Einat's Diary: 2007-06-07 To 2007-06-10

CHANGE DON´T COME FROM ONE – IT´S A WAVE

This is the motto of the effort I’m leading along with the people of the Israeli PJ forum, to invite the band to play a historical performance in Israel. Some very important political action on our part...

My name is Einat, I’m from Haifa, Israel, and I’m currently living the dream and making up for 14 years of not seeing the band most significant in my life, live on stage. I’m doing that by catching as many shows as I possibly or impossibly can. After 6 in Europe last year, and the whole 12 which took me as far as Australia in November, it’s time for the brief 2007 European tour, 9 shows out of 13 for Me.

What brings a person to go out and see so many shows of the same one band is something that you all must understand and accept, so i see no need for explanations!

2007-06-07


No sleep for the past week and I expect not much of it this coming month. I made great use of my 7 hour wait in Madrid before my flight to Lisbon and spread out on the floor near the check-in counter to work on my master piece gift for the band from all the fans in Israel.


We got our campaign shirts ready, our flags, and pumped up to go on tour all across Europe!

Finally after a long day alone on flights to Madrid and to Lisbon, to reach the “Rock in Chiado” restaurant/club and see all familiar faces again was such a good feeling!
Em & Tan who came from Oz, Lovebirds Rita & Carlos, Pedro who was also celebrating his birthday, Sandra & her good old colorful hat, legendary Front row Ellen, I was among friends again, the community, the ones who understand the madness, the best crowd – PJ fans International.

We were rocking all night long and doing some friendly moshing and crowd surfing to the sound of “No Code”, a PJ cover band who granted all our requests and sounded really good! Partying, fueling on Sangria and Super Bock, until the wee hours of the night and all just before a whole day at the festival, with PJ starring last. The big screens in the background were showing Lisbon 2006, one of the best most emotional shows I was lucky to attend, the fact I was about to see them again the next day was overwhelming.

2007-06-08


What can I tell you about the show itself?

A 100% Festival set list with no surprises or detours, straight ahead. I & the two coolest pre army girls, Bar & Gal, (who are now ready for Boot Camp ) walked in early without showing our tickets, as we were mistaken for employees of the Festival since us three girls had our “campaign uniform” on (a good tip for fans visiting non English speaking countries), wondering off till we reached PJ´s trailer and making a U turn when we were spotted out... We hung around and survived the front row from the afternoon till midnight when PJ came on.


We made it through all hell and back which is “the Used”, some Portuguese band of cockroaches (Blasted Mechanism) and Linkin Park, which has the worst kind of followers I’ve ever seen... (side tip: even 13 year old can cause you great injury, don´t think twice about fighting back!)


But we made it, and once Master/Slave came on we were holding on the rail, breathing in air and ready to go!

First show of the tour, Stone was wearing a hat and looked like the grandfather I never had, Jeff & Mike were full of Energy and were jumping really high all night long, Eddie was in good spirits and rambled on in Portuguese all night, out of it I understood "fuck Madrid" (good, cause I'm not going there) and “the waves were great today”. All my strength returned to me as they came on stage and Mike noticed me (I was on the left, as always my happy place) and waved “hello there, how are you, and see you again soon...”

We got our Portuguese friends to join in on a "Eddie taase li yeled" chant and it was just funny cause its there, in Portugal, screamed by guys who don’t know what the fuck they’re screaming... Held up the flag during RITFW and Eddie waved a special hello to our party of 3, while I gestured "Come Over" so here the campaign officially begins!


While trying to scream "Congratulations Mike" for the fifth time, we finally gave up and I simply made a cradling motion and the thumbs up and he picked up on it and nodded thank you, that was awesome... Hopefully not too scary for him!

After the show me & Sandra realized we both had the same idea and she was right in front of him as well, no I believe, I´ve learned my lesson about festivals - don´t get in to early... All the songs were preformed very well, nothing really standing out besides them being top form and happy to open another tour!

Crazy Mary though was one of the best with Mike and Boom going on and on and sounding so good together improvising and bouncing off each other (Mike bouncing up and down too...) Mike has a new dog pick, and I’m glad Bar & Gal, who just got their FIRST show, each got one to remember it by forever.

2007-06-09

I’ll be seeing the Smashing Pumpkins today, rest a bit and then go on to next stop - Munich! The set list will be improving and the stage will be getting closer! Since I got to say everything at this first night, I decided to simply hold up a sign reading “Where´s Jake?”. Time to get those medium size shirts ready... who is a strong pitcher?

2007-06-10

Last night I saw the Smashing Pumpkins for the first time and I really enjoyed it, during the show the Portuguese guys with me had someone relaying the set list from Madrid, crying out every other song we missed in our set, opening with Porch, Green Disease and a WMA tag, I can take it, I've been to Australia, but the Portuguese felt kind of bad, so they'll be all traveling to London and make sure they get theirs over there, I bet we all will.


Tomorrow I fly to Munich, all I can say right now is it's sad to be outside of Portugal, but hey, I'm ready for my next adventure!