The Monastery plays once a year

So I get a call from Phillip at 11:49 on Tuesday night. I'm not gonna answer it because I don't wanna meet for beers with a drunk Phillip at 11:49 on a Tuesday night, I also don't wanna have to wade through the accent, especially at midnight on a Tuesday. The next day I check the message.

"Hay Nate, remember when you said you'd sing for Kloster's 15th anniversary?, well the guitar player and drummer are going to meet you Thursday at 11 in the morning for band practice, okay? Good. Bye-bye."

I do remember agreeing to this but only because I didn't think it would ever happen. I HATE moving, I don't help people move, I just ain't "that friend" but if you and I were drunk and you were like "Shomeday, imma move tah fahkin space, brah".

I'd say "dooooode, I will totally help you move to schpash". That's what this was, drunk sincerity. I didn't think it would ever come together and now, 2 days before the show, I was meeting up with a drummer I'd never met and a equally mysterious guitar player.

Thursday morning rolls around, I show up at the bar and it's me and Phil. We wait for 45 minutes and Stephan the drummer shows up. I know Stephan, I like him. He rebuilds American Muscle cars and sells them here in Germany, cool guy, he has rough hands, and usually has a beer in one of 'em. While we wait for the guitarist to show up Stephan and I write up a set list, mainly classic bar songs, Johnny Cash, The Clash, Sam Sham & the Pharaohs, just sing along stuff. An hour later when the guitarist still hasn't shown up and I leave confident that I just dodged a bullet and I was right, this isn't going to happen.

Later that night while I'm DJing Phillip informs me he has found another guitarist and this guitarist will meet us FRIDAY MORNING for a practice so we can play a show SATURDAY EVENING, this is a recipe for disaster, like letting your teenage daughter intern for Tommy Lee. I am not looking forward to this, but I said I would and I'm not gonna let Phillip down.

Friday morning Stephan and I meet up with Wolfie, a 21 year old kid that plays bass in a German AC/DC tribute band. Wolfie doesn't drink, smoke, or mess up when he plays guitar, the kid is PHENOMENAL. Wolfie informs me that his favorite type of music is German acapella. I don't know him well enough to be able to tell if he's yanking my chain. I assume he'd HAVE to be...but he wasn't smiling when he said it.

Band practice is MAD fun and we rip through 10 songs a couple times and there's no way it can go bad.

The next day, my throat is SHREDDED. I haven't sang since I got here so I'm WAAAAAAY out of practice. My stomach hurts and I'm 90% sure I could throw up at any given time. I spend the day eating cough drops, drinking throat coat tea and trying to figure out how this could POSSIBLY work. And I just can't.

Tiff asks me if I'm sick, I'm not, I tell her my stomach just hurts.

"When was the last time you felt like this?"

"Just before I do kara--oh.......right " I can sing my own songs with my band anytime, anywhere but karaoke always makes me nervous. What if it's faster than I'm used to? What if I miss the intro? All that stuff just kills me. It's a damn good thing Tippy knows me better than I know myself. Still doesn't help my tummy, but an explanation is nice.

At 6:30 I meet the guys at the bar, I figure we'll do a couple songs at sound check, I'll sound like shit and we'll cancel the whole thing due to "illness." As soon as we play the first song all the bad stuff melts away and we have a great time. A couple hours later we rocked the place, it was packed and everyone sang along.

What I wanna know is how a dude from Portland that's only been in the country for 3 months ends up singing for the house band at one of the coolest bars in Nuremberg.

Luck I guess.

Next time, the futbol match...