Final Stair – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, the rock band, Final Stair, reveals one of their stories from being on tour. You can read the story and listen to their latest single, End of Love, after the break.

Our tour across China was probably the most surreal experience we have had in our band history so far. One event chased the other and each one was unbelievable on its own.

We had just released our single “Over The Top” in China and were not aware of any mainstream popularity or big success over there. So you can imagine the look on our faces when we landed in Shanghai, the gate opened and a huge crowd of young Chinese students in school uniforms awaited us. They held up self-made posters with our band’s name and pictures on it and started screaming when they saw us. We could not believe what was happening and started to feel like a boy group from the 90s. It was insane but fun!

The three of us were deeply touched. We approached the crowd and gave autographs and made selfies with the girls. Even the rather strict and tough-looking security guys started to take pictures with us. The Chinese love selfies that’s for sure.

On another day of the tour, we had a concert scheduled in a huge school auditorium with over 5.000 students. At first, everything seemed perfectly organized to the second. The students entered the auditorium in strict order and were shown their seats by a few students with special armbands with the Chinese flag on them.

Once everyone was seated the school’s principal came on stage and announced us. The students began cheering when we entered the stage. The applause started almost instantly and on full volume and then stopped again very suddenly. It was massive and loud as hell but short and perfectly aligned. To us, it was a very strange way of cheering. The whole thing felt almost like it was scripted. Definitely an out of this world experience and fun to watch.

When we started to perform the first song we could feel that there was something building up in the crowd. The students started to fidget around on their chairs. Then suddenly single students left their seats and ran toward the stage until the whole crowd was on the move. Toward the end of our first song, the whole school was on their feet. Even the school’s principal and the security joined in.

After we announced our very last song and started the performance the whole crowd pushed toward the stage and tried to get onto the stage. They went completely nuts. Students were screaming and crying. They tried to get closer to us and wanted to touch our legs and beards. Then they literally started to destroy the stage. Flower vases were shattered and wooden boards violently ripped off. Some of the students suffered wounds on knees and elbows. The show was out of control, but for some reason, we weren’t scared at all but actually enjoyed the moment. We were finally one with the Chinese audience. There were no rules, no laws, no politics at that time!

The whole situation eased off after the song. The stage was full of people. The three of us could not see each other anymore but the students were suddenly very calm and nice. They overwhelmed us with hugs and kisses. Everybody was laughing and joking around. We started giving autographs and made selfies again.

Apart from the out of control show, Chinese fans are very respectful and patient. They show so much reverence. The principal later told us that we looked like Marx and Engels, the two godfathers of communism. We were a bit surprised as you can imagine but that might explain the reactions to our show.

These experiences will stay with us forever and we plan to return to China after the release of our upcoming album next year.

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