The night before last’s maiden voyage into Europe 2009 started out a bit rocky after eleven hours in a flying aluminum can at 437 mph (less than a week before the 50th anniversary of the day the music died), going from the airport to our hotel, and then directly to the club for sound check and our first show of the tour. The club turned out to be not a club at all, but a small theater with great acoustics and lots of plush velvety seating and romantic lighting. Very hip. It felt like a slice of 1950’s rock ‘n’ roll heaven. Sound check turned out to be more like an exorcism, until the sound system let the demons loose into the streets, where we were excited to see a line of people waiting outside the theater for the show. Then we went backstage to hide and eat dinner with a few beautiful German beverages.
After a relatively short introduction (of which we understood not a word) we took the stage to find out that the rows of nice velvety seats had turned into a very polite and enthusiastic sold-out crowd. It was great. All the seats and standing room were full. We were asked to do a two-hour show but we had so much fun we ended up playing for 3 hours and did a few encores. Special thanks to everybody at the Savoy and to all the people in Bordesholm for coming out to see the show. Hope you had as much fun as we did.
Last night we were back in Hannover, at the Blues Garage. We played the club back in December for the Blue Rose Christmas party. It’s a great club, and it was good to be back and to see Henri and his family. The room was full for the show and the energy was great. We played a few songs we hadn’t done in a while… King of Colorado, Lady Juliana, Chipping Away at the Promise Land, and we closed the set with Wilco’s I Got You.
Right now we’re in a town called Venlo in Holland. We’ll see how a Sunday night show does here. Not sure if the people like to party on school nights. All in all, it’s good to be back in Europe again. It’s been a great start to the tour, and great to see Thomas, our tour manager who takes care of everything for us. Stay tuned. We’ll try to write when we can.