Steve Roberts, Dan Dean & Robbie Taylor in Germany 2004
Germany January 2004 Tour Diary The arrangements started like this: ‘my little finger is about 50km long as far as this map is concerned so that means its about 250 km, about 120miles? Easy’. Then we forgot the map and drove almost to Poland in winter snow.
Yes our German adventure was a mix of optimism and doggedness with a hint of ‘allo ‘allo thrown in for good measure (’Good moaning, I was pissing by your door’ but in bad, really bad, German instead of sitcom French). We (Steve Roberts - singer and artistic temperament type; Dan Dean - driver, bass player and interpreter; Robbie Taylor - mandolin, banjo, fiddle and curly locks) drove to Hull to get the ferry on Wednesday 21st January and arrived on time to claim the coveted last on the boat prize. What a start! Nice little cabin, numerous bars (not in the cabin…) and live cabaret! We must drink as we are an English pop group, so we do. The boat - a biggun - leaves Blighty behind and we head for the European land mass. Up on deck for Titanic style photos on my new camera-phone and back in to watch the cabaret. My God we feel sorry for the S Club type 5 piece as they dance, sing and change costumes smiling maniacally throughout. Only Robbie is young enough to wonder if he might end up doing this one day ha ha ha. Last song of the night is ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and we go all dewy eyed and sentimental for our home town that we only left hours ago. Back to the cabin and gently the boat rocks us to sleep. We did a photo for our local paper before we left.
This picture is not far from the truth…
Thursday 22nd January Up for breakfast and off in time to claim the last car off the ferry prize! Woohoo!! We’re in Rotterdam and need a coffee and to plan. (’Where we going? Germany. Right, that way..’) Dan, who had firmly chosen to be tour comic from the off - on the boat he nearly turned in to Danielle - hits a high standard on leaving the cafe toilet with ‘What’s Dutch for I wouldn’t go in there for 10 minutes?’ and so he continues throughout the two weeks. We find a little brown cafe and stock up on some essentials for safe navigation and head towards Germany. We finally locate a GB sticker, it’s in the car, as we reach the German border and feel like proper travellers as we pour over the Dutch map of Germany we’ve bought. It’s a long way to Berlin, but all on one road and we’re stopping in Hanover overnight. Easy. Onto the autobahn. Heeelllppp, they are going very very fast. Our Citroen Berlingo seems to be crawling along and I’m in charge of looking behind when we need to overtake. Dan though is pretty unfazed by being in a right hand drive on the wrong side of the road and pretty soon we have a Withnail and I routine for overtaking lorries; ‘Here comes another fucker’. Robbie sleeps. We drive into Hanover as it’s getting dark, completely lost and park up bewildered. Comedy German is spoken (Good moaning, I was pissing etc) and we find we’re parked round the corner from where we’re staying. Zen navigation, the only way to travel. Shit! we’ve parked on a tramline and here comes a tram! We get out the way with millimetres to spare and with the tram diver shaking a comedy fist at us. I booked this place over the internet a) because it was cheap and b) because it was cheap and now I’ve got the fear coz it looks cheap. We pile in and leave my passport as guarantee until the room is paid for. ‘Hit the gong at the top of the stairs when you are ready to pay.’ Cripes we’re in a Queen or Darkness video.Serious discussion. We are hungry, tired, worried about leaving all the gear and don’t have much money. We should go out, taking a guitar, fiddle and mandolin, find some food, a bank, buy a couple of drinks, bring em back to the room and play cards. 4 hours later we’re playing and singing Beatles songs in a little Turkish bar, getting free drinks and have money for the room coz Robbie won on the fruit machine! Hurrah. No food though. Back at the room Dan poses with a plant that looks like Sideshow Bob’s head and we sleep to the disturbing sound of avant garde jazz he’s found on the radio.
