... after over a week without proper internet access and an inability to log onto the blogger, we're back!!! Today was a day off (we could say finally to that too...) it's very exhausting to play every day (15 shows in 16 days) but super satisfying. Lorraine's voice has been holding up amazingly - Christian (tour manager) is invaluable, the amount of stress and responsibility he takes from Lorraine (merch, driving, tour managing) has been a main reason for her keeping her voice, not to mention being much more fun to be around! And the band has been getting tighter and better every night. We work on arrangements whenever we find a moment (mostly soundchecks). The crowd last night in Dresden was unbelieveable! The Groove Station was packed to the hilt and we got them into a frenzy by the end of the set! Stefan who runs the place is really a cool guy and we're staying at his place. East Germans often seem to be very sarcastic people (in a funny way)... We are also welcomed very warmly here. Our day off was spent sleeping! We're all pretty burnt out, but that didn't stop us from coming back to Groove Station tonight to play some more fussball and pool and have some drinks!
The Leipzig show with The Skatalites was a lot of fun. We played after they did at 2AM and the packed crowd stayed and danced and made our night! There were over a thousand people in attendance and the previous bands had all been mostly trad, so when he took it over, it was a big change - and they welcomed it eagerly. The other bands that played were The Loveboats and The Rudementaries). Apparently there is a good review of our set in the main Leipzig paper today, we'll have to get a copy and post it up (with translation) as soon as we can! We're playing with them again in Munich on Nov 30th in a 1200 capacity venue (www.muffathalle.de), but we've been unable to find a computer with the right software to do the update on our calendar page!!!!
What can we say about Gutersloh that we don't say every time... They did us in completely!!! The "Happy Happy" started flowing even before the set... This made Leipzig a bit of a challenge!!!! It was really great to be back there (G-sloh) and see Jurg and Vasser (spelling?) again - he is in our minds the "bringer of Happy Happy"... If you're wondering what that is, it's a shot made of Jagermeister and Pernod... Pretty special... Dan "imported" the shot to the Cafe Chaos in Montreal, so if you're ever there you can order one to try it out!!!! Just don't have a dozen like we did, cause the next day will be more like "Crappy Crappy"... (haha) We played with a band from Venezuela: Palmeras Kanibales...
In Koblenz we played with a really great Dutch Rock n Roll band called the Stilettos!!! They're really good, if you ever get a chance to see them live, we recommend it! I'm not sure how far back the last blog goes, but stay tuned for some "filling in the gaps" by different band members as the tour progresses...
Other calendar changes:
Dec 2nd will be in Slovenia "Illirska Bistrica" at MKNZ
Dec 3rd - possibly back in Altenmarkt with The Hotknives.
Bye for now from Dresden, Germany