|
|
After two great rehearsal nights at CGB, we were ready for the big night in San Diego. Carey Driscoll was a bit hesitant to rebook us so soon after our last performance (six months previous) in his room, but he thought, “hey, we’ll give it a go and just see how it turns out.” About a month before the show, he emailed me at how amazed he was because the ticket sales were really encouraging and on the night of the show, we were packed out.
Once again over half the audience had never seen our Trippin’ The Sixties show so we encouraged those who’d been there before, to invite all their friends to sing along with us and sing they did.
It was a grand night for all. This was our third show at AMSD and it’s starting to feel like a family reunion.
Volunteers – every one! Coffee Gallery Backstage, Altadena, CA July 15 & 16, 2010 The CGB has become our favorite rehearsal hall.
CGB REHEARSAL We’ve been there so many times, we know more than half of the audience, many of whom have become very dear friends.
Terry Roland and Mari We’re still amazed at all of the new people who show up. The place only holds 50 people and it’s always standing room only. Bob Stane, the owner/manager of the CGB gets a little antsy when the room gets so full as there is a legal limit to the number of folks he can let into the room.
It’s just a great place for us to try out our new material.
FRIDAY, 14TH MAY
My friend, Bob wanted to host a Trippin’ The Sixties party for about 70 of his personal friends, so he, and his wife, Wendy invited us down the day before and we got to meet their grandchildren that evening. Of course, I had to give them a guitar lesson.
We spent the whole next day setting up the backyard – sound, lights, stage, and toting 50 chairs from the neighbor next door who’s also named Bob.
People started showing up around 6 p.m. and as it was a chilly afternoon, Bob cranked up his fire pit and everyone found their spot.
Our surprise guest that evening was my long-time friend, Darrell Mansfield and his sideman, Eric who plays a very mean blues guitar.
After a wonderful ride of blues harp and rock and roll guitar, the Trippin’ train pulled out of the station.
It’s a good thing our show was hot, because the weather was getting chillier by the minute which encouraged dancing, clapping and singing, and a few blankets spread around for those who didn’t want to dance.
One lady complimented me with her memory saying I was responsible for her ironing her hair and burning her bra back in the mid-sixties. What a legacy to be remembered by…LOL!
TWO SHOWS WITH THE NEW CHRISTY MINSTRELS Randy’s New Line of Minstrels.
May 2nd, 2010 in GLENDORA, CA A few months ago Randy Sparks invited me to make a guest appearance in two NCM concerts in Southern California. Mari and I caught up with the team in San Dimas on April 30th. Randy had minstrels coming in from all over the country. A few of us early arrivers thought a great way to start off our rehearsal would be to share a meal.
Then came the full blown rehearsal relearning old tunes and trying to memorize all the words to the new songs that Randy had written and wanted to add to the show.
Not an easy thing to do, fitting ten Minstrels, three wives, along with a dog and a parrot into one small motel room, but it made for great sound!
Next day we were ready to go – well, we were going, I don’t know how ready we were…lol! A beautiful auditorium on a Sunday afternoon in Glendora, CA.
After running down a couple of the tunes, we all hit the dressing rooms to change into our show clothes, grab some snacks off the food tables while the auditorium was filling up with people. Mari wasn’t able to get any show shots because she was outside at the cd tables. May 8th, 2010 in TORRANCE, CA Torrance is only about ten miles from San Pedro, the town I grew up in. I happened to mention to Chuck Cole that back in 1954 I had written my name in some wet concrete on the sidewalk across the street from where I lived. Chuck said he wondered if it was still there and suggested we drive over and see if we could find it, so Chuck, Rob, Mari and I piled in the back of his car, and sure enough, there it was, right where I had signed it 56 years ago.
And of course, right across the street was my Mom and Stepdad’s house.
When we arrived at the Armstrong Theater, we were met by our host and hostess, Steve and Susan who presented us not only with a full on hot meal served in the Green room, but a huge, Yummy chocolate“Thankyou”Cake.