Friday 23rd January How on earth do you get out of Hanover? Well you drive round and round until you have. Again, easy. Back on the autobahn, Berlin thataway. Problem, I’ve forgotten the CDrs of the new album Shake It Make It and Don’t Fake It. Bollox, phone calls home, please send them over, ah well. We chug along quite nicely thank you very much, stopping every hour or so. Robbie sleeps. We’re on the lookout for the old East Germany as Dan had been here with The Onset before the wall fell. It’s hard to tell as the reconstruction to our eyes looks pretty solid. Occasionally old brown buildings made out of concrete appear, unloved and decrepit, and we decide these must have been from the old commie times. It’s very cold. Snow everywhere now. ‘We must check out snow chains for the wheels’ ‘Ok’. We turn off the autobahn around Berlin (’according to my little finger it’s about 20km south’) and the countryside becomes extremely beautiful. Snow topped forests all very Dr Zhivago. We go through picturesque alpine type villages for a lot longer than 20kms. Bit of fear now as there is a lot of snow. Poland is only 10 miles away. Ah Beeskow , we have arrived! What’s the address? Forgotten it. What? Let’s ask at the garage. What’s it called? Erm….Kirchen something. We are in luck Kirchen Klause is well known in the town centre next to a beautiful and massive church that must be about 6 inches short of being a Cathedral. The venue is sound and holds about 100 people. Udo and Kirsten our hosts are lovely and welcoming and after a soundcheck Udo take us to the Pension (kinda B&B place) where we shower and change for the show.
The show is in 3 30 minute parts. Me solo and with Robbie; All 3 of us with occasional drum loops; Dan and Robbie playing some Celtic folk tunes with me joining in on some and finishing with Go To Bed. First night nerves grip me and during Stupid I am playing the wrong harmonica, with capo in the wrong place, can’t hear the drum loop and I break a string. Slight panic, but we breathe slowly (’ohm’) and pull it together. The audience enjoy it and half way through so do I. We do an encore which includes Bad Moon Rising for some reason. Sell CDs (It Just Is, not the new one…..) and we have a chat with Kyle, Udo and Kerstin’s son, who looks just like Robbie! Great lad. Udo gives us a laminated photo he’d taken of us in the downstairs bar after the show, and we are relaxed and happy drinking the wonderful German lager.
Saturday 24th January The temperature was down to -15 last night and it’s not much warmer today. We meet up with Udo to express our thanks and pick up our gear. What a truly excellent place this has been. Udo navigates us out of town and waves farewell and we’re on the road again. 40 miles of straight road with snow as far as the eye can see. Chuck Berry on the sound system, full tank of gas and lots of tobacco. Can it be any better? We hit the autobahn and head towards Leipzig. We’ve not seen one other GB vehicle. There are though, lorries from all over Europe; Poland, Latvia, Czech etc. Soundtrack; London Calling and Ronnie Lane. My little finger said about 150 km so of course it’s about 250 to Greiz our next port of call. We immediately get the fear as, although it looks like a town and a pretty big one, it is quite communistic bloc looking and we’re 3 silly little pampered western boys. Nobody on the streets and it’s Saturday afternoon. Our comedy German gets us nowhere so we phone our local promoter Eva who gives us directions we immediately forget. By the grace of Zen navigation we find the venue. ‘It has a big peanut outside it’ and of course it does because it’s called Peanuts . We meet Eva who has a problem. She didn’t know there were 3 of us and there are only 2 beds booked for us. Uh oh. But, ah well. Nice, dark, wooden bar with lots of old instruments on the wall. The nice proprietor Norbert greets us and we set up. To the pension with Eva who fixes us another room which Robbie gegs. The gig goes well with no mishaps but we are very tired after all the travel and the spark is missing a bit. We meet Claus who promotes our gigs with Eva. A lovely man who has a cafe in the castle and lives on the hill. Dan asks if he flys around at night.
Knackered but happy after the German beer kicks in, we sleep, but only after Dan insists on watching a b&w film about the composer Schulman which is too disturbing for me and I beg for it to be turned off. Night John Boy etc.
