Day 8
We drove to Stuttgart today and James said if we were scared
our equipment might get stolen he hoped there’d be someone “stood guard”. Oh,
they just keep coming and coming – we’re a finely-tuned-pun-machine right now…
At the hotel Will and me watched Stand By Me in German and
although, my German is embarrassingly poor despite the amount of time we’ve
spent here, it was still thoroughly enjoyable. I particularly like the
pie-eating competition bit where they all vomit. Maybe we should have a
sausage-eating challenge to see who yacks up first, now there’s a thought… A
lot of good sausage on this tour I might add.
Our hosts at the venue were lovely. They knew my guitar
teacher Jason Falloon from when I was a kid as he moved out here years ago. I
was hoping he’d come to our show as I’d emailed him several times - but had no
reply. Perhaps he just didn’t want to come and see me – thinking I’m still the
jumped up little shit I was those years ago. I’m not a jumped up little shit,
honest…
Anyway the show was good (as always it seems on this tour,
but don’t want to speak too soon) and that even despite not a huge attendance…
And we went back for two encores.
The rest of the
band were in high spirits but I retired early to my hotel room for some much
needed Jim-time.
Day 9
Onto the birthplace of Mr Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Salzburg
– what a fantastic place. I kinda had preconceptions of it being some kind of
financial place – I think I’m confusing it with somewhere – but it was quite
the opposite…A high fort built into the rock is at the town’s centre, a lovely wide,
quick-flowing mountain-water river flows on the edge of town, and the beautiful
lush snow-capped mountains surround. We like this place a lot – I want to come
back here on holiday…
We all got a couple of tinnies and sat by the river in
glorious sunshine playing the A-Z of animal songs: Def Leppard “Animal”, The
Beatles’ “Blackbird” and so on. Later backstage we played the A-Z of bands but
with animal puns thrown in, for example, for “S” we did Stevie Ray Prawn, for
“N” we did No Trout, for “R” Rick Ast-leech, for “M” we did Maria Canary, for
“K” Koala Shaker, for “J” Jimmy Snail…and on and on and on.
We were informed by our hosts the venue was the “last
left-wing culture club in Saltzburg”. I love these places and I think there
should be more –let’s set one up in Brighton, yes, now there’s an idea…
We “did a good one” as has become our pre-match team-talk -
we just say to each other “yeah, let’s do a good one tonight lads” in a kind of
pseudo-cockney Spinal Tap football kind of way. Post-show we were offered €20
to play Rod Stewart’s “Do ya think I’m Sexy?” We obliged but politely refused
the money.
Day 10
Will, James and me went for a lovely bike ride this morning
along the river – all very wholesome and a taste of “freedom” so to speak as
opposed to being in the van.
The drive to Munich was aided by Ricky Gervais’s podcasts
discussing such topics as natural history, medicine and the need for a car with
toilets built into the seats so as not having to wait for a service station to
relieve one’s self.
The weather changed dramatically on arriving in Munchen,
from bright sunshine to a mini-storm. I felt particularly unhinged for some
reason and just kinda wanted to explode or do something crazy. The audience
were lovely as ever and we did a good show. Post-gig I tried to go in the
Pascha night-club next door, apparently where the Bayern Munich players go, but
the sparkly teethed door staff clearly thought I was not classy enough to enter
– Will thinks it might’ve been my dodgy looking homeless/bank robber holdall
that put them off – “Do they know who I am?” etc.
Day 11
It was bitter-sweetly ironic that on arriving at the hotel
late last night the man at reception shushed us to keep quiet so not to awake
the other guests, but then at 7am we were treated to three hours of building
works right outside our hotel room. I’m sure the workmen don’t get “shushed” –
“Do they know who I am?” etc…
Probably just as well we had a day off today – so on to
Hazelwood Central in Frankfurt. I must say one thing I miss when touring, apart
from my wife of course, is cooking. Mike’s the same too. I find cooking
amazingly therapeutic. I made meatballs, which was nice - I had to use a metal
dog food bowl to bake some of the meatballs in as there were so many.
Tonight we went to a bar somewhere on the outskirts of
Frankfurt to watch the Champions’ League Final between Barcelona and Man
United. Despite our love for most things from Manchester (Howard Mills, Aidan
Smith, John Fairhurst, Dennis Jones, Liz Green, Morrissey – actually that’s
just me, Oasis – that’s just me too…and so on) we were pleased to see “the
Reds” lose 2 nil. Barcelona outplayed Man U quite considerably. I still have
issues with that Ronaldo chap to be fair…
Back at the base we stayed up playing cards and stuff. I was
trying to login to my Facebook account but it wanted to do a security check on
me – it said: “What was the name of you first stuffed animal?” to which I
quipped: “I’m not an effing dermatologist…” Of course what I meant to say was
“I’m not an effing taxidermist…” Anyway, it wasn’t referring to real animals it
was referring to, like, toy animals it turns out. Facebook would be quite odd
if it made the assumption that everyone is a taxidermist.
I chose to sleep alone tonight so as to avoid the snoring.
Mike later insisted he snored briefly to get me out of the room…
Day 12
Last time we played Hannover we did our first sold out show
and even though expectations were high for tonight’s show, they were surpassed.
It was a really magic, special atmosphere – amazingly humbling and kind of
life-affirming…sold-out too.
Pahli and Arne, our ever-lovely hosts, were wonderful as
ever. It’s difficult to get across just how lovely tonight was. Post-gig Rhys
told us in detail of some wonderful childhood insect stories and how he came to
have a strong appreciation for the natural world – I won’t go into how he
reached his epiphany - all we can say is if you meet him and you’d like to know
more ask him about the worms…
Post-show the DJ played really lovely tunes and we were
happy knowing the last headline show of the tour was a really good one.
Putting us up as like our last time in Hannover was the
wonderful Ralf. James previously described him as “the coolest man he’s ever
met” and this time he was no different.
Sleepy-happy-sleep-sleep…