUP DA DA DUP DUP DUP - which is the call from one famous Scooter track called Maria - where people scream out that (in a downer-like voice). So it was fantastic when that song played. Other times, lotsa rave tracks mixed in, with Baxxter with some fresh lines such as "Rich bitch show us your tits". Hahah. Seriously though, the atmosphere was amazing, the Scooter trio blasting out tunes, lyrics and even airhorns. Crowd going bananas. So much fun. Absolutely exhausted at 3.30am when they finished. We left the place to see those same raver boys from before (dup dup dup) blasting old-skool Scooter tracks from their car. After dancing past them for a second we knew the night was over....
The concert was on a Fri night, so we devoted Sat to sightseeing. I contacted some CouchSurfers to see if we could meet someone to show us around. We got up late so msg'd late, and I realised I got some phone numbers wrong :( One person said "oh now I am going to an apartment out of town where the wallpaper is peeling off the walls - I can pick you guys up on the way if you want.". As curious as we were about that offer, since we only had a day here, we decided it was better to see the city. Leipzig is a nice city, lotsa nice buildings, mixture of some old architecture with some ex-DDR buildings as well. Some of the ex-Commo-buildings were draped in 'happy' covers - I'm guessing to doll the place up for the World Cup. Blue pipes ran all over the city, wrecking the ambience. We were confused as to why, but then were told it was to do with drainage for the metro they were making. The weather was fantastic, so everybody was out and about. Rok had his super-duper new digital SLR camera, so he was out taking all sorts of pics, from classic tourist shots to inappropriate pics of cripples and girls-arses. All class. Everyone there was eating icecream. Like constantly. We did so too - amazing. Also, everywhere we went to eat was promoting their spargel dishes. Spargel is asparagus - one guy with a super strong & deep accented voice told us "I DONT KNOW HOW YOU CALL THIS IN UNGLISH BUT IT IS LIKE DAT WHITE THINGGG ON DA FRONT!") dishes. Seriously. Most restaurants had a separate Spargel menu. We had to try it - and it was sehr gut. Spargelriffic ja! Seriously though - people were going nuts for Spargel.
At night, we got in contact with Mia from CouchSurfing. She said that she was going with her friend Wiebe to some punk/electro mix party and that we could come along. Awesome. We totally got a taste of some of the Leipzig underground scene. So we met them at 23:50 (German precision) and caught the tram to some stop before walking to the party. They kindly brought us beers, but we didn't have an opener. We tried to crack them open against bricks when we saw a train/rail employee come over to us. I naturally assumed we'd be told off - it was an official after all; but instead he hands us his bottle opener. In case of emergency huh?! :) Garmany und bier! Mia and Weibe were totally into the alternate scene, with out-there cuts/styles, and they've even dj'd a few of their own gigs in the past. We walk for a while before following a group of American tourists towards the party. Mia/Weibe were concerned about the yanks going in the same direction, but then told them that the other party they were looking for was close but in a different area. Some weird place with reloving beds or something?! That was the one they were looking for - much to the relief of Mia & Weibe. So we go in and the band, MIT, starts cranking. Bizarre music - like moog synths, live drums and a person (he spoke like a guy, sang like a girl - though we couldn't tell the gender) screaming angrily in German into the mic. They were actually good. The venue was awesome too, very warehouse/underground like. Then the main band came on, "World Domination" - weren't as good (in all of our opinions) - but they had mad costumes etc. These guys were more Indy. Rok purchased a World Domination tank top. Farny. After a bit we run (literally) for a bus, but miss it. Eventually we head towards this other club. We walk down these random dark suburban streets, and then up this dark alley & path lit by candles. I make the joke "so this is where you rob us", though given the surroundings it was perhaps a possiblity:) Eventually we go through some curtains into this club playing lotsa bleepy-techno music. I was disappointed to discover that we just missed the main act which involved mixing in old Commodore 64 & Amiga computers to make various tracks. Doh! But the music was still great so we danced around for hours in this bizarre club, which seemed like a hollowed out house, with non-functioning toilets (think buckets of water). Big crowd, lots of people dancing like crazy for hours and hours. Close to 6am we call it quits, as our bus to the airport left in 3 hours - and we hardly slept the night before. We walk outside and it is sunny. Outside of the club looks like we are in some gypsy parkland - lots of caravans, gardens, couches, etc. Maybe more like some alternative art-space. I guess like city farm in Perth but more 'real' + full on. We had an amazing night; there is no way we would have found these awesome nightspots without Mia - super fun...
Pretty much died when we had to catch the bus, the flight, and then make our way through the hour long immigration queue - given the Non-EU line had only two booths open for 189481284198124 people. But we made it back. Alive - having met Scooter, dancing like crazy to some classic tracks, and checking out the Leipzig bleep scene. Mission accomplished. Over-und-out.