Sunday 25th January We’re staying here again tonight as the next town Weida is only 15 miles or so into the hills. We sleep like crazy (snore, yawn, belch, fart etc) and don’t move for hours. We were going to go to Claus’ cafe but are too knackered so we watch German football and adverts for ladies who will do something over the phone….We don’t know what it is they do but there is a lot of grunting. We don’t phone as we are chicken but also because we spend 45 minutes trying to take a pic of an advert behind the goal on the telly that reads Daniel On Tour. Oh how we laughed. And we did. Eva takes us to the gig in Weida. Dan thinks he’s wet himself till he finds that the front car seats are heated! Weida is a beautiful place; like a good looking Cheshire town, but in the hills and minus football stars. Cafe 7 is small but really nice and fills up with about 50 people. We’re now finding our tour legs and after the good sleep, play really well. Audience is great and we flog CDs, get pictures taken and have happy smiling faces. (Not manic smiles like those on the boat though…). We are told the secret of good German lager is that it takes 7 minutes to pour. It really works and will lead to me and Dan scouring Crosby for German pils on our return.
After fond farewells to Frau Undeutsch and staff, Eva takes us back to the pension. Eva is now dubbed Tour Mum and has really helped us get our bearings. I had a wobbly one the day before when I found pictures of my family and a note from my little girl in my suitcase (’have you only just changed your undies?’ said Ann when I phoned home). Snore, belch, fart etc till daylight.
Monday 26th January We’re playing a college today in Zwonitz about 50kms away as the little finger flys and we head off toward the Czech border. Petrol is low but we are bound to pass a garage. Aren’t we? Panic as we drive round a little town on sheets of ice (’we’ll get some snow chains soon’) and there is no garage. Panic as we head out of the town, well into the little red no petrol marker. We are freewheeling down the hill into Zwonitz and suddenly, God Is Great, an Elf garage. Will certainly have to change my undies now. I phone Thomas Neukirchener, the main organiser of the tour, who comes to meet us and take us to our Pension name of Hubner. Thomas is a big cuddly bear of a man who hugs us warmly and talks good English. ‘It is not a problem’. He’s bemused by Robbie’s accent; as are we because he’s taken to talking in a mix of broad scouse and the wheelchair character off Little Britain. He’s also pointing and saying ‘eh’ in a strange nasal manner at all times. Lost, 3 plots. Reward Given For Finding Them. The gig is at 5pm so not much time other than to admire the great place we’re staying - a room each, snow covered hills all around and a sauna - and we head off to Zwonitz Gymnasium . Tonight Steven Sommer and his friend Victor will be playing 4 songs with me. Quick soundcheck and Steven, bass and Victor, guitar, sound pretty good. I can’t remember the chords to the chorus of Pushed Far, Held Near. I do know they are crafty little ones courtesy of Brian Chin, but other than that I’m a blank. Or more likely, a plank. Victor is playing with a capo so I can’t blag off him. The gig is great though. The place is full and most of the students speak some English, so I can finally do my acclaimed stand up routine. E.g., when putting on harmonica holder; ‘Hannibal Lector’ ho ho. Robbie has the last laugh though when he ends up in a potted plant as he changes from mandolin to fiddle. Should we take the plant with us and make it part of the act? I bluff through the forgotten chords, we do Here Comes The Sun in the encore and we sell CDs and autograph guitars. Very cool gig. The students are great and Steven and Victor are cheerful and into their rock n roll. After the gig we go back to Thomas’ house where we meet his lovely wife Christianna and daughter Micha and Thomas medicines us with Tequila and more lovely German beer. Good conversation flows but the tequila has hidden my memory of it. Will look and see if it’s in the car. Good night, good heavens. G.I.G. The audience in Zwonitz. .