The show that night was even better than the week before. It seems like each one is a bit more wonderful than the last.
By the time the last autograph had been signed, we were ten totally wasted folks sitting in a line. It was really bitter sweet – a sweet, sweet evening, tired to the bone, but the bitter reality that I wouldn’t be performing again with this gang of rowdy rascals for a few more months.
Yorba Linda House Concert John and I love doing house concerts for a few different reasons. First of all, it’s up close, personal and a ton of fun. Secondly, it’s a great way to keep our show tight between our overseas tours, and thirdly it’s just great to be performing these songs together.
Rich’s backyard was full to overflowing, and everybody was jockeying for a good seat.
He had a margarita machine going full tilt with taquitos and chili, with all the chips and dips so when the folks showed up, they were well taken care of.
It was a beautiful Spring afternoon in Southern California, perfect temperature and a clear blue sky, and of course Mari made a new friend; her name is Lucy.
The crowd was primed and ready and started singing the opening words of “Green Green” right along with us. It was incredible how well informed they were, but only one man in the whole crowd knew who wrote “Everybody’s Talkin.” I was quite impressed.
We had a few long distance travelers who came to see the show, three of them came all the way from New Zealand, Mari’s cousin, Maureen, her husband, Ross and their son, Jeffrey, but we didn’t really get to visit with each other until after the show when the crowds had left.
Our usual 15 minute break between the first and second half of the show turned into nearly two hours as Rich had organized a food caterer for the half-time break.
He was about a half hour late showing up….lol so by the time 120 people got served tacos, beans and rice, we were well into the late afternoon. No-one seemed to worry, and we started off the second half with my story of how Hoyt Axton and I wrote “Greenback Dollar” in a Laundromat on Santa Monica Blvd. I can’t remember a more enjoyable house concert. By the time we got away, we’d spent over eight hours in Rich’s backyard.
Fun, new friends, family, music, and food. How good can it get! February 2010 Left Mari with her Mom in New Zealand, and I headed off to the Gold Coast, Australia. Donny met me at the airport. It was absolutely hosing down rain – windshield wipers on full blast and we still could barely see the car in front of us. Donny and I spent the next few days working on this very website trying to make it easier for people to navigate, then we did our first home concert in Australia. I don’t think they’ve ever done a home concert before, but my host and hostess, John and Sue took a chance, and wow, it was sitting room only.
Got in some great alone time walkin’ the stormy beaches one late afternoon.
Then Donny took me to a super little church in Ballina, NSW.
Donny had booked me into another little church called “The Rock.”
No wonder such great entertainers come out of Australia, they really start them young down there.
Early the next morning I headed back to the airport to return to wife and family and spent another week in New Zealand, then we headed on back to the States.
Sunday, 17th January, 2010 Got a call from Randy Sparks saying that there was a plant food product that wanted to use “Green Green” as their theme song. Said he’s just rewritten the lyric and wanted to know if we could make it over to Phoenix for a three-hour recording session at Jason Barney’s studio. So we rolled out of Fresno Sunday morning around 10 a.m. and listened to Wayne Dyer’s CD series, “The Power of Intention” all the way to Phoenix. Spent the night in the guest room of an old friend, Dolan Ellis. Monday, 18th January Next morning we were in the studio at 9 a.m.
Mari and Vecca, the NCM Show Dog
Randy and Jason
Barry hard at work
Had a great evening with Dolan and Marsha. Sorry we don’t have any photos, but maybe next time. Dolan Ellis has been the Arizona Poet Laureate for the last “umpty, umpty” years, (too many to count). We sat up late telling old Christy Minstrel stories and singing songs back and forth to each other while Mari and Marsha sat right next to us, each one on their own computer, browsing and typing away. They’re so like each other, it was just amazing. Dolan and I could have both left and they wouldn’t have noticed….LOL!
