We were going to tour all around Europe and for the first time we weren't performing as a support act, but we had our own shows. I never liked being a support band, but I know that this is how all bands begin their career. We would tour around Scandinavia, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and finally in the Balkan countries and the Mediterranean. In fact, all over Europe. And this was going to be our biggest tour, as the whole summer of 2017 was booked with gigs, even though we would have a small break aometime before and during Easter vacations. Thus, we left along with our friends too. Dina brought Marko along with her too, with whom she had a relationship back then. I can say I was really happy about them, as Marko and I had been friends since I was very young, so for me it was like I rediscovered my long-lost friend. The three of us indeed had a good time.
I believe that our performances were good, even though this wasn't our best tour ever. At least we gave off everything we could and we did this gracefully. We played our best songs and the girls' voices were splendid, as well as their whole performance onstage. Every time before the show, Dina would tell me: "Come on, I now you'll do great". We even played some film soundtracks, because we knew that people would love to listen to them in a progressive rock style.
Before Easter, our tour reached Germany. We performed in several cities all around Germany and we had even booked two appearances in Mannheim. Dina and Marko were already living together and had moved to Heidelberg, because Dina was doing her Master degree in archaeology. I had a background in archaeology myself, as my father was an ethnologist and I was deeply in love with the ancient Sea Peoples, therefore Dina, Vivian and I used to spend many hours having long discussions about ancient cultures, languages and scripts.
When we reached Heidelberg, Dina begged us to stay a bit more, as we had a few days free. There was an exhibition in Karlsruhe's archaeological museum, which was close to Heidelberg, about the Mycenaean culture. Dina's University offered her the chance to work as a tour guide for those days that the exhibition would take place. She would be completely silly, if she refused the offer, as she loved archaeology so much.
Thus, we also agreed to attend Dina's guided tours at the museum. And indeed, we had the chance to attend a guided tour about Mycenaen Greece, done by our friend, absolutely for free! Which band could ever have such an opportunity? Even though I could already speak German, the groups consisted of English speakers, so the other guys in the band could understand. She explained a lot of things about Linear B', about its decipherment by Michael Ventris, about Agamemnon's tomb and much more. She finally led us to the Throne Room, where you could find more than 400 artifacts, loaned from Greece and Cyprus, and among these you could find for sure Agamemnon's popular gold mask.
In that room, there was of course the great throne. The first time we saw it, Vivian whispered to me: "Wait until the guided tour is over and we will become Mycenaean queens".
Then, as I had some archaeological knowledge about that, I replied to her: "The correct term is anax". And then she burst into laughter.
When the visitors left, Vivian nestled herself in the throne and said: "Well, from now on I'm going to be your own anaxess".
"Anassa!", I corrected her. "Damn you, Vivian! You should learn how to speak Mycenaean Greek properly!".
At the meantime, Dina was rolling on the floor laughing with all this stupid things we were doing, but then she turned to me and said: "Come here, you wanna-be archaeologist. Do you know the word anax is written?".
"In Linear B'?", I asked her.
"Of course, what else?".
Surely I knew! Linear B' had impressed me so much, that I had unsuccessfully tried to learn its symbols. However, the only thing I could remember was how to write the word anax in Linear B', that its syllables were wa - na - ka and they were three symbols. I had a pen in my pocket and thus wrote on Dina's arm these symbols.
Funnily enough, that night, we were having a show in Mannheim and Dina went out there and sang, having in her arm these Mycenaean symbols. And I really doubt that someone in the audience would have realised that Dina was involved with archaeology or if they knew where we exactly had been this morning.
These were our happy days. However, they didn't last long. During the other days of the tour, almost nothing was happening. Things weren't as they once used to be, when we were fun and we were going wild. Now, I was completely pissed off, so I was sitting at the van on my own, without talking to anybody. And if someone was trying to ask me about what was wrong, I wanted to just tell them to fuck off. Our manager, Samantha was indeed invisible and if anything was happening, we had to face it by ourselves. So we had a lot of fights in the band for completely stupid reasons and it was obvious that everybody was exhausted by that. However, even though we faced many difficulties, the tour was going on. I was usually pissed off, but at least sometimes I would discuss about world issues with Vivian, Bryan, Dina and Marko.
