Greetings all,
We have just finished our April/May 2009 European Tour through Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and the Czech Republic. Here's a long blog, if you have a short attention span, skip to the video diary at the bottom!
As a brief run down, it kind of went like this :
Arrival - ParisArrive in Paris on April 6 try to find the bag we sent as "unaccompanied baggage" only to find that the airline that was supposed to deliver it (British Midlands?) does not even have a counter at Charles De Gaulle. Hmmm... not happy Jan... but either way, we spent the week having fun with our good friends Heligoland in Paris (with daily calls to Qantas to see where the hell our bag was!)
Belgium - Trolls et Légendes festivalNo sign of the bag so it's off to Mons in Belgium for Trolls et Légendes festival, where we were playing a few songs onstage with the lovely Louisa John-Krol. What an amazing weekend at an amazing festival! So many people in the most elaborate costumes! We made so many great new friends, plus got a chance to see old friends as well - it's quite strange to walk through a festival in Belgium and not be able to work 10 metres without seeing someone we know... the world really is smaller than you think! We played Louisa's songs "Djinn Jinney", "Tree" and "Sea Giant" with flute, thunderdrum and Bell Cittern (it's first public outing!) and we were honoured that Louisa also chose to do our song "Lull" with me playing classical guitar and Louisa and Naomi singing in harmony - wow! Still no sign of bag so Donald from Woodland very graciously leant us some leads. Other great concerts at the festival were Qntal, Woodland and Daemonia Nymphe... and a whole lot more. One of the enduring memories of the festival (besides having a beer backstage with Brian and Wendy Froud!) was the jam that took place backstage after the festival had finished : it started with playing some bell cittern with the guys from Keltia's band, and before long it had turned into a half hour plus jam that included members of Dandelion Wine, Keltia, Woodland, Daemonia Nymphe, Breath Of Life, Nehl Aëlin and everyone else that happened to be there at the time!
Naomi with an original Brian Fround press faerie... an
original!
Belgium - Haunting The Chapel Fest IIThen a short drive to Herenthout (Belgium) for Haunting The Chapel Fest II... with nothing but a dodgy tourist map and a bit of WiFi to guide us, we strangely arrived with plenty of time to spare. In fact we arrive at about 12 noon and run straight into our Australian friends The Eternal - which means it's beer and pizza time! (as if the three days of Troll Beer in Mons weren't enough). Thankfully The Eternal were able to help us out with some leads because Qantas still hadn't delivered our freakin bag
.
All up, a fantastic festival in great little old church just out of Antwerpen... we were the only band on the bill that wasn't doom metal so we weren't sure how it would go but it was great - phew!
After a very late night call to Qantas in Australia we finally had some progress : yes, the bag had been sitting in London doing nothing for more than a week but they would send it to Paris. Except we're not in Paris, so eventually the said they could send it to Zürich and we could collect it there - finally! A quick dash to Black Rain HQ in Chemnitz (Germany) to grab our hammered duclcimer, drop off some crap (thanks K&G!) and grab some more copies of the last couple of albums, then off to Switzerland.
Switzerland - ArbonFirst Swiss show was a completely un-amplified acoustic concert at the fantastic CupHub Design Kultur Cafe - and lucky it was acoustic because we still don't have any leads to plug anything in! We were excited when we saw that CupHub was in a street called "Schlossgasse" and yep, we were right - it's in a tiny street next to castle - yeah! It was a great venue and the concert went really well... and our hosts Lydia and Beni were lovely too and their art work of funky handbags and fire photographs (respectively) showed that they were the right people to be setting up a Design Kulture Cafe! :-)
Airports, baggage, mead!Next day it's off to Zürich airport to get our bag... or so we thought... two hours of being sent to every fraking cargo counter in Zürich and no luck. Incidentally - they don't tell you when you do this unaccompanied baggage bollocks that you don't get it from the airport - you collect it from a stupid cargo area
near the airport. Eventually we get some news at least - it has been sent to Vienna and then to Paris
Another (expensive) call to London and it get straightened out and it will arrive in Zürich first thing in the morning... allegedly.