Tuesday, 19th January Rolled out of Phoenix early 6.30 a.m. (5.30 a.m. California time) trying to miss the Tuesday morning traffic, but even at that early hour, we didn’t make it. Bumper to bumper all the way through Phoenix till we hit the outskirts. Kicked it up to 75 mph, hit the cruise button and it was back to Wayne for the next five hours, with a couple of pit stops of course. I’ve come to the conclusion that you don’t buy coffee, you just rent it for a few hours… We heard there was a big storm heading for Southern Cal and Arizona. We thought we’d be driving the whole way in the rain, but wonder of wonders, we didn’t hit rain till just ten minutes away from out motel in San Dimas. Had a great time reconnecting with John and Sumi. Ran through all the show songs and then shut it down. What a wonderful day!
Thursday, 21st January Arrived at the Coffee Gallery www.coffeegallery.com around 6 p.m. Set up, tuned up, Bob Stane showed up, dialed in the sound and we waited for the folks. Outside it was thunder and lightning and hosing down rain. Had 16 calls canceling their reservations, one of them said they were sandbagging their house to keep the mud from coming in the back door. The folks who did show up were serious music appreciators and we had a ton of fun just lolloping through the sixties.
Friday, 22nd January Great sleep in day. Got up at the crack of 2 p.m. Now that’s what we call a day off. Showered, shaved, took a little nap (yep another one) before heading back to the CGB at 6 p.m. Packed out house.
CGB Rapt Audience Dozens of old and new friends showed up - Jeff and Cheryl flew all the way down from Vancouver, Washington, and brought their friends Mike and Colleen. Henry drove down from Fresno over the Grapevine through the rain and sleet and brought his sister. Ron and Sharon drove up from Huntington Beach bringing a friend of theirs along to see the show. Lynn and Dianne were there with their two grand daughters, Kyla and Gabriela who sat drawing flowers all evening long, and gave them to me after the show - so many new and old friends. I told them I couldn’t believe they were all there on such a stormy night. I told them I was certain I wouldn’t come out to hear them sing on a rainy night like this!
Saturday, 23rd January Was an early morning roll-out. Headed down to Del Mar where we were staying with Don and Carol – long, long time friends, in fact, I introduced them to each other back in ’62 and they’ve been married ever since. We met John and Sumi at the Acoustic Music San Diego venue (AMSD) at 4.30 p.m. www.amsdconcerts.com Carey already had the sound set up. His partner, Ann, had the green room prepared for us with coffee, cookies, a big vege plate – the works! Several friends came back stage including Art Davis, who made John’s incredible 12 string. www.adavisguitars.com
The folks were all lined up waiting to get into the auditorium. I couldn’t believe how many were back for a second helping of Trippin’. Many of them had been to see our show last year. Jack Tempchin www.peacefuleasyfeeling.com who sang some of the songs he’d written, including “Peaceful Easy Feeling” opened the show for us letting the folks know that he’d be back in a couple of weeks (February 20th at 7.30 p.m.) to do his own show. Then Carey brought us on stage and for John and me, it was another magic evening.
Beautiful John by Steve Covault www.RockMusicPhotos.com Gorgeous Barry by Steve Covault www.RockMusicPhotos.com
Trippin Buddies by Steve Covault www.RockMusicPhotos.com After the show all the volunteers gathered around and we got a couple of great shots of Carey’s Crew!
NORWAY If I were to chronicle this tour by sharing all of the incredible moments we experienced, this blog would be a book, so I’m just going to hit some highlights to give you a bit of a flavor of our Norwegian experience. Tonight is our last show – we will have done nine shows in ten days and traveled every day all along the West Coast. We started in the North and we’re finishing up in the South. After a 26 hour journey from Fresno to Bergen, (including lay overs in Dallas and Frankfurt) we were met at the airport by our host, Leon Bo
who took us straight to a local radio station where we spent a couple of hours doing two different radio shows – one live, one recorded. Then we drove an hour up to Leon’s house where Leon and I got to know each other a bit better by singing some old familiar songs.
Once the tour started, the dates came so fast and furious, it all seems to have blended into just one long show. One of the high points was getting to meet a young classical guitar player who lives just up the road from Leon. He was such a terrific young man that we invited him to come along on the tour, so he and Todd worked out an arrangement of “Green Sleeves.”