The whole atmosphere was like that until May. Then we had once again a short break and went for a week in Ireland for the Celtic festival. And then, I invited my friends to stay at my place. However, there was an incident that I didn't like at all. The guys placed in my own car boot all their stuff, which of course I didn't know what they were or what they consisted about. Anyway, we reached home at night and sat all together for dinner, without emptying the boot. But the next morning, I had to wake up at 9 o'clock in the morning, because I had to drive to Belfast to get a brand new Moogling they had ready for me. So, I had to empty the boot, because I should put the synthesizer in there. Then, my eye caught a supermarket bag, filled with stuff. And, of course, I opened it by chance to see what was in there --and thank goodness I did, because you won't believe what I found. These motherfucking boys had put inside porn magazines, porn DVDs, condoms, vibrators and anything you can or cannot imagine. When I saw all these things inside, I really wanted to throw up and as I am a feminist and don't like this kind of objectification of the woman body, I played a dirty trick to them. I entered the room, where the boys were sleeping, and emptied the bag silently in their bed.
When I returned from Belfast along with my sweet brand new Moogling, they started telling me justifications of the type: "All boys are interested in that" etc., but I would reassure them about the opposite, as I knew that Daniel had only serious relationships with women and wasn't into porn stuff. In the end, I told them laughing: "You're nothing but sexist pigs".
During the tour, I received a phone call by Josh's mother. She told me that his will was probated and that I was the legal heiress of Josh's house in Sydney. In the beginning I had a small shock, because I didn't know how I could handle all this. However, I went to Australia and took what he had left to me. And this was a huge house in Annandale. Well done to me! He left me all his legacy and I didn't even fulfill his last wish. Such a kind friend was I that I even dared leave him. Truly, this fact was depressing me even more and I hated myself. With what face would I enter that house, eh?
After the legacy, my brother phoned me and told me: "As long as you're so close, you could come to New Zealand, so we can go diving together". In the beginning, I was a bit scared, but then I agreed to go. It was a great opportunity for me, as my brother had already had diving lessons, therefore he could teach me. Whatsoever, Monica and I were born in the sea, therefore water was in my blood. And of course, our two previous albums were about the sea and harbour oil. Anyway, diving was great! I was happy, not only because I would see my brother again, but because I would also spend some time with him. I had missed all these moments. I had missed the good old days with my family. And diving with my brother reminded me of my beautiful childhood and harbour oil.
ATTENTION PLEASE!!! THE FOLLOWING SECTION IS REFERRING TO DRUG USAGE. ANYBODY FEELING VULNERABLE ABOUT SUCH TOPICS CAN READ BELOW THE STARS.
So, after my going diving with Daniel, we returned to our hateful tour with the band. Then, things turned worse than ever. We went to the Netherlands and there I ordered a drink in the hotel's bar. During the time I was consuming that drink, the barman was making calf's eyes at me and he was telling me: "You've been such an innocent girl and, in contrast with every other progressive rock musician, you never use drugs. Hats off to you for that". I instantly got juiced up over his words and felt proud of myself. Half an hour later, though, after having drunk this thing, I felt like losing any sense of orientation and reality. I thought that it was impossible for me to have gotten drunk over a glass of vodka, as I could drink at least two bottles and feel nothing. And moreover, I didn't feel as if I were actually drunk. I felt as if I didn't live in real life, but as if I were dreaming. I couldn't even think of anything, because I felt my brain was completely numb and had stopped working. That's why I couldn't even talk. I instantly wanted to go to sleep and because I didn't know what was happening to me, I couldn't ask for any help.
I went to the upper floor, where my room was located, running and I felt that the walls were sinking, as if they would swallow me up. That goes for the floor too. The whole building seemed to be shaking, as if there was an earthquake and I even had the feeling I was chased by someone or that they would stab me or that I was going to die. Or that I was forced to do something, because someone was watching me and if I didn't follow, this would have negative consequences for me. I locked myself in the room, switching all lights on, which seemed to me too powerful and bizarre. I could sense and feel colours, which were even more powerful than the human eye can see. It was obvious that I was having hallucinations, however I wasn't that drunk really. Then, I realised what was going on. They put something in my drink; I can't explain it otherwise. What I felt was no drunkenness or anything else, but...I felt I was drugged. Someone threw drugs in my drink!
