Stuttgart

So if you've known me for any length of time, you know I was talking for MONTHS of going to Paris for my birthday as my treat to myself. Well, thanks to having a tooth explode RIGHT before I left the US, and that medical bill (I was able to get it reduced BIG TIME but it still cost me around $300 when it was said and done), that was starting to look impossible. And eating out 2-3 meals a day til i figured out where I was going killed the finances too. Loverly eh? So Paris was looking like less and less of an option, sadly.

Well, if you've known me a REALLY long time (we're talking since about 6th or 7th grade), you know there's this blonde haired, blue eyed German singer/guitar player I've been in love with since 1998, Gil Ofarim. Let's say he was the first nail in the coffin lid concerning my obsession with German music. HAHA! I've been following him on and off ever since, trying to download his songs all through high school, and always opening up websites that streamed his newer music over the last few years. I've watched him go from a German heartthrob, to a grungy, raw guitarist.

Of course, his current band, Acht (meaning "8") is on tour right now. Stuttgart was the closest show they were playing to Strasbourg, so naturally I booked a ticket, and a train ticket (AND I left from Kehl, to avoid all the bullshit going on here right now with the strikes). It was more money than I should've spent, but after what I've been through, and what I had to fight to get here, I was taking the chance. Any project Gil has had over the years has NEVER made it to the US. Sadly. Back 1998-2000, a lot of people went on about it online, hoping he would listen to the outcry and tour the US and release a CD. He was even part of the "Let The Music Heal Your Soul" compilation back I think in 1998, and that made it here to the US. Yep, we fought hard, signed websites, begged, you name it, I did it and never did he cross The Pond.

So now that I'VE crossed The Pond (isn't that the way relationships work? Women do all the work to get what they want, then the men get the glory and can lay back and enjoy? XD Sorry I had to make the stab. LOL TOTALLY just being a smartass), and am hanging out in France, I decided to say what the hell and take the trip to Stuttgart to see Acht. Considering Stuttgart is one of the closer places they were playing, I said what the hell, changed my mind, and "hoofed it" over the border. :D Let's say it was very well worth the...oh lord...I'm gonna go on a limb and say $200 (we're talking after converting, the train ticket, the show ticket, the 3 CDs I bought, food/drinks and my room at the hostel) I spent on it. It was just an amazing night!

The concert itself was just amazing. It was a small venue, club scene, and everyone was squished in, but not so tight that it sucked. I was RIGHT up on the stage, like we're talking I was leaning on monitors to take pictures (if you've seen the ones I took, there's no zoom. Only one or 2 were zoom, mostly for the effect, but I was just about that close already). It was just straight up amazing. Some moments were just fucking intense. There's no way hardly to describe the surge that everyone there felt. After a few of the songs, the band just stood there on the stage with this tired, but satisfied, look, and the crowd looked back with the same expression. All anyone could say was "Goddamn" when it was at that point. We were all breathless and high on adrenaline and whatever other endorphins your body releases in moments like that. It was fucking awesome.

Their bassist loved me, hahaha! I have that luck at shows, with the guitarist or bassist, depending on where I'm at. I've had guitar players start just playing for me before, which is awesome as hell. :D The best part was the smiles I got from Gil. I got 4. Oh my lord, you don't even know how I felt at that moment! hahahaha! Someone I've admired for 12 years now, smiling back at me from the stage? Hahahaha! I felt like "that girl in the crowd" from those crappy guilty pleasure fanfics I read all through middle school and high school, without the random hook up after the show. The first smile was really the best too. I was excited and smiling like a fool already, and he looked up and over my direction, saw me smiling, and smiled back, just as big and goofy as a grin as I'm sure I had. I also seem to have good luck getting good smiles from guys in bands. Isaac Hanson gave me one of the sweetest smiles I've ever gotten when I said thanks for an autograph, and Bill Kaulitz practically had me hanging on to banisters and anything else I could find to hold myself up with just by smiling at me. Not to mention the hug I got from Jordan Whelan (guitarist) from Still Remains. ;) So having Gil Ofarim flash a gigantic smile at me just fits oh so well. And 3 more smiles like that? Hell yeah!