So now we're late for soundcheck at Met Bar in Lenzburg and we have to then head to the local music store to spend 150 swiss francs on leads so we can plug in (we're the only band on the bill so we can't borrow any more). Thanks to Roman the soundguy for taking us to an awesomely huge music shop to get some more... maybe just as well we were in a big hurry because music stores can be dangerous for us! Back to Met Bar for a quick soundcheck (went well except my Sansamp was in the missing bag and there was no guitar amp so my guitar sounded like arse - oh well) and then dinner... let's just say that Marcel from Met Bar is an absolute genius in the kitchen. Easily the best meal of the tour (and we had some pretty damn good food on this trip!). And with over 40 different types of mead we were in for a good night... not to mention Marcel's special not-for-sale mead that was a whole new level of delicious.
Zürich - Aiprorts and baggage (again!), medieval horses and miniature bicyclesSunday night was back to one of our favourite clubs : Nach(t)brand at Dynamo in Zürich, but not before a trip up to the hills with Jackie and Ronny from Nach(t)brand to meet Jackie's medieval Icelandic horse and a quick trip to the lake... I wish every gig was proceeded by such a nice day! Once we get to Dynamo we find some dodgy guy asleep in his car in the carpark...and yep, that dodgy guy was none other than DJ Jesus66! haha! Soundcheck all went well and then a small skeleton rides in on a kids bike... followed by Jackie riding around on said kids bike... this is going to be a good night! A really fun show, and then Naomi rides out on stage on the kids bike for the first encore... and then of course I have to ride around on the bike through the crowd with my guitar during "Malphacyte"... heh heh too much fun! And no worries about guitar sound tonight - a Marshall JMP1 pre into a 200 watt stereo Marshall dual mono-block valve power amp - yeah!
Back to Zürich aiport on Monday and lo and behold - after a Kafka-esque bout of running from office to office to sign this and get that stamped we finally got our bag! And you know what? That thing really looked like it had been everywhere too! I'm not sure what they did to it but it had seen some abuse, that's for sure. Everything intact though, and we now have way more leads than we can possibly use ;-)
Elf Fantasy Fair, NetherlandsA quick stop in Konstanz and Freiburg to hang out with some friends we hadn't seen for a while and to meet the Black Rain crew and pick up the sparkling new Selected Anachronisms T-Shirts which looked amazing! But best we don't mention the lock incident that involved the local locksmith and the firebrigade as well - sorry Teasy and Sina!!! Then off to Haarzuilens (Netherlans) for Elf Fantasy Fair - Europe's largest fantasy festival with 25,000 people in the most amazingly elaborate costumes around. Everything from fairies to ring-wraiths (on horseback no less!) and even the occasional stormtrooper... not to mention Obelix wondering around as well. A great festival, although we did have some small hassles with the stage equipment - ie : there wasn't any! Arrrgggh!!! Luckily Rapalje and their crew came to the rescue and saved us - we are seriously indebted to these lovely people! Lots of fun and great people over the weekend though, lots of good dutch beer and much laughter in the nightliner that was our home... by the last night we were so exhausted that instead of running amuk we sat and had a quiet drink on the bus while Toon the bus-master played us an amazing recording of Winton Marsarlis and Willy Nelson(?!?!) at the Montreaux Jazz Festival - Willy does jazz - whodathunkit?
Berlin - 10 Jahre K17/10 Jahre Black RainAfter some angst over the frustrating and bewildering inefficiency of Dutch highway signage we head off to what always feel like our second home : Berlin. Much catching up with old friends ensues and then we play at the famous K17 for the combined 10th birthdays of both K17 and Black Rain... nice to see Naomi on the 10 Jahre K17 poster too! We had a great night there and also learned some more great German insults including "brötchen über der Spüler aufschneider" : someone who cuts their breadrolls over the sink so they don't make a mess! haha! Gold! We really enjoyed this gig - a great stage and great crew usually equals happy gig :-) Another late night, this time with Novalis (Deux) and Atomic Neon and our friend Megan from Melbourne who was in town for the week :-)
Here is a short video of us playing "Muscle Memory" at K17... video and sound quality is
not the best but we liked it anyway!
