The German Tour with Al Stewart 2008

I am back, trying to take a few minutes to jot down some impressions from the first part of the German tour.

Even during the Dutch tour, I stayed at Stefan's home, in a medieval wine village south of Bonn, for some of the time. So after the last Dutch show, we drove back to Germany, where Al stayed in Cologne and I went back to the house.

After my day off to do laundry and restock our CD supplies etc... Stefan and Al and I went to Braunschweig for the first gig. It was in a large restaurant and was quite full! The show went very well, though sales were pretty slow. After the show, we packed the van and drove to the hotel where Al and I were staying. Then Stefan went on to a different hotel nearby. We went to sleep not suspecting the terrible surprise that awaited us in the morning... I got to bed about 2 or 3am, after changing my strings for the show the next night (more or less as usual). We planned to meet in the lobby at 1pm to drive to Hamburg, where we would do a live radio appearance in the late afternoon and a show that night. (For the radio appearance see www.davenach.eu/1.html).

About 12:30 my German cellphone rang and it was Stefan. “The van is gone!” I said, “Gone?? Are you sure you remembered where it was parked?” Stefan said, “Yes, I parked it in front of the hotel!” (In fact, he had tried to park it in the underground garage beneath the hotel, but it was too tall to fit in). This was a new one for me... I was sure that there must be some mistake. But sadly, it turned out to be true – someone had stolen the van during the night. In the van were almost all of my dress shirts, except for the one I had worn at the show, Stefan’s shirts, the nice ‘rollup’ posters that he had procured to advertise the tour and CDs, almost all of Al’s merchandise and lots of posters that our friend Ron had sent over, and almost 200 of my CDs! (Thank goodness I had left several large boxes at the house). After checking to be sure that the van hadn’t been towed (it hadn’t), Stefan notified the police, who were sympathetic but explained that this was not so uncommon in towns along the Autobahn 2 that leads to Eastern Europe... He rented a car and picked us up about 2:30, and we headed for Hamburg (with no CDs).

The van was insured, but the contents were not, so the loss of all those CDs etc... was a real blow. After the Hamburg gig, Stefan left us in Hamburg for the day off. He ordered more CDs from EMI for Al, and picked up my shirts and CDs that were left at the house. I ran (literally) out to a department store in Hamburg to quickly buy a few new shirts.

In Oldenburg, I saw Marco Jacobmeyer, a fan who was at the Braunschweig show, and I drafted him (and his wife) to help with the CDs. They were very nice about it, though I suspect I may have interrupted their date night... I also saw Eike Petersen, who was 16 when we played in Oldenburg two years ago, and since then switched from playing drums to guitar, and has been writing and recording his own songs. After the show he played me his version of “Say Goodbye to the Elephants!” It was my favorite part of the night!

In Osnabrück we played a former movie theater with a great vibe. On the way in to soundcheck we met Dave Washington, a British fan who I have seen at many shows in the U.K.. He is the headmaster of a school in England, but had taken his holiday (vacation) to come over and go to five of our shows. We quickly drafted him to help with CDs, and he did a fabulous job selling out all the remaining Box Sets and lots of “Sparks.” With the Osnabrück show we started to realize that in Germany, we were having much better luck in clubs than in theaters (very different than in the US). It was a great crowd and we really got some energy going.

The next night in Lüneburg was in a sort of University theater, and it went OK, but not as lively as the night before. My CD sales were finally starting to pick up! In Osnabrück, the promoter taught me to say “Ich bin froh, hier zu sein” (I am glad to be here). It is strange to know so little German (almost none), while the people here know so much English. After Lüneburg we drove all the way back to Stefan’s house, getting in about 4:30am. Thank goodness the next day was a day off.

For the next trio of gigs we would be based at Stefan’s, and Heike would be handling the tour. Aschaffenburg was the very first place that we played on the tour two years ago, and it was a rocking club called ColosSaal. In one more “Spinal Tap” moment, we spent about 20 minutes on the last kilometer of the journey, trying to locate the venue, which was hidden in a maze of pedestrian only streets. The sound was very good (thanks Matthias) and we rocked out!

The next night was a nice auditorium in Euskirchen, with a promoter named Harry who we had worked with two years ago. He is a very nice guy and had spent a lot of time in the U.S. Unfortunately for him, and for us, the turnout was not so good as it was two years ago, but the show went fine and the audience responded really well.

