April 2009
18 posts
Tour 4 (Back to Berlin)
Had a week of easy living in Switzerland after the last few dates with Liz and her men here. Don’t know where I got to with this blog - where were we? Ok, Hannover - we played at the Feinkost Lampe - a great cellar venue whose handsome and charming staff clearly have no idea I’m playing as well but what the hell. I play ok-ish I think, pretty relaxed in there. Everyone is super nice...
Pause
Campsite, Sierre, Switzerland. Heading back to Bern as soon as we can in pursuit of double bass guitars and puppet show theaters. I’m looking for a train station to get to friends. Last show with Liz last night, something of a pause this morning.
Swiss
In Bern, sunny Bern. We have one more show to play in Switzerland tonight - in Sierre. A beautiful drive through the mountains is promised, and then I plan on staying on in Switzerland for the weekend and catching up with staying in one place for a few days, having long conversations and walking not driving. We’ll see how that works out.
Stephen
The Great Park
ps - A review of the show...
Tour 4 (Babyfoot)
Typing in back seat of the behemoth in traffic towards Frankfurt. Just started a 5 hour jaunt up to Hannover from Karlsruhe. Sam is at the wheel, Gus navigates, Liz and I reading, John sleeping off last night’s excesses. Hangover in Hannover, etc, etc.
The night in Leipzig was very strange - a really very quiet audience of 15 or something crazy. Who knows - but think we both play ok if a...
Karlsruhe
In Karlsruhe - wonderful show last night, leaving for Hannover in a few minutes, something of a drive ahead. Hello.
Tour 4 (Sunshine)
Dressing room at Admiralspalast, super sun outside, strange monstrous air conditioning roar inside. Waiting for Liz and the band to get here so we can load up the behemoth van and drive to Lüneburg this afternoon.
Last night the first of 10 shows I get to play with Liz Green across Germany and Switzerland. Nice thing to do thanks. We started in Berlin - a strange and stressful day with everyone...
Tour 3 (Home)
Back in Berlin (home?) and wanted to spend today resting, but instead tried to catch up on things I’d been adding to the list over the last few weeks. I hardly made a dent it in to be honest. I got distracted and decided to make some rough recordings of the new songs I’ve been writing - then changed my mind and recorded most of what I’ve been playing at these recent gigs. So now...
1 tag
Tour 3.9 (Horror)
In the great Südstadt, München - finally. Last concert of the tour for Tristan and I - perhaps the last show together for a while. He’s snoozing in the corner of the room on a sofa more than good enough for a bed for the night after the weekend we’ve had.
Tristan finished his set last night in Palmetta at 2 in the morning - I started mine at 12.45am, kind of late enough for the both...
1 tag
Palmetta Recording →
Had some time here so set up and recorded 5 songs very simply in a sunny room. Download it for free at:
http://www.woodlandrecordings.com/thegreatparkdownloads.html
Stephen
Tour 3.8 (Stray)
Typing away in the corner of one of the massive rooms at Palmetta in Terni. Our planned show has disappeared so we’re kind of stranded here for one night without anything to do. As it is we have what can only honestly be described as an horrendous piece of bad planning and truly daunting journey ahead the day after tomorrow - we’re to drive 12 hours or some such from Terni to München...
Big old Italian house, wild stray cats everywhere, draughty rooms. Hilltop over Terni. x
7 tags
Tour 3.7 (to Italy / in Italy)
Ok, it is really raining and coming down and pouring in Italy. And the drive down here was the most boring yet. Obviously beautiful through the alps - tunnels not so - but even the most feared border business we were worried about passed without a hitch. They laughed us through and then the miserable swiss man actually gave us all our tax money back (minus the teach-them-a-lesson fine)… very...
March 2009
27 posts
Tour 3.6 (Swiss Custom)
Well… Swiss customs police stop us at the border and take everything out of the car and absolutely look through every bag, every case and every scrap of paper examined and notes taken and few questions asked but mostly sit there and this fellow with the gun will watch you whilst I put on the gloves and take 2 hours to check a suitcase.
Eventually they count 200 cds (a little optimistic) and...