Schwarzenberg & BerlinNext was a late-scheduled acoustic show at the Freie Republik Schwarzenberg - an amazing venue with an amazing history run by amazing people... amazing really! Then back to Berlin for another last minute show, this time at the Eigenreich Theatre in Berlin following a great German/Russian presentation of a Dostievski play...
Prague with BrilligThe next two shows were with our great friends from Australia (and label mates) Brillig on their first ever European tour. First stop was Prague which started with a slight hiccup : apparently when you reserve a car at a car hire place that doesn't actually guarantee that there will be a car for you on the day. Hmmmm... I thought Seinfeld was fiction?!?! Apparently there were no cars available because of a long weekend because of Männertag - Man's Day, or in reality it seems to be translated as "let's put on some silly hats and go out into the streets and sing songs and drink beer until we pass out day"... a strange public holiday! Oh well, after some phonecalls we pile our gear into Brillig's vehicle, while Naomi goes with Brillig and I take a train to Prague with Naomi's brother who is in town as well. The usual fun times in Prague albeit with a rather frustratingly long sounedczech that seemed to go for an eternity... oh well we got there in the end! Great times with Brillig and Pavel Zelinka were had all weekend :-) Although somewhere along the way I managed to do some serious muscular harm to my back which meant that my castle wandering was severely hampered...
Schokoladen, WGT, shenanigansIt also meant that I had to sit down for most of the Schokoladen concert... oh well, it was still a lot of fun! Schokoladen is one of the coolest venues in Berlin and we always have a great time there... Sarah's Acoustic Moon night is always fun and feels kind of like home now. A great friendly and enthusiastic crowd always helps too!
Next was off to Leipzig to help out Brillig at their Wave Gotik Treffen concert. In one way it was strange to be at WGT and not be playing... but on the other hand it was great to be there and just enjoy it without having to worry about playing - haha! Brillig's show was beautiful - probably the best we've ever seen them actually! Lots of fun at the "Black Rain Treffen" at the hotel on Saturday night where our crustaeous friend Lobsty was in fine form. Lots of drinking and eating Brillig kuchen... and suddenly it's 5:30am and everyone has gone... except for me and Dr Chud (Bllitzkid/Misfits). Dunno what happened to the others but Dr Chud and I were the only stayers in the end - I guess the rest were warmdurschers!
Freie Republic Schwarzenberg...One last gig, this time back to Schwarzenberg to play at the opening of artist's Jörg Beier's latest exhibition... an amazing historical exhibition combining Jörg's wooden angel sculptures with artifacts from the 30's and 40's that was quite sobering. Beautiful and sad at the same time...
Lots of fun afterwards with all the FRS people... such a pity we had to leave so early in the morning to get the hire car back to Berlin
We can't say enough good things about this place or the people there... can't wait to go back again!!!
And the video diary : The video diary has just been uploaded to youtube :
For the high quality version, head to our youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/dandelionwineband
There were a few dates added at the last minute. For completists the total was :
April 11 - Trolls et Legendés Festival, Mons BE, special appearance with Louisa John-Krol
April 13 - Haunting The Chapel Fest II, Herenthout BE, with The Eternal, Isole, Evoken
April 16 - CupHub Design Kultur Café, Arbon CH (all acoustic concert)
April 17 - Met Bar, Lenzburg CH
April 19 - Nach(t)brand/Dynamo, Zürich CH
April 25 - Elf Fantasy Festival, Haarzuilens NL
April 26 - Elf Fantasy Festival, Haarzuilens NL
May 7 - K17, Berlin DE 10 Jahre K17/10 Jahre Black Rain with Novalis (Deux) and AtomicNeon
May 16 - Freie Republik Schwarzenberg,Schwarzenberg DE (all acoustic concert)
May 20 - Eigenreich Theatre, Berlin DE
May 23 - ZT3, Prague CZ, with Brillig
May 27 - Acoustic Moon/Schokoladen, Berlin DE with Brillig
June 1 - Freie Republik Schwarzenberg,Schwarzenberg DE (vernissage for artist Jörg Beier)
We would like to extend a huge thanks to everyone who came to the shows or helped out in some way!
Nicholas