Tuesday 27th January Today we’re off to play an Irish bar called Green Island in the town of Zeitz about 200km drive from our lovely little pension. First, however, Dan and I have a sauna. Robbie sleeps. I’ve never had a sauna before! Bloody great they are and I’m all a-tingle, pink of face and lithe and ready to, well sit in the car. We trundle along quite happily behind a beer truck and Dan is confident that the beer truck is going our way. Strangely this turns out to be completely true…. We don’t however follow the beer truck guiding star when we turn off the autobahn and get lost for a few kilometres. This is probably my fault; Dan had zenned into the beer truck and wanted to follow but no, I wanted to use the map. Eventually we find Zeitz which is a big town in a valley. Green Island proves hard to locate but eventually God Is Great again and helps us negotiate the one way system. There’s a bowling alley and GUINESS!! We shall drink tonight, but first we must find the pension. Dan and I receive directions and head out. We get lost within 2 minutes. Eventually, one of Green Island’s friendly staff comes and gets us and plonks us outside the pension and there parked up next to it is……… the beer truck! I kid you not, 200km and there it is. Oh my. We put our bags in, (the pension, not the beer truck, though that may have been fun) collect our keys and trundle back to the venue in absolute freezing conditions. Tonight we play ok-ish, but not great. We chat with some guys who are in a touring theatre company. All tour has been a bit Fawlty Towers ie ‘Don’t mention the war’. This guy is from Hannover and says that it would be a great city if the RAF hadn’t bombed it. We look a bit stunned ’till he bursts out laughing and says ‘ I know, I know, we started it!’ Good chat untill we’re eventually kicked out. Dan and I share a bed and practice our Eric n Ernie routine. Robbie sleeps.
27th January Up early and off we pop, heading toward the beautiful city of Zwickau to play the Alter Gasometer a place we had spotted on the drive to Zeitz. It’s an arts centre in a round, converted industrial building and we are staying here tonight. The picture on my homepage of me, dan and robbie is from our room which was at the top of the building. We have plenty of time till soundcheck and wander into the city centre. Lots of beautiful buildings and a statue of the composer Dan had forced me to listen to in Greiz. Aaaaagh be-gone! Being the cultural ambassadors we are we go straight to …… Burger King….. They tuck in hungrily while i search for my veggieburger. Something has gone horribly wrong in translation and I have been served a burger that is, strictly speaking non-meat, as it consists of the salad bits only! Ah well. We spot a poster for tonights gig and hover around it ‘Ooh look, cool’ etc and the guy whose shop window we are gawping in invites us in. Boy do we strike gold. His shop serves every kind of spirit known to man, woman and beast, all from beautiful glass bottles with little taps on them. Suitably refreshed we wander around a few inches off the floor oblivious to the biting cold and go all generous and buy gifts for our loved ones.The gig is ok but our smallest audience yet. (I don’t mean height..) First on is a girl whose name I’m afraid I forget, who plays some classical music beautifully on guitar. We then play our modern (!) day stuff and the audience again is extremely attentive, forgiving and warm. One of the woman there has a daughter who is training to be an engineer in Coventry. What a small world - wouldnt like to paint it though. We retire to the restaurant to eat and drink and get silly pics taken and are given keys for the whole building by Andreas the kindly organiser. Is he mad?!! We are extremely well behaved though and have a chat with a local band who are packing up their gear in the complex’s rehearsal room. The reputation of Liverpool music is amazing. These lads are gutted that they couldn’t have a jam with us beacause it was so late and the electrics were off. Fortunately for Liverpool’s reputation, however, as we had had a drink or 3…. Off to bed and to sleep the sleep of the just plain silly.
Thursday 28th Shwarzenberg We return to our beloved Losnitz pension today and are welcomed by fresh laundry!!! And the Cds that had been left behind.
The gig tonight is in one of the most beautiful venues we have ever seen. It is in a castle at the top of of a snow covered mountain overlooking a picture postcard medievel town that should surely be on the tourist trails in the future. Truly, it is beautiful. The room we are playing in is like The Cavern in Liverpool, but, well, beautiful, set out with tables and chairs all of which are reserved as the gig has sold out! Do they know us? I don’t think so but who cares! We have a chat with a merchant seaman whose next trip out is to Liverpool, docking only about a mile away from where I live. It is a small world, though I still wouldnt want to paint it, or come to think of it, sail it.We play a great gig to a great audience in a great venue in a great town. It’s great!We make like James Bond, except we are throwing snowballs rather than sipping martinis and firing Walter ppk guns and feel extremely privelaged to be playing our music to these lovely people.On the way back to the pension we spot a Macdonalds and I get my veggie junk food at last. Back in the honesty bar I play the best game of cards there has ever been. I would have been a millionaire if we had more than £15 each to gamble with. My run of winning hands is astonishing and Robbie is not a happy camper. He is skint though ho ho.