I didn't think about it too much, as I wasn't able to do anything complex with my mind in such a state. It just occurred to my mind. In order to avoid panic, I instantly tried to fall asleep. But as soon as I closed my eyes, though, I started to trip with an absolutely splendid and at the same time freaking way. I could experience schizophrenia symptoms (even though I could never be able to understand how a schizophenic person feels) for the whole night. I was dreaming of bizarre screenshots ranging from teddy bears dancing and powerful yellow signs from shops to those dead people I had once seen in these catacombs, when visiting Sicily. (Because, as you can see, LSD workd perfectly with your subconscious mind, when you don't even expect something like this. I had obviously freaked out by these catacombs and I refused to admit that I was afraid. But after consuming LSD, I experienced all those long-forgotten fears). What is more, these images were followed by really loud trance music. And I can explain that. Very often I'm joking about the fact that I'm married to progressive rock music and I'm in an illegal relationship with trance, disco, house etc. That's because I compose both kinds of music. However, I release only my own progressive rock compositions normally with the band, as you know. But when I invite people at home and we make disco and trance music with my Moogling, even though we're actually experimenting and not just fussing around (we are indeed serious composing them and we like them!), we would never be able to release them, because people are really biased towards this kind of music. People consider pop and trance music to be inferior genres and only people who know nothing about music do listen to them. However I can prove how wrong you can be and it's not easy at all to write trance music, especially when you haven't put this blue pill in your tongue. Anyway, what I mean to say is that through this long text, I state and admit for the first time the fact that I compose also trance music and I do like this genre indeed, however they had always been for me 'my illegal relationship', because of my fear that I might lose my authority as a musician. So, along with my friends, we would play this kind of music late at night. Whatsoever, why buy the Moogling, if I was not going to play trance, disco and electronic music?
So (in order to get back to the original story), trance music was the dark side of my personality, which emerged after I used LSD. Furthermore, I was listening to voices whispering freaking things, exactly as schizophrenic people feel. And these voices were talking all together simultaneously, but sometimes I could hear some words very loud only in one ear. I wanted to wake up, but I couldn't. I tried to open my eyes, but I felt someome approached me. He had a dark face and he was banging a hammer in the wall. And by the time he was going to bang my head with that, a woman's voice shouted: "Ingrid!". Both of us turned our head to see who was talking. "Ingrid, Ingrid! We have to leave!"
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I sprang up from bed. Someone was knocking the door. I opened and saw it was Vivian. "Were you still sleeping? Hurry up! We have to get on the bus". Then, I grabbed her and started to scream. She took me into her arms and tried to comfort me. When I somehow calmed down, I explained to her what had happened the previous night.
"Someone threw LSD on my drink".
"But how can that have happened?", she said.
"I don't know! But now I can understand why he could have done it".
"Why?", Vivian asked.
"There's no reason why we should talk about it", I said in a calm tone and smiling. "You should only know that I have understood".
Well, of course. It was pretty obvious! I paid for it, because I was boasting. I was boasting about my innocence and that I was never doing drugs. And this is how I paid for it, because what the barman wanted to do is make me be exactly like the others, in order to give me a good lesson. I suddenly felt exactly like the heroines of my books and songs. I was also one of the heroines who fall apart because of their innocence and ignorance.
After the tragic incident in Amsterdam, we went on with the tour, as if there was no big deal for anything. However I was exhausted by all this. It was pretty obvious that everybody was bored to tears and we didn't want to go on with anything. What is more, I was fighting constantly with the guys and everybody in there and the whole situation was really dramatic. Lydia was swearing at me, as usual, and was telling me that for everything that was happening it was me to blame for. On the contrary, Dina was trying to calm things down, however all this was in vain, because I was full of anger and I would get pissed off with everybody.
So the tour was over and we all went back to Ireland. But fights continued even more and this time in a more personal level. I fought with many members of Orchidea's Tales. Let's start from that. So, half of the members left the fellowship. Then, I fought with everybody in Ireland: neighbours, friends etc. And as it's obvious, fights with the band wouldn't stop at all. I thought that I didn't fit in that place anymore and that I didn't have any business here anymore. Whatsoever I had missed my family and I was fighting with everybody. So, what was left for me to do is just leave the place. In July 2017, it was an afternoon when I had a terrible fight with the band. And that was the last incident. I got pissed off and told them: "I'm done with all this. Continue alone, by yourselves".
In July 2017, I packed up my luggage and flew to Norway, having decided to leave Ireland and anything I had created there, either this was called Alexandria or Orchidea's Tales. I had decided to start a new life.
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