65daysofstatic
Live @ Gleis 22

If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.

So since the 65 can't make it to Italy, I decided to use a week off to see Berlin and the 65. Unfortunately, on the day of the concert in Berlin, I had a damn exam, so the only possibility for me and my faithful stray is to venture into the more bucolic Saxony to see our heroes from Sheffield.

The thing they don't tell you is that in Germany, a train that doesn't have 5 changes and doesn't take 8 hours to cover 300 km for two people costs as much as a PlayStation 3. So since obviously you don't play the PlayStation anymore, we have to endure the 8 hours going and 7 returning with various changes. But we like it, very romantic for these times, we see it as an adventure à la when we were younger and better.

So after several plastic sandwiches, tea with milk in polystyrene cups, crosswords, and a good part of Coupland's Jpod, we reach the place in Münster at seven in the evening. We easily find the venue and indulge in a stomach-churning kebab while watching the Bundesliga Classics. It's nine o'clock.
We show up at the venue, which is small and intimate as I like it, we drink a couple of beers while barely noticing the opening band, not that we don't watch them, but the tension is high, and we couldn't care less about yet another Oberst-like with tight pants. They pass quickly, some of their friends take pictures, they thank us, say it's their first time out of NY, and start packing up. At this point, I almost feel sorry for them.

The curtain falls (for real) as remixes of commercial songs from Unreleased/Unreleasable play, the 65 start setting up their twelve thousand pieces of equipment, the stray and I position ourselves in the front row, take off our sweatshirts, and we're ready to die. The curtain rises and from here I can't describe much more, I just know that during a break Joe asks the audience how are you guys? and I am the first to quickly respond Happy. The rest is a succession of well-known emotions that never seem to fade every time I hear them live, from the fondness for Viking Simon who seems to hack at the bass strings instead of playing, to the disbelief at the resilience of Paul's knee joints, to the great fondness for Joe's poor loquacity, who can't handle the microphone beyond saying just a couple of BS.

The sounds, which are usually perfect, are a bit worse this time, I don't know if due to technical issues or choice, but Joe's guitar sounds a bit rougher than usual, though in the end, who the hell cares. Unfortunately, all this urge to jump and mosh as if I were still 18 ends, the guys head backstage and don't grant an encore. It's the hundredth date of the year, the last for the robots from Sheffield.

After some chats with Paul (MEGA-FRIENDSHIP, no doubt about it!!!) our long night at Münster station begins, waiting for the 5:04 regional, flavored by squabbles with the cross-eyed (and dumbass) clerk of the only open café and by the ongoing search for a warm place to sit. Sixteen hours, a good shower, and countless hassles later, we're back on Prenzlauer Allee and meet up with my friend who hosts us and asks was it worth it?, to which I respond paraphrasing Tommy Johnson in a perfect cockney accent of course it fuckin was son!!