Zürich

I was looking forward to heading to Switzerland as we had a much significant guarantees for these shows. This usually means better confidence from the promoters that people will attend, i.e. worthwhile!

Also, everything is more expensive in Switzerland as the cost of life is higher. The promoter booked us a room at Kafischnaps, which was a trendy café with a designer-style themed-room hostel. The shared-bathroom was pretty fancy and I had the best shower of the tour so far... Everything was looking up already.

The promoter insisted on picking us up at the hostel for some reason, so we waited for him there. We'd transfer our gear and merch into his red BMW (side note: Auburn Lull was playing on the stereo), and drove us to Bazillus Club, which is usually a jazz club. It was interesting. Somehow, we were playing with this swiss-german industrial band called Krankenzimmer, which attracted a fairly industrial-goth crowd... Not exactly out of place for us, I didn't mind at all. After my set, one new fan girl even told me that I should be playing the Wave Gotik Treffen festival in Leipzig, which was happening on the upcoming weekend. Sure, I'd play if I was asked!

Since we saw that they were charging a 30 CHF cover for our show (also available was a 70 CHF V.I.P. cover to get the best seats in the house), we asked how much we should price our merch items. We were told 25 CHF, which translates to roughly 20€/25$! We thought it was a bit steep, even for Zürich standards - so we tuned it down to 20 CHF... On a side note, my 8" pizza was 25 CHF (paid by the promoter).

The gig went well, despite the unusual vibe. However, as soon as the 5-piece industrial band started to play, we couldn't wait to get back to the hostel as it was pretty loud and we were tired. The night ended up pretty late, we didn't have our car and our checkout time was at 10am the next morning.

On the way back, we passed through a prostitution strip (Sihlquai next to Limmatplatz, I think), which was pretty invading and graphic! A quick search on the internet revealed that prostitution is legal and on the rise in Switzerland, which is creating problems... so much that the Zürich police is launching drive-in sex boxes to enable prostitutes to conduct their business without disturbing the neighborhood... Goodnight, Zürich.