DER FOTOS
Pushing the term 'OLD-skool' to the extremes.OK so Scooter were big, but not so popular today. No Germans that I know are into them. When I told Jan he was like "Scooter - do they still allow them them play?", when mentioning the trip to another girl in Koeln she said "Scooter is crap. Are you silly?!", and I remember Doro banning me from using the 'S' word around her mates. Hhahahaha. Seriously though, how can anyone resist - the lyrics that they manage to work into their hardcore techno songs are simply amazing. We decided that if we were going, that we should do it properly. Somehow we came up with the idea to make T-Shirts with our fave Scooter line on the back (we might be crazy, but lots of other people at the gig also had custom-made gear). Choosing only one quote from the plethora of great lines written by these modern day poets was by no means an easy task. Some of the contenders include "The sky has changed, can you smell the sun" (re summer), "Respect to the man in the icecream van", "How do I get off the bus", "How much is the fish", "We are not the monkeys, but we've got the key", "Get off your shirts and wait for further instructions" ,"Does the fish have chips", "Starting the microphone business I've got one message for the next decade. Move you ass!". Whilst "here comes the chicks terminator" was appealing, I decided on my all time favourite "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice". SOOO deep. While Rok chose "Lass uns tanzen oder ficken oder beides!" (I won't translate that - but Scooter are becoming 'dirtier' as they get older). Gotta imagine these words used in techno songs! Shirts would have been more awesome had more crew joined us on this tour. Their loss. Scooter club tour - gotta do it!
-750009.jpg) |  |
| We found these 'professional' pics on various websites a few days after the concert. | |
Before we left, I thought I might try and contact people 'in the know' - to find out more about the venue, concert, any after parties, etc. I've had pretty good luck with VIP stuff in the past :) So we logon to the official Scooter Techno forums and get in contact one of the moderators (bosses) of the message board. The moderator, is a professional lady, in her mid-forties, a mother of two and a die-hard scooter fan. We dubbed her 'Scooter Mom'. She was also flying over from the UK for Leipzig gig, and informed us that there would be a meet, greet & autograph sesh slightly before the show. Wow. Meet the legends themselves... Too funny. Sehr Schoen!
Finally the day arrived. Our flight was kinda early, but we were out really late the night before with some of the Spanish crew from BCN. Completely dead for the journey - thinking we were gonna die by the time the concert started. We land in Leipzig - and fall in love with the place, mainly because it was sunny and warm. Something you don't get often in Cam. Somehow the sun just gives you energy! After checking into our hostel, we debated about whether to make the trek out to where the autograph session was. It was either go get autographs. Or sleep. We (sheepishly) decided this opportunity was too much to pass up, and head to the outskirts of Leipzig to the mall where Scooter was appearing. We took our shirts, but were far to embarrassed to wear them out. Our idea was to bring them and get them signed - but we didn't want them to sign our chests hahaha. Keeping the shirts hidden was probably a good plan, as this mall was out in the middle of suburbia, in a rough area. Drunk/homeless looking people everywhere - surrounded by really old (obv. ex-communist accommodation) run down apartment blocks. Seemed like a German-ghettos. Redneck-esc people screaming, shouting, smashing bottles and stuff in this rundown area, with a fancy shopping mall smack-bang in the centre. So we finally find the place and the store where the signing is to take place. But we can't find any sign of Scooter. There were posters saying Autograph Session 5pm. It was 5.30 - were the Germans that efficient that they had already been and gone?! We wondered through every corner of the store several times - looking around at the crowd, wondering if they were there for Scooter or not; but FAR too embarrassed to ask. After quite a long time, Rok somehow musters up the courage to ask, and find out the signing was outside and around the corner. Phew. So we go out, Scooter hadn't arrived yet, but there was a massive queue of eager fans waiting for their heroes. What a bizarre crowd - a total mix of people, from typical raver types (as you'd expect) to old Eurotrash chicks, to German-versions of redneck/hicks; and every type of person inbetween. Despite our dislike for queues (livin' in UK...), we decide we only get one shot at this, so we line up. I get some beers to ease our nerves before we met our heroes (hahahaha). Finally we get to the front and show our shirts. I say I'm from Australia - and Baxxter was like "wow. what are you doing here" (think a higher pitched Arnie-style accent). Hahah it's all for you baby. "we should get out there soon". All good. We didn't have any witty retorts or cool lines. Probably cos we hadn't ate or slept the whole day and just downed beers. But none-the-less we got our tour shirts autographed by Scooter. Awesome...