Also it was really great after 25 years of hearing her name, to finally meet Solveig and her husband, Jim. How strange it is that you can hear all about somebody, have many of the same friends, and never actually have met.
Another treat was getting to know Ingvild, a beautiful young Norwegian girl that I was surprised to learn has been married for 19 years and has three teenage sons. And what a talented lady she is
The whole tour was quite a circus. We still don’t know how many of us there were on the road traveling every day – four or five cars filled with people and an equipment truck carrying all the instruments and sound gear. Kind of like herding cats….. Not speaking Norwegian, a lot of vital information always seemed to pass right around us, so everything was a surprise…. ”Oh, we’re leaving now
Oh, it’s time for dinner?
Oh, is this the place?
Oh, is it time for the sound check?”
Oh, is it time for the show
And what a great band we had. Three guys from Houston and two from Norway.
And our magnificent sound guy, also from Norway
This whole tour was the brain child of Leon Bo, but Leon’s a lot like me. If it weren’t for Mari, I would just be a dreamer, and if it weren’t for Bjorg, Ruth and Rolf, Leon would be sitting on his couch dreaming about a tour that never happened. These three people were the bone and muscle that put it all together and kept it moving EVERY day!!
It’s really hard to say which part of the show was the most powerful. Maybe it’s just because I’m a California guy, who grew up in the Rock ‘n Roll Sixties, but when Todd Smallwood and Belva Haney took center stage, the roof literally came off of every auditorium.
The shows themselves were magnificent, each one better than the one before. Norway is such a small country that people would call ahead to their family and friends telling them they must come and see the show we would be doing the next night.
Norway is a land of ferries and tunnels, farmhouses, mountains, fjords and there’s ancient mystery everywhere you look. FARMHOUSE Even though we were bone tired, we had some wonderful moments on our traveling days. INGVILD AND BAND Finishing a tour is always bitter sweet. You spend such intense time together and become so joined at the heart in such a short time and then poof….the last day, the last night, the last show. You pack up, exchange email addresses with hugs and kisses all around, and then everyone heads off back into their own little worlds, carrying within us an indestructible memory that will live forever. HEADING HOME P.S. As my Facebook friends all know, I had a tooth implant the day before we left Fresno, and about eight days into the tour, I could feel the temporary cap coming loose, so I went to a local Norwegian dentist from India to have it checked out. After an x-ray, he said the implant was doing fine, but he didn’t want to touch the tooth for fear he might move the stud. What fun we’ve had talking about my tooth on Facebook and what wonderfully funny comments have come back at us. The laughter we’ve experienced has really helped us get through this tour. “The tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth, oh help me God!” was one of the comments that came our way. NORWEGIAN DENTIST P.P.S. The implant had moved and had to come out – pain, pain, pain….. tooth story to be continued. IMPLANT MOVED
THE HALLOWEEN WEEKEND Perfect weather all the way from Fresno to Pasadena. We checked in at the Saga Motel and about two hours later, our friend Mark who was traveling from Boston to Adelaide, Australia checked in just in time to catch a ride with us up to the Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena. It turned out to be a special weekend as they were celebrating Bob Stane’s 75th Birthday. I can’t believe he’s actually older than I am….yuk, yuk….. We thought we’d try something new so John invited his friend, Chad Watson to come play bass with us.
Then it was time to open the doors and the folks filled up the room – both nights sold out, which is not a big deal because the Coffee Gallery only holds 52 people.
Right from the first song we knew Chad was the right person to add that little extra powerhouse rhythm that only a great bass player can provide.
Darrell Mansfield, a long-time friend of mine happened to come by so we invited him to finish off the evening with “All Along The Watchtower”, a Bob Dylan tune that Darrell absolutely shreds with his Blues Harp and vocal emotion.
He took us all to a place of Blues Harp ecstasy – totally “blue” the room away! Sumi came up and caught a couple of shots of the