Intro
It might be possible that not too many of you who read this zine heard about United And Strong before, so I would like to write few things about them first of all. They are a diy hardcore band based in Berlin, Germany. They doin it what they do since 2001, wich is a long time, most of the band members are same, but some of them already has kids, family, etc so they usually have other band members as well to go on tour, they do what they do because they love hardcore & touring in crazy places, bring the music to places where bands not really goin, brake down the walls between west & east, bring the message to places what hardcore is about (or as it used to be, stay out of business) spread the word to be racist is not cool in the 21st century, no matter where you live, it's never been a good thing. They played show in places like Brasil, Moldova, Ukraine, Turkey, Kaliningrad and many other places in Russia like for example Murmansk as well up north above the arctic circle.
This time the next choice was Morocco and let's make it happen. And it is happened last month and they invited me to join to their trip, and couldn't say no, first of all because they are good friends of mine, I know them since years, helped them to book tour back in days, drove for them when the went to Murmansk and I missed to go with them to Brasil when they asked me, so I had to go with to see whats up in Morocco.
Chapter 1
I booked my holiday off from work and flu from Manchester to Berlin on the 13th of April morning time, we drove at night a good 7-8 hours to Dusseldorf Weeze where our flight was going to Fes, Morocco on the 14 april in the morning. Flight was packed, bit hectic but other then that everything was okay, we landed before noon. The airport was small, passport check was kinda easy with few regular questions, where we goin what we doin etc. One of the first thing we realized, the airport is super clean, but like really clean (same with most of the public places, like train stations,squares etc, you can eat from the floor if you like), no shops, no nothing really where you can spend your money, a coffee shop for the departure side, police men and more likely soldiers with machine guns hangin around at most of the public places.
Anyway, we get out of the terminal easily, the Moroccoean sun smashed our face right away under the palm trees while we were waiting for our hosts, to be honest we were hoping the best they will show up because the communications with the first two promoters was a bit poorish, hehe, but yes they did show up so everything was fine, they were 2 younger kids, maybe around 20, nothing to do with hardcore or metal at all, their english was not too good but we could communicate. They were helping out the promoter from Rabat, and making photo and video documentation from the band on the first 2 days. We took 2 taxis from the airport to the train station, no rip off, very friendly drivers, old big mercedes cars, the ride was smooth and fast. We got to the train station and grabbed some food & a helly strong coffee very quick before we catched the train to Meknes. The train station was beautiful and the soldiers were asking our hosts what they doin with their cameras in a public place? They had to show a proof, a document they are allowed to take photos (yes, it's like this over there, at public places not really a good thing to take photos, for tourist with a phone or whatever they not bother you, but sometimes it's better if you watch out, specially when womens are around, because they don’t like it too much, and they hide their face if it's not covered with a burka or hijab)
As it is a Muslim country, public places has feet wash facilities and pray rooms as well.