So many other stories come up but here's one I can't keep for myself:

So, I was hanging out with the bass player as usual one night and after a few drinks he tells me "you know what? In the morning while working (he was a driver) I passed through a place at X avenue and it looked big and was reading "Live music soon". Let's go have a look...fancy?" I go like "Man...that area is full of industrial stuff and crap folk music. How come there'll be a place for us there?" He insisted and since I am a km eater we climbed on our bikes and went there. We arrive at a deserted dodgy area, get off our bikes and walk towards the entrance of that venue. It was closed, dark, looked big indeed but not even close to anything hospitable for music like ours. As soon as we decide to leave it behind since no one was around, an old guy comes in an old long car, looks briefly at as and parks his car at the place's lot. Total movie scene: The guy steps out of the car and sees a tall chubby bearded guy with a slim hairy one waiting at the door with their motorbikes...what would he think? I put my innocent smile to ease things, he asks "what are you looking for gentlemen?" and the bass player explains him that we're a band looking for gigs etc. As far as I recall we didn't talk much that night but exchanged contacts and told him to come again with the band to talk about a potential gig. In order to give us his phone he pressed a zero receipt on his cashier machine - I still have it!

Next day or two, we meet with the band in our studio and explain them the whole thing. Drummer's first reaction to bass guy: "Are you fucking serious? There's nothing except shit folk and brothels around there". Somehow the singer was convinced to meet the owner at the venue and see what is what so in a few days the three of us (except the busy as usual soon to be father drummer) arrive at the "potential venue of our potential gig". The owner started the story of his life. He used to play the trumpet and he also wrote the lyrics to one of the most famous Greek songs. The second impressed me to be honest since this song can come to the lips of every Greek above 50. I recall him saying that he's disgusted from the music industry and the night in general, that he would never allow his daughter to follow his lifestyle etc. At some point he wanted to show off how powerful his 1KW PA was and the venue flooded with shitty frequencies as he turned up the amplifier. It was obvious that we were at a shit music place and the owner was desperate to save his wreckage but the band was also desperate to play so in a combination of desperations the singer (who did most of the negotiations) agreed to play.

So, next Saturday night we were supposed to go there and play. We load all our instruments and gear on that little truck and arrive there for soundcheck. The guys from the band (actually the singer) had invited a journalist to come and see us. We set up our instruments, do a sound check and took a rest before the "show". Time was closing in so the place started playing music which...couldn't be anything else than shit music - that's all they had :) We looked to each other with a cross between "WTF" and "I told ya" and had a first approach with the owner letting the singer do the negotiations as usual. I recall the owner saying "wait till the audience gets drunk and then FUCK THEM". Well, there was actually no audience to fuck except the singer's girlfriend, the journalist and his gf, a hardcore fan of ours who followed us everywhere and another 3-4 local thugs who showed up probably cause they had no money to go further :) Shit music went on and I said to the singer to go tell him it's over. So, we repack all our gear, reload all that stuff on the truck and leave the place. I remember how impressed the journalist and his gf were..."wow, you guys do put effort on that" :)