Another year and another Austrian Tour, this time we couldn’t wait to get back over there! Anna and I were joined by the fantastic Nick Waldock playing Bass and Guitar (those of you who saw the Uiscedwr Big Band will have seen Nick demonstrate his amazing Bass skills already). We left for Gatwick at 4am on 26^th June and having just heard the terrible news that Micheal Jackson had died (we had tickets for the O2 in September!) we boarded the plane for Vienna. The tour buzz immediately kicked in upon arrival where we were met by sound engineer extraordinaire Otto, well his name is Martin really, but he looks exactly like Otto from the Simpsons, and drives the bus. Otto had the task of driving us around Austria for the next two and a half week, making us sound good, and showing us one hell of a time partying the Austrian way………and he did all those things! He was accompanied by Yara who did an awesome job helping out with all the above and selling the CDs, which is amazing considering she is only 6 years old. She rocked and it was a pleasure to have her with us for the entire journey.....

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The Gigs were a lot of fun as we expected and very varied. The first was at the Neuwirth Vineyard which we were pleased to find produces some very tasty wines, a welcome relief after our 18 hour journey from the UK! The show was outdoors and it pissed with rain and was cold. The instruments were not happy. Before the gig we sent Otto off to get some espressos from the bar but instead he arrived back with a round of apricot Schnapps. It is the drink of Austria, in our experience at least. Despite the rain the gig was great and Nick proved that he was an amazing addition to the trio. He also proved as the tour went on that he likes to sleep, and he sleeps a lot! So much so that he earned the nickname ‘Lami’ as the tour progressed. (Named after Harry’s sleepy cat!..more about Harry later…….).....

We played at some great new places this time but it was really special to go back and play in a few of the venues that we had done before. Fiddlers Green in Alland was a highlight, a little gig in the countryside organised by Mike and his family. That was supposed to be outdoors too but the rain meant we had to do the show in the indoor venue. It’s such a tiny room but the atmosphere is electric and the walls are covered with the faces of many amazing musicians that have been through there.....

Another highlight was our return to play at Die Brücke in Gratz, home of the Queen of Schnaps – the lovely Doris. (Graz is incidentally also home of the Terminator, Arnie) Always a great gig and Doris makes the best Schnaps, her new flavour this time was Elderflower. We were all presented with a bottle at the end of the night. Michael Ermer, the sound engineer from our German tour jumped in his car and drove 500km to see us that night. Impressive effort! Really great to see him. Also joining us was our Austrian Agent, Dietmar. Unfortunately he couldn’t travel with us for the tour this time round (unlike last year) but it was great craic when he did show up. What a character, always the life and soul of the party – this  time he told the story of how he had just caused a stir at Edinburgh Airport for demanding a ‘shoe-spoon’ (literal translation of shoehorn) to get his pointy boots back on after the x-ray machine! So Gratz was a party night!....

My parents showed up at our Vienna show, it proved to be one of the best gigs on the tour.....

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It was just amazing to play in Austria again. The scenery is beautiful, the journeys between gigs were easy and the audiences were awesome. They just love live music and know how to show it. There was amazing energy at all the gigs and we love that.....

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The Days off were great craic. On one of them Otto took us out on a little boat onto the deepest lake in Austria. Yara drove the boat (not kidding about that) and we cruised along for a couple of hours, stopping off to dive into the freezing cold water and warm back up with a schnaps. Nice! We had two days off in the middle of the tour so we headed up the mountains to stay with Harry, a close friend of Dietmar. Harry and his partner Gerhild live in a beautiful old blacksmith’s house in the forest up the mountains. The place is spectacular and Harry runs drum courses from there. It was a mad two days, Anna tried her hand at tightrope walking, we played drums, cooked over the fire, played tunes, sang songs and the second evening was rounded off with a Sauna, accompanied by Buddhist Chant Music. It was the most spectacular Sauna I’ve ever seen with one whole side being transparent and overlooking the lit-up river outside. And yes you guessed it, we jumped into the freezing cold river!....

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So Austria was amazing yet again. Huge thanks to everyone that came to see us and of course to Dietmar, Otto and Yara. We can’t wait to come back!....

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Cormac....