The last show of this trio was in Essen, in an old coal mine that had been converted into a venue. A little rough around the edges, but the sound was very good (thanks Mike) and the promoter, Wolfgang, was very nice and quite happy, as it was SOLD OUT! We threw everything into it and got a great response. There was a couple named Harald and Helga who were celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary that night, so I played “Real Good Thing” and the whole crowd clapped and sang along. Al wrote a cool on-the-spot song that started with the line “When you go to Essen...” Sales were great, and we were so happy to have had a good run of shows like that. After Essen, we bid a fond farewell to Dave Washington, who had helped at all five of the shows he came to.

The next day (Halloween) was a day off. I was originally going to do a solo show, but as it turned out, it was simply too difficult to put all that together during the tour. So a few days before we cancelled that show. I got to do a little trick-or-treating, German style, with my hosts' youngest son and enjoyed not having to rush off to a gig. It was hard to miss being back with my own family, but I knew that Jen was taking the kids to the downtown Davis trick-or-treating event in the afternoon. Sophia was Cinderella, while Django was dressed as a bumble bee.

As we knew, the next trio of gigs would prove the most challenging, but turned out to be the best of the tour so far. It would involve well over 1000 kilometers of driving, with three shows in a row, two of which would be starting late.

The first show was at La Scala in Ludwigsburg (one of my favorite venues from the tour two years ago). An Englishwoman named Anne Bradbeer had been at that show and bought most of my CDs, and she offered to come and help out several of the shows this time. She showed up with an American friend (also an ex-pat) named Craig, and they were both enormously helpful! The show was not sold out, but there were about 400 people (which was the best turnout of the tour so far). Heike and Dave Washington had sold the last of Al’s CDs in Essen, and they ordered more from EMI, but as sometimes happens, the delivery got messed up (due to a 'Soviet' kind of freight haulage driver who interrupted his daywork and took a nap!) and they didn’t arrive in time, so she only had posters to sell in Ludwigsburg and Munich.

Ludwigsburg was a theater, but had more of a club feel in terms of audience response etc... The promoter (Peter) was very nice and took us to a very nice Greek restaurant before the show.

After Ludwigsburg, we drove to Munich to play a club called Ampere. This was a different venue than the one we had played two years before. It had a fairly low stage, and the audience was standing right in front of us. We loved it! From the moment I walked out and started the “Square Peg Blues,” with a wall of people standing about two feet away, or in some cases actually sitting on the stage, I could feel the energy in the room! Again, we had good sound (thanks Mert!) and we just went flat out and rocked. I didn’t pause to take a breath, going straight from the stage to the CD table, where I met quite a few folks who had come back from two years before, including Sara, who was kind enough to help shoot some video footage of the wild rumpus. There were a good handful of Italians, including Angelo, who I had met at the Barbican in London a few years back. I had hoped to get up to the dressing room for a few moments during the intermission, but it was time to start the second set! We went back in and rocked our way through a good handful of songs, including “News from Spain” and “Bedsitter Images,” as well as “Warren Gamaliel Harding.” At the very end, Al was too tired to go back for a third encore, but they were still clapping, so he sent me in to play “Sweet Home Alabama.” We were wiped out but happy.

The next day would be complicated. We had stayed at a hotel near the airport, and Al would fly to Berlin in the afternoon. Heike and I would drive, taking the merchandise and the guitars etc... Then she would take Al for a radio interview at 7, and her friend Jutta would pick me up at my hotel and bring me to the club (Quasimodo) for an 8pm soundcheck and a 10pm show! My Scottish friend David Preston would be coming to help with CDs as he had done in Berlin two years before. Miraculously everything went like clockwork and Heike and I arrived in Berlin by 3:30 (it was a 570 kilometer drive), Al’s plane was on time, and the EMI packages were at the hotel! Back in the office for his 'day-gig' (practicing law), Stefan had redirected the delivery early Monday morning, claiming the haulage company to do an instant single trip of 580 kilometers from Cologne at their expense and provide the Berlin gig with Al’s CDs. It was a wild show, maybe even crazier than the Munich show, though probably a bit sloppier. We did “Paint By Numbers” which morphed into “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and “All Along the Watchtower.” I coudn’t believe that on a Monday night at 10pm we would have such a crowd! It was a sweaty but exhilarating party of a show!

5 November 2008