............................
Got a bit more battery this time…
.. ..
We are currently sitting backstage in the Tivoli De Helling
in ....Utrecht....,
having finished soundcheck and a tasty dinner of pork and veg. Stage time in
one hour. It’s a new week and a new country, having spent the last week going
round ....Germany....
which has been great. We started in ....Heidelberg....
which was a beautiful place, with houses up the hill on each side of the river
and a great venue. We were taken to a local pub which brewed it’s own beer
served in big stone mugs and were treated to a ridiculous feast of pork, saumagen,
cabbage, potato salad etc. By the time we got to stage we had all put on a few
stone but managed to sweat most of it off during the set. We played for an hour
or so with an encore, which is apparently quite short by German standards. It’s
a learning curve all the way here…
.. ..
The next day was ....Munich....,
we arrived a little early in the afternoon so decided to pop into the
Oktoberfest which was already getting pretty manic at two in the afternoon. We
went into the biggest beer hall I have ever seen, easily holding several
thousand people, with a Bavarian brass band on a podium in the middle which
would periodically strike up a tune to much raucous swinging of the litre
steins of strong beer which were being delivered to the tables. Unfortunately
we only had about half an hour to take in the sites before heading to the
venue, Ampere, which was in an old hydro power station. Soundcheck was good and
we sat out the back sampling the local weissbiere and eating trout fillets
followed by chicken and another massive mountain of potato salad. The night
went down well and we played for around an hour and a quarter, throwing in some
songs we don’t usually get to do in the shorter sets we’ve played in Britain.
.. ..
We made our way to ..Berlin..
on Thursday, Arne providing us with a little tourist trail on the way in to the
venue, ..Lido... This was a great venue in an old
cinema, and we were greeted outside by Rab who had come out for the craic
taking pictures of the gig. He summed up the area quite well in that it was
“real”, with old women taking their shopping bags along the road alongside
punks, students and so on, with graffiti all the way down the street. We had a
struggle getting parked, which apparently happens every night so the police
were called to remove a car that was blocking the road, then we went through
the soundcheck, had a curry and a few beers and played another good set. By
this time we were really starting to enjoy our time in ....Germany.... and we went out afterwards
with Arne’s friends who were kindly putting us all up in their flat, drinking
cheap beer into the small hours of the morning and stealing glasses of wine.
.. ..
The next morning was a bit tough having been woken at eight
by Jim who had mistakenly thought it was eleven. I panicked a little as we were
meant to be on the road by half nine to get to ....Hamburg...., but it turns out we had plenty of
time so I went to the street and found a coffee house to sit outside in the sun
for an hour. ....Hamburg....
was part of the Reeperbahn Festival, in the O2 temporary arena, which was well
organised but had a bit of a corporate feel to it, with rows of seats set out
in the style of a business conference.
.. ..
And now it’s time to go for a line check, so more will
follow tomorrow I think, adventures in ..Hamburg..,
..Cologne.. and ....Utrecht....….
.. ..
BR xxx