 | -765055.jpg) | -758039.jpg) |
| H.P. Baxxter - givin' props to da whole EU posseeee | Smoothtalkin' Rok | Surprisingly I didn't faint... |
So afterwards we go into the mall, and enjoy a free jazz concert and botomless champagne being given to the shoppers. Nice. Then down some German food & beers in this awesome cafe strip in Leipzig before heading out to the concert. This time we wore our shirts in public, and despite a few odd looks, somehow made it to the concert alive. Actually lots of ppl on the public transport were headed the same direction to the concert. The venue - Volkspalast was amazing. It was like a circular venue, DJ box kinda in the middle, with like massive roman arches around. A very classy joint, not at all like the warehouse I had expected. People at the gig were a lot more normal (I guess only freaks like us go to an autograph session). Armed with our shirts, we got approached by many professional photographers - and a few days later we spotted photos of Rok & I all over the websites of various Leipzig nightlife magazines. Not sure if that's good or bad. As for the concert - the atmosphere was amazing. People went bananas, and when Scooter played their own tracks, people went ballistic. MC Baxxter didn't disappoint, screaming out various lines - such as pointing to Scooter's new member (who actually people tend to dislike cause he changed the band's direction) who was Djg - shouting out 'shiny shiny shiny shiny' in the tune of "lager lager lager lager" from that Trainspotting sign whilst pointing at the guy's blinged up silver headphones. The concert was amazing - we jumped around like crazy for hours. Ravers unite! By far the best track was WEEKEND - so many awesome lines in that song, coupled with Baxxter's freestyling. Ohhh yeah. There were a group of crazy lads dressed in various raver gear, each one with a different Scooter track written on their back. Everytime there was a bit of silence they would scream DUP DAH DUP DA DA DUP DUP DUP - which is the call from one famous Scooter track called Maria - where people scream out that (in a downer-like voice). So it was fantastic when that song played. Other times, lotsa rave tracks mixed in, with Baxxter with some fresh lines such as "Rich bitch show us your tits". Hahah. Seriously though, the atmosphere was amazing, the Scooter trio blasting out tunes, lyrics and even airhorns. Crowd going bananas. So much fun. Absolutely exhausted at 3.30am when they finished. We left the place to see those same raver boys from before (dup dup dup) blasting old-skool Scooter tracks from their car. After dancing past them for a second we knew the night was over....
Check the vids... | |
At night, we got in contact with Mia from CouchSurfing. She said that she was going with her friend Wiebe to some punk/electro mix party and that we could come along. Awesome. We totally got a taste of some of the Leipzig underground scene. So we met them at 23:50 (German precision) and caught the tram to some stop before walking to the party. They kindly brought us beers, but we didn't have an opener. We tried to crack them open against bricks when we saw a train/rail employee come over to us. I naturally assumed we'd be told off - it was an official after all; but instead he hands us his bottle opener. In case of emergency huh?! :) Garmany und bier! Mia and Weibe were totally into the alternate scene, with out-there cuts/styles, and they've even dj'd a few of their own gigs in the past. We walk for a while before following a group of American tourists towards the party. Mia/Weibe were concerned about the yanks going in the same direction, but then told them that the other party they were looking for was close but in a different area. Some weird place with reloving beds or something?! That was the one they were looking for - much to the relief of Mia & Weibe. So we go in and the band, MIT, starts cranking. Bizarre music - like moog synths, live drums and a person (he spoke like a guy, sang like a girl - though we couldn't tell the gender) screaming angrily in German into the mic. They were actually good. The venue was awesome too, very warehouse/underground like. Then the main band came on, "World Domination" - weren't as good (in all of our opinions) - but they had mad costumes etc. These guys were more Indy. Rok purchased a World Domination tank top. Farny. After a bit we run (literally) for a bus, but miss it. Eventually we head towards this other club. We walk down these random dark suburban streets, and then up this dark alley & path lit by candles. I make the joke "so this is where you rob us", though given the surroundings it was perhaps a possiblity:) Eventually we go through some curtains into this club playing lotsa bleepy-techno music. I was disappointed to discover that we just missed the main act which involved mixing in old Commodore 64 & Amiga computers to make various tracks. Doh! But the music was still great so we danced around for hours in this bizarre club, which seemed like a hollowed out house, with non-functioning toilets (think buckets of water). Big crowd, lots of people dancing like crazy for hours and hours. Close to 6am we call it quits, as our bus to the airport left in 3 hours - and we hardly slept the night before. We walk outside and it is sunny. Outside of the club looks like we are in some gypsy parkland - lots of caravans, gardens, couches, etc. Maybe more like some alternative art-space. I guess like city farm in Perth but more 'real' + full on. We had an amazing night; there is no way we would have found these awesome nightspots without Mia - super fun...
MIT - makin' noise.... | -785773.JPG) Leipzig party crew |
Pretty much died when we had to catch the bus, the flight, and then make our way through the hour long immigration queue - given the Non-EU line had only two booths open for 189481284198124 people. But we made it back. Alive - having met Scooter, dancing like crazy to some classic tracks, and checking out the Leipzig bleep scene. Mission accomplished. Over-und-out.
DER FOTOS
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