#nogoingbacktour2

Well, we got the gear in the car and, despite a satnav malfunction (or perhaps the user was at fault), arrived at the first gig in Hattingen to find that the host had not prepared for our arrival. The evening was predictably not great. We did our stuff to a small audience, choosing to look on it as a warm-up for the later gigs.

On to Luett Mattens in Garding - five hours north and beyond Hamburg. Rainer runs a great musikantenkneipe (musician's bar) with a great p.a. system (a Bose column system that Andee covets). The evening was great, the audience responding to their host's infectious enthusiasm. Having not made any money the night before, the generous collection was welcome as were the CD and T-Shirt sales.

The following evening we played at the Cafe Instinkt in St Peter-Ording, the social centre in an oncology clinic. It's a lovely place and we found the audience engaged with the flurry of songs of romance and philosophy we threw at them with intelligence and enthusiasm. One volunteered to manage the 'shop' in the break and took a record amount. The tour may fund itself yet.

(St Peter-Ording is a lovely seaside holiday town with the biggest, flattest beach you've ever seen and we happened upon it during the world cup of kite-surfing competition. No action though, due to insufficient wind.)

The following day we turned up in Kappeln. St P. is on the western, North Sea side of the Schleswig-Holstein area of Germany that leads to Denmark: Kappeln in on the eastern, Baltic side. It's a river port and our venue, Pallette, is just off the riverfront. It's an art and music bar run by the magnificently cool Hans-Peter. He gave us his bar to play in, his audience to play to, the tastiest food you could ask for and his bed to sleep in. Great bloke, great vibe, great food and a fine gig. (Andee's improvising during Bell the Cat is growing gig by gig and is worth the entrance money by itself - in Palette it was a piece of genius.)

Now we were faced with a ten-hour drive to Deisenhofen just south of Munich and set off at 6.30. This was a trial for Andee whose metabolism refuses to recognise a time earlier than 9.30. But stalwart we were and determined (thanks J.R.R. Tolkien) and we rolled up just 11 hours after we set off.

Half-way through the tour and, after a dodgy start, it's picked up with three great gigs that have all paid well and with merch selling well the portents for the finances are looking good.


More to follow...