Day 27: Munich
Nau mai
Yesterday we played a headline show at Strom, in Munich.
It was a great race to the venue. Three bands, three vehicles, and 600km to the finish line. We left Berlin just after 8am and took the lead in our MAN TGE Panel Van with single axle aluminium box trailer. Dateline were slightly behind us in their Fiat Durango Campervan, not a powerful or aerodynamic racer, but still a proud vehicle that made up for its performance deficiencies by having the comforts of home at hand. A handsomely moustached and determined man was behind the wheel, eking every last drop of horsepower out of their 4-cylinder Multijet engine, and they were every bit in this race as we were.
Breakfast was served in the van. Jon and Liz had made a trip to Gorilla Bäckerei before we left and there was a bag of treats to keep us satisfied while we continued on the road south. I had an egg, cheese, and ham brioche, and I managed to take possibly the most repulsive food photo I have ever seen. My sincere apologies go out to the readers at home, and anyone else affected by this calamity.
A couple of hours into the race we made a rest stop and ran into the third challenger, the four-piece band from Aotearoa called Hans Pucket, a fearsome competitor who had equipped themselves with an Autobahn-ready Volkswagen Touran. This car was comfortable cruising in the high hundreds, maybe even the low two hundreds, and these drivers weren’t afraid to acknowledge that fact. We jeered the members of Hans Pucket as we got back on the road and then grimaced as they flashed past us several minutes later.
Dateline were making good time until their Fiat entered Limp Mode. The dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree, as klaxons sounded in the cabin, as they pulled of the road to call for help. Speed limited to 80km/h the Durango didn’t stand a chance. Heavy haulers flashed by the window in the passing line as they crawled their way to Munich, arriving in a decisively last place.
We turned up at the venue just after 4pm and found Hans Pucket there, bored, resting while they waited for everyone else to arrive. They jeered us as they celebrated their victory, and we respectfully conceded defeat. It was great to see our friends from home, though, and we were incredibly excited to share a bill with them once again.
The Munich venue was quite divey. Gabe put it well when he commented “it’s been a while since we’ve played the style of venue where people still draw dicks on the wall”. It was a long, dark room in the basement of a building right next to the train tracks. A low stage was set at one end looking out across a space decorated by decades of laminated gig posters and a floor lacquered with the sugars of thousands of spilled Helles Lagers. The backstage was a familiar scene; the departing remarks of countless bands scrawled across the walls in permanent marker.
We had a tight schedule for the evening with three bands to soundcheck and three sets to be performed. Setups were to be quick, and changeovers would be executed with grace and precision. This was the 2025 Munich New Zealand Music Showcase (Munezmshc) – a powerhouse lineup of indie bands ready to wow this southern German city with strong tunes and strong accents. At 8pm there was a strong crowd of Münchners in attendance and Hans Pucket were fired up and ready to execute exactly thirty minutes of perfect rock’n’roll music. Our love for this band never tires. The songwriting, musicianship, and charisma displayed by these four boys is captivating, joyful, and inspiring.
Hans Pucket are a hard act to follow and if anyone was going to succeed here it would be Dateline, this road-hot fourpiece from Te Whanganui-a-Tara. They came into this tour in great form and with twenty shows now under their belts they were becoming quite formidable. We watched from the side of the stage as thirty more minutes of perfect rock music came off the picks and sticks of this phenomenal group. Munich were bouncing around and looked thoroughly entertained.
And that left us, the unfortunate four tasked with following two of Aotearoa’s best bands. We felt proud and inspired to be part of this lineup, and the with the welcome embrace we received from this very generous audience we did our best to put a bow on the Munich New Zealand Music Showcase.
It delights me to drop you in art corner for the end of this post. Our hotel welcomed us into a dim lobby at 1am with this mesmerising video wall. A tropical sea floor was alive on the four high definition LCD screens that guarded the entrance to the restaurant, a soothing moving image that set us up perfectly for a restful night of sleep.
The elevator lobby also carried a very fine piece that could have confused a less astute group of travellers. This uncredited photo brought the breezy feel of a southern European courtyard to an otherwise dull, carpeted waiting area.
