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 Die Toten Hosen:Sent to us by DTH management:
DIE TOTEN HOSEN Our first concert was held in Bremen at Easter in 1982, where sadly, we were billed as "Die Toten Hasen" (The Dead Rabbits). Undaunted by this, we used every available opportunity in the months ahead to play as many gigs as possible. Our audiences, from as few as twenty to as many as 150 were by turns bored, disturbed or openly enthusiastic; be that as it may, everybody got into the spirit and sang along to "Eisgekühlter Bommerlunder" and "Opel Gang". In 1984 we started to appear with the "true Heino" as our support act. The conflict between him and his doppelgänger of the same name, a baker's apprentice from Düsseldorf, started to escalate. And so it was in front of the district court in Bonn that the true Heino's burgeoning career came to an untimely end. In October 1985 after the "Unter falscher Flagge" tour, Trini relinquished his drum sticks, only to return shortly afterwards as coach and manager. After a few false starts, enter Wölli, picking up the sticks in July 1986. He celebrated an intimate initiation at the anti-nuclear rally at Wackersdorf in front of 120,000 people, but joined with us straight afterwards in inviting everyone to take their partners for "Damenwahl". Slightly less successful was the Black Forest Trophy in August in Freiburg, on account of the fact that we went out on penalties in the semi-final (but we went home with the trophy nonetheless!). At the start of 1987 we instigated our first internal ski-rally week. Result after five days: More rain than snow, a broken fibula, a dislocated shoulder and the idea for "Never mind the Hosen - here's Die Roten Rosen" over a fish supper in Strobl on the shores of the Wolfgangsee. By the end of that year a tradition had inadvertently been inaugurated: The very first annual Christmas Concert took place at Tor 3 in Düsseldorf. Many a season ticket holder at the Bonn municipal theatre in 1988 will have regretted not studying the programme more closely, thereby avoiding the premiere of "A Clockwork Orange","Ein kleines bißchen Horrorschau" and the music which we had been invited to provide for the occasion. On 19 March 1989 we played in Rottweil for the first time. The next day Campino had his fateful meeting with the girl from Rottweil ("Mädchen aus Rottweil"), which later would become legendary. During the same tour we collected one Deutschmark per ticket, the so-called Fortuna-Mark, the proceeds of which would purchase a whole youth team player and the right leg of the Ghanaian international Anthony Baffoe for our beloved Fortuna Düsseldorf. By 1990 we had embarked on our crusade to happiness, the "Kreuzzug ins Glück" reaching number one in the charts, selling out the tour and supporting the Rolling Stones. But the best was yet to come! We were enlisted by press and radio to commentate on the Italia 90 World Cup. We got to see at least one live match each day, were taught how to drive properly in Naples, fell in love with the landlord's three daughters in a remote dive off the road to Salernitana, bathed in the hot sulphur spas in Orvieto, witnessed Diego Maradonna jumping for joy in the team coach after Argentina beat Italy in the semi-final, and to this day are wondering when we are going to receive the Pulitzer Prize for our contribution to journalism . . . August 1991 saw the start of a life-long friendship with the Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs. We even celebrated his birthday together, staying on for a week afterwards, even though our express purpose for travelling to Rio de Janeiro was to record a few songs with him for our album "Learning English - Lesson 1". And that's how it was with most everyone we met whilst making that album, apart from the ones we knew already, of course. The fantastic few days we spent with Joey Ramone, T. V. Smith, Charlie Harper and Captain Sensible were followed by the absolute low point on hearing the tragic news that Johnny Thunders had died in his New Orleans' hotel room just 36 hours after recording "Born to Lose". 1992 and it's love at first sight. The occasion: Our first concert in Buenos Aires. This was to become a most memorable event, cementing a relationship to a city and its inhabitants, something you seldom get when only visiting a place. Back in Germany, escalating racism and the arson attacks on asylum-seekers' hostels were hitting the headlines. The song "Sascha - ein aufrechter Deutscher" was our attempt at responding to the situation. In the spring of 1993 and with our latest CD "Kauf mich" in our backpacks, we travelled up and down Europe, playing a diverse array of concerts, from support for U2 to gigs in the most obscure places, such as "The Foundation for Young English Gentlewomen" in a convent, or in front of five people in a mountain hut in Austria. The same year was to provide us with one of the most enjoyable afternoons in the band's history: The photo shoot for the cover of "Reich & Sexy". On May Day 1995 Radio Fritz in Potsdam hosted our programme "Tausend Takte Tanzmusik"1 went on the air, continuing through the following year. once a week for a whole hour we were allowed to let rip and to do just anything we liked, which isn't usually possible on the radio. A magnificent time . . . That August and in a sweltering summer heat wave, we locked horns with the Leningrad Cowboys for the ultimate ice hockey grudge match, the Powerplay des Wahnsinns.2 Though we lost 10:11, we were the world champions of people's hearts. In 1996 we took part in the Rosenmontagszug or Rhineland mardi gras procession in Düsseldorf and gave the people "Opium fürs Volk". It turned out to be the longest concert that the band had ever done, as we played continuously for five long hours. We received a hearty welcome too at the Ramones goodbye concert in River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires, opening this remarkable evening together with Iggy Pop. A huge party had been planned in honour of our 1,000th concert in the Rhine stadium in Düsseldorf on 28th June 1997, but sadly it was all to end in tragedy. A girl from Holland lost her life in a massive surge in the audience. What followed was a deep crisis and months of dull, heavy reflection, but in 1998 finally we attempted a new beginning. During the Warped Tour of New Zealand, Australia and Japan we had to learn all over again how to go on stage and remain cool in front of an audience. In January 1999 we took a few weeks off motor biking in India before returning to the music. During the recording of "Unsterblich", Wölli was increasingly forced to take a backseat account of severe disc problems, leaving Vom Ritchie, his erstwhile drum tech and seasoned veteran of great bands such Doctor and the Medics, 999, Johnny Thunders and Stiv Bators, to fill in on drums here and there. In the tour following in Spring 2000 Vom finally became the band's fully fledged drummer. In March of that year we played the shortest ever concert of our careers: The stage collapsed in Buenos Aires after a full thirty seconds after the fans stormed to the front in their excitement. Thankfully no one was hurt and we were able to repeat the show on the following evening. No sooner had we returned from a concert trip to Cuba in May 2001, than we were engulfed by Fortuna Düsseldorf's financial crisis. In order to avert the impending demise of our beloved club, we took over as main team and shirt sponsor. Having said that, a good many months of that year were spent in Spain to write and record "Auswärtsspiel". 2002 has seen us notch up some new personal bests and set a few new records: The Zugspitze concert marks the greatest altitude ever to be played at in the band's history (2.960 m), our largest ever audience (300,000 strong) saw us at the Zary festival in Poland, and at the Loreley barbecue party we played a total sixty-four songs (a lot), but only managed to sell sixty-seven grilled sausages (not a lot). "Reich & Sexy II - Die fetten Jahre"3 should break another record: How many people can we get on the cover this time? The major part of 2003 we spent in some remote areas of Spain, writing new songs. After that, we were only too happy to accept the invitation to play a few gigs in Buenos Aires. At the legendary Luna Park and the Quilmes Rock Festival, we had the opportunity to play those new songs live for the first time that in February 2004 were to be published on the new single "Friss oder stirb" (eat or die). The story continues... Die Toten Hosen, February 2004 More at: |