One point, now that I think about it, things were getting so crazy and tense again (in a good way) he practically dropped his guitar, climbed over the monitors (nearly fell on his face doing it too), and jumped down in the crowd, singing and jumping around with everyone who was there. Yeah I was...5 feet away from him? Fucking AMAZING! I've never been at a show where that could be done. Hell, I've never been to a show where there was no barricade between the stage and the crowd. So yeah, even more amazingness :D The whole show was just incredible. I'm still on cloud 9 from it.

The ending of the show was just down right amazing. They ended with their song "Zufall" (Chance). I think actually that was the song they were playing when he was in the crowd, as he climbed back up, and didn't have his guitar, and didn't have it at the end of the show. Anyway, point is, we got to a point where we were singing the chorus A Capella along with the band, and it was just fucking powerful.

Wie du bist, wie du lebst,
Unsere Welt sich versteht
Liebe frei, bin dabei
Nicht mehr unter zu gehen
Wie du liebest, wie due gibst
keine Rettung in Sicht
Liebe frei, bin dabei
ohne Schatten zu gehen.

(English version:

No matter who you are, No matter how you live, 
our World will work itself out, 
Love freely, I'll be there, 
Nothing else can go wrong. 
No matter who you love, no matter what you give, 
the end is near, 
Love freely, I'll be there, 
no shadows looming over you)

That's the chorus to the song, and we just kept singing it over and over and over. It was amazing. The whole song was emotional, but that moment was definitely one of those moments that are WHY you spend $200 to go to a show.Yeah, yeah, yeah romanticizing things for the win, I know, but deal with me, that's how I view my life. Deal with it. ;) It was a very 'romantic' night. No, not like that. I'm talking romantic...like romantic era literature or romantic era music. :P I told you...the post concert hook up part was missing. HAHAHA! Anyway...

So I bought 3 CDs at the show last night: Gil's last solo CD from '03, the CD he did with Zoo Army in '06, and then his new one with Acht. I've been listening to them all day, and I smile like an idiot when I listen to Acht's CD. It's just so awesome FINALLY owning these CDs. Call me a nerd, but I've been trying to own something of his legit for a long time. I finally got it. ;)

After the concert, I walk out of the club, and start heading home. Of course, times like these are when I do all my thinking. And we know what happens when I get thinking. No, I didn't cry! Shush-ish. But I did get emotional. A lot of times I get mad or jealous, thinking of my friends I know are getting a lot of help from their parents, especially during study abroad stuff. Now, I know I have people who will help me, so I'm not looking for sympathy or pity. Usually, if anything I just get frustrated. And no, I don't begrudge my friends anything. Just sometimes I focus too much on what I don't have, rather than what I do have. But the other night, that changed.

If I had my dad giving me money while i did this, I can hear the ranting and raving my dad would've gone on, about me going to Stuttgart. Of course he couldn't afford to put more money in my back account (because he just bought a new guitar), or I needed to be smarter with my money (because he can't pay the bills so why should he give me money?), or some crap like that. I'd basically be living like I did in Fort Wayne. Sure, there's such a thing as being responsible, and whatever (and no I'm not very good at it, I admit it openly), but it dawned on me: I'm doing this on my own, with only myself to answer to. I don't have anyone nagging me about what I can and can't do. So yeah it kinda sucks, not having someone to take care of me financially, but hell, I can do what I want when I want to. Awesome, right? Haha! I don't have someone yelling at me about money, and ruining me having a WONDERFUL night like I had anymore. Trust me, my dad would've just ranted and raved about me being irresponsible, and it's not safe and all that. Please. It's dangerous getting out of bed in the AM. But nope, since I'm taking care of myself, I can do what I want to do, on my own terms. It's kinda nice to have the liberty to do that for once.

But yea I really oughta go. I've been trying to write this all damn day.