The night
before we had played a nice concert in Hanau. Feeling
refreshed after having some breakfast we headed for
Prague. We picked up Jochen and all the other guys from
BELLA DONNA and together we went straight to the Czech
Republik. When we came close to the frontier I had to
wake up everybody and ask for their passports. I turned
my head to Sonja and recognized her face turning from
pale to almost sallow, she even seemed to shrink in
her seat. At least everyone was wide awake now. I seriously
began to wonder if we’d make it to the concert. “Funnily”
enough we saw the
BELLA DONNA car in front of us parking aside – what
happened to them, for gods sake? Then, our go: “Passports
please”, said the friendly officer, taking a look on
the passports, a look inside the car. “Whose one is
missing?” he asked. And Sonja, embarrassed and sheepish,
uttered with a broken voice: “Mine”. “So you can’t go
on this way” was the officer’s comment. “Firstly, please
park aside the lane”…
To make this short: Thank some kind of “backup ID cards”
Sonja was carrying along she was able to manage a temporary
passport helping us across the border. Same with Jochen
and his mates who had a similar problem. ‘Slightly’
delayed we continued our journey and finally arrived
without any further incidents at the Church of St-Jan-Krtitel.
It is a nice, small church close to the Moldau in a
very neat district of Prague. And quite special, in
my eyes, as well: The sunlight was falling through a
single window at the front side, illuminating the altar’s
white cover – gave it a very holy look altogether. To
catch up time we immediately started with our preparations
for the concerts. After we had installed the stage-paraphernalia
we did our soundcheck and were overwhelmed with the
really great acoustics in this church. Then we took
a short rest in the backyard-area outside the church.
It was a lovely, warm day and we had some diner before
Holger, Johannes and me rehearsed the intro song “The
End Of The World” which we were going to perform “a
capella” tonight.
The concert: Entering the church from the main gate
we grouped ourselves in front of the “stage” and did
our a-capella-performance before we went on playing
our instruments. It went pretty well, this concert,
lots of energy floating around the scene, the audience
was very into the whole atmosphere and appreciated each
song with big applause. Each and everyone enjoyed this
night. Back in the backstage again – which was the most
uncommon backstage we’ve ever been in with its urns
in a shelf – we quickly cleared up the place and went
to a small aftershow party the promoters had organised.
But after that day we just couldn’t stay too long, and
worn out we arrived in the hotel – and short time later,
in our beds…
The next day we started with a strengthening breakfast and said good-bye
to Jochen, Jan, Gudrun and Johannes, who had to leave early. Ourselves took
the opportunity to visit Prague a bit – besides, Mirek (Promoter)
wouldn’t let us go without doing some sightseeing anyway! When we
were in Prague in 2004 he showed us the Charles Bridge and the inner city,
this time we went to the Prague Castle which was very impressing altogether:
The spring, the cathedral, the castle itself with its endless buildings
and streets – poetry in architecture. But then we had to leave this
beautiful place and get back on the streets again, knowing that this was
not our last stay in Prague.
Martin