Friday 29th Bad Frankenhausen. Panarama Museum. 350 km trip today and we’ve had enough of driving so we decide to train journey it. We travel to Leipzig and on through Halle to Bad Frankenhausen and are met by a guy who bundles us into a car and zooms us up yet another mountain where we encounter yet another amazing building. The Panarama Museum is spectacular housing as it does a painting of absolutely collosal proportions depicting various scenes of revolution throughout the ages. Fred the promoter talks Dan and I (Rob is……… asleep) through the painting and its subtexts and hidden meanings. Look it up on the internet as its rather too intriguing and deep for me to go into here and if you are ever in the area go and see it! We can’t believe that people will be traipsing up the mountain to come and listen to us, but after we are fed and watered we are pleased to find that the venue is full. Our set tonight goes down well even though it is perhaps a tad ragged as being musicians we are not used to this amount of work! We have been playing over 2 hours of music a night and at times we feel a bit drained, but we hit our stride as the gig progresses and Robbie is playing brilliantly.At the pension i press a button i shouldnt and the loudest doorbell sound in history scares the life out of us and probably wakes most of the good citizens of Bad Frankenhausen. Quick, in and to bed. Goodnight. Saturday 31st Hohndorf Zur Eisebahn Fred comes to take us to the train station at 7.30 in the morning! What? Who? Where? Bravely we put on our clothes and leave the snug pension. Perhaps the doorbell incident means we have to leave early…….. Fred has been lovely and we bid him a fond farewell and travel back to Zwonitz where Thomas picks us up and transports us back into the loving warm bosom of of the wonderful Pension Hubner.
Tonights gig is our last, is promoted by Thomas and we are looking forward to it. It’s in a large bar and we meet up with Steven and Victor who will be playing with us again. For some reason i feel like being on my own and i can’t be and i’m sorry to admit that i’m a bit grumpy during the soundcheck. My apologies in particular to Stefan the soundman, who is a really nice guy. He makes his own PAs and this one is amazing; two small cubes that act as speakers and monitors and sound great. After food i cheer up and the gig is a good one and also our longest yet. In honour of the President of the German Beatles fan club who is here, we finish with a load of Fab Four songs and we all have big smiles on our faces as do the top audience. I even play the right chords to Pushed Far, Held Near with our college friends! The gig was recorded and I hope soon to put some songs up for you lovely folks to hear. After the gig we go back to Thomas’ to sample more of his warm hospitality before returning to our pension knackered, drunk and happy.
Sunday 1st February That is the tour diary completed but our adventure is not yet over. Dan drives heroically across Germany and we make it to Arnhem, Netherlands at 12.30 sunday night. We have knowhere to stay so we find a bar and ask if there are any hotels available. A kindly drinker makes some phone calls and we find a nice little place just around the corner. Thank you kindly drinker. Robbie is excited coz we are going to Amsterdam for the morning and he’s never been. The next day I sit and get extremely chilled in a coffee shop while Dan chaperones Robbie around the sights of Amsterdam………… We get lost near the port of Rotterdam and make the ship by the skin of our teeth. Last on again! We are also last off in the morning and wonder if the Guiness Book of World Records would like to hear from us. Probably not. Then we drive home.We would like to express our thanks to everybody we met in Germany, it was a truly wonderful experience that we shall never forget. My personal gratitude also to Dan and Robbie who played my songs with beauty and skill. All the promoters/venue owners were kind and generous and the audiences were attentive and enthusiastic. Particular heartfelt thanks go out to Thomas and his family and Eva and Claus without whom we wouldn’t have made the journey nor would we have had such a fantastic time. Most of our journey was through the ‘old’ East Germany and it was a thrilling and extremely interesting adventure that we wouldn’t have missed for the world.
GLUCK AUF !
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