21.09.08 – The Leffinge Festival, Leure, Belgium.

Having played the previous three nights, we had a hearty five hours sleep before setting off from London to Dover. The ferry crossing was calm – we tried, without success, to gain access to the bridge to film a song, though to compensate we did manage to get a ship-wide lost child announcement for Geve. 

It was great to see Foxes posters plastered round the festival town of Leure announcing our gig, which was at the De Zwerver, where the festival originally started. Signing in by the main tent we were given more food and drinks tokens than we could ever use, before being given our first taste of REAL, freshly made Belgium waffles, which each contained about ten million calories but were worth every single future heart bypass. 

The soundman at the venue was polite, friendly and great at his job – quite a change from most of the miserable fucks you'd have to deal with in England. The gig was utterly brilliant – we played well and the crowd loved it. The front of the stage was filled with dancing kids who were going crazy for every song, and their English was perfect. After explaining to everyone what a "twat" was, we sold loads of the Trauma Town t-shirts, and had offers of future gigs before being told we should go and play again, so went on for another half an hour by which time things really were insane. After this, on a massive high, we started work on putting a serious dent in Belgium's supplies of Leffe and Hoegarden – with a moderate degree of success as the pub actually ran out, and we had to stumble round the town seeking additional draughts. Having found these, we watched "Argo", an apparently very well regarded performer, and couldn't believe how awful it was, and how so many people were watching him on the main stage. Ho hum….we had a massive feast at the artist BBQ, and went to bed at an unknown hour.

22.09.08 – The Atomic Café, Munich, Germany w/ The Black Box Revelation.

It was an epic 8 hour drive from Belgium to Munich, not well suited to exhausted and hung-over musicians! We learnt that Germans are ruthlessly efficient drivers, and that flashing your lights doesn't mean "oh please, after you" as it does in England, but "GET OUT OF MY WAY!" The German countryside was really quite beautiful, and we only drove round Munich for the merest hour before finding The Atomic Café which has a really dark, retro 60's/70's feel to it with a great sound system. We'd previously had a few myspace messages from people telling us it was the best venue in Germany…which could well be true!

We had quick explore of the town after loading in with our 40 Euro rider, but were BLOWN AWAY when we saw the spread they'd put on for us….the bread selection itself was bigger than most Sainsbury's, along with a variety of different cheeses and meats (including expensive Parma ham), dips, crisps, chocolates, muffins, pasta salad, fruit, jellybeans…all washed down with a huge fridge full of beer, coke, whisky, orange juice…..it was the most incredible welcome we'd ever had.

There were over 100 people in the club when we went on, and Alex and I had fun trying to use our rusty German to talk to the audience. As this gig was booked at the last minute (and as we have no money), we had nowhere to stay in Munich, so had to ask over the mic if anyone had somewhere we could stay that night, as we'd done successfully on our American tour. Maybe not having had the chance to shower for a couple of days dented our chances, as no-one came forward with floor offers at the end. We did sell out of CD's though, and had to again explain to people what a "twat" was, most of whom them promptly bought a t-shirt. So good to see that when it comes to public transport, there are a few universal truths.

23.09.08 – Jakub Lokal Pub, Czech Republic.

Having nowhere to stay, we drove out of Munich 'till we were too exhausted to carry on, and slept in sleeping bags in the van off the autobahn, somehow managing to have the best 10 hours of sleep…EVER. We then feasted on the food we'd taken from the Atomic Café the night before and headed off to the Czech Republic. We met the guys from Drain (who were supporting us for each Czech gig) at the Velbloud Club in Ceske Budejovice, and discovered that a pint of beer costs around 80p. Things were about to get very messy….

The venue was an intimate pub built into a section of ancient church, and on first appearances certainly seemed "local" in the League of Gentlemen sense, but everyone was very friendly (a theme which would run throughout our visit to this country). They kept on buying us drinks, including a Czech rum made from potatoes, which was actually very nice, very strong and far too easy to down. We played our hour long set too fast and slightly too drunken, but had the most amazing response from the crowd, doing about four encores! One of the main difficulties for this gig was that people kept handing us double shots of Czech rum in-between songs.  Jonno said that he knew he was in trouble on stage when he looked down and realised he couldn't feel his arms anymore. After the gig we signed the wall (they did ask!) and were bought more drinks by people in Foxes t-shirts. There was an incident with broken glass and a missing tablecloth, but none of us have any idea what happened, and deplore all naughty behaviour……

24.09.10 – The Velbloud Club, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic.

Straight from the stage....

..

The Velbloud Club is THE place to go in Ceske Budejovice if you're young enough to have full control of your bladder. It's a got a great atmosphere and was absolutely packed to the rafters for our gig. A Czech band called "VVV" played first and really got the place moving, while Drain put on a great show too (though with a little bit too much kissing) and the atmosphere in the club was totally electric by the time we hit the stage. It was, without a doubt, one of the most amazing gigs we've ever played – the crowd seemed to know most of our songs already and went absolutely mad for every track – by the time we closed with Trauma Town it was like nothing we'd seen before, with each encore more crazy than the last (sorry to the girl who I accidently hit square in the face with the end of my guitar). Several people said it was the best gig they'd ever been to…and one guy told me it was better than when he'd been to see The Eagles – a strange, but not unwelcome comparison.

25.09.08 – The Rock Café, Prague, Czech Republic.

It was just a two hour drive to Prague, so we got up early (midday) and set off so we'd have time to explore the city. Quite a large portion of Prague is either very run down, or heavily commercialised for tourists – but underneath that were some very beautiful areas, and some incredible buildings.

The venue was HUGE, and even though we had about 150 people there to see us, is didn't ever seem very busy in such a big space. In most of mainland Europe, bands are expected to play for longer sets than you'd experience in the UK, which was a good thing in this instance as we had time to warm up the atmosphere in the room and the audience, and really had things moving after a couple of songs – it's always good to hear shouts of "we love you", even if they're from the strangest of people. We met a lovely group of Italian and Brazilian tourists who'd heard about us from friends in England, and couldn't believe it when they saw we were playing in Prague when they were on holiday here, and we very pleased to see us.

Other Prague highlights include Geve's big black sausage, going over the big skyroad and Jonno finding a whore house (but emphatically NOT going in and spending band merch money).

26.09.08 – Pi Club, Pisek, Czech Republic.

The Pi Club was set in a very beautiful old garden behind the stunning town hall in Pisek. As we loaded there were policemen in two police cars watching us, and we were told they were thinking of a reason to arrest us, so we smiled and waved which must have made them uncomfortable, as they drove off!

The sound guy didn't speak ANY English, so we had fun speaking through a random interpreter who themselves only spoke a little English. It was have worked though, because it was another great gig and the (hugely drunk) club owner wouldn't leave us alone at the end! Jonno and I played some rock 'n' roll darts afterwards on their English dartboard, while Alex played some rock 'n' roll chess with Dan from Drain, while Geve ran up a rock 'n' roll bar bill with Black Russians.

27.09.08 – Celtic Club, Prachatice, Czech Republic.

As soon as Alex and I entered the venue we knew it would be an interesting evening, as the owner of the club insisted on having a drink with us (more strong Czech rum, then another beer!) without any possibility of refusal. I made the schoolboy error of drinking my rum immediately, only to be poured another double and told sternly, "We all drink together." All of this was the start of a forced (well, sort of) session of pre-gig drinking the likes of which…well, we probably shouldn't have done. All of which resulted in my most drunken performance with The Foxes…ever, which would have been a problem if it hadn't been for the fact that I was STILL more sober than 99% of the audience who were cheering, singing along and jumping all over, including on the stage. I'd tell you more about this very special gig if I could, but memories start to fade after watching Alex dive into the drum kit, Jonno being held up in the air by four Czech men as he played a guitar solo, and seeing the police arrive at the bar for the second time that night….

28.09.08 – The Indra Club, Hamburg, Germany.

The drive to Hamburg was another epic 9 hour beast, so saying fond farewells to our friends in Drain we set off to drive through the night so we could have a good look round the famous German city pre-gig.

The Reeperbahn Festival had finished in Hamburg the day before, and the sights (and smells) in the streets certainly showed that a very good time had been had. In our naivety, we were amazed at the proliferation of sex shops and peepshows all along the Reeperbahn, (making Soho in London look like a respectable Sussex village) and how little respectable cafes with respectable looking German families were sandwiched in-between "Sex! Sex! Sex!" and "Girls! Girls! Girls!" At one point, Jonno asked the salient question, "What's the point of a three minute peep show? I mean, what can you do in three minutes?!" Bless!

I tried to speak some German, but it's very hard to do when everyone speaks such good English (which proves useful when you forget to close the back door of the van before hitting the motorway, and Jonno's bag falls out, to be collected and given back to us by a friendly German driver).

The Indra Club is the famous venue where The Beatles played first when they came to Hamburg, and when Pete Best and Stu Sutcliffe were still in the band. The gig was the most bizarre and "never happened before…ever" gig we've ever played, and is something that will only ever be shared with the audience and us. The only thing I'm going to tell you is that we're looking forward to coming back!