'98 speed of dark tour

The tour started in Amsterdam (where they picked up some black tulips for their garden) and led to several gothic festivals and gigs with several bands they met last year. On this year's tour, P.Vampire brought their zany up-all-night technician Zorbic, who makes the big stages at the Burning Man festivals in the Nevada desert and has his own distorted carnivals in Arcata, northern California. and, they picked up the beautiful & excellent sound engineer Kathrin Wiedl on the way through Germany. P.Vampire met Kathrin last year at Cafe Planet in Hamburg and asked her to do sound on the tour this year.

Yes, the speed of dark tour was on it's way, . . almost - gotta pick up Marta & Ela - okay, now let's go, . . in the early morning they arrived at the annual 'Castle Party', a 2 day event at the Bolkow castle in Poland, beautiful people, beautiful countryside. They all had scads of fun exploring the castle, playing music and living into the nights with 23 other bands.

Next stop - Bialystok on the Russian border, hosted by the goth band Elizum, who they met last year at the Castle Party. Then, on to the great castle at Poznan Poland for a star lit evening concert hosted by God's Bow (did you know they don't have laundromats in Poznan?). Zorbic discovered - they have hundreds of castles in Poland.

Next country - Germany, first stop Braunschweig, at Jollyjoker Wintergarten on Darknight where P.Vampire met up with their great friend Andreas Buck of Bloodstained Tears magazine. Andreas' great friends Dirk the gig master & Stephanie the fashion designer, hosted the evening to a humongous club with speakers bigger than the tour van. like normal, they watched the sun get up in the morning. and of course, Dirk & Andreas joined the P.Vampire tour.

Later they all met up with Sepulcrum Mentis in Potsdam and shared the stage for an endless evening in the darker tunnels south of Berlin. After a few hundred excellent German beers and after depleting the night of all it's offering, friends, P.Vampire & Sepulcrum Mentis squished into 3 vans in route to an abandoned ww II airfield north of Germany in Neuruppin. They stopped once along the way to stretch their black boots and sing along to a ridiculous disco tape that zorbic found in the gas station.

Next - the biggest german festival 'Black Moon', . . yes, it's true - Germany has the biggest sound systems, . . after driving the vans forever on the flat airfield, a large tower was spotted. They thought it was the stage. When they got there, they discovered it was only the sound booth and the stage was that huge thing way over there. Eventually, they unloaded the vans onto the grassy minefield and began hoisting the gear up to the stage, . . all was black, . . excellent fest, . . there was so much to do & so much fun that P.Vampire's bass player hasn't come home yet - 5 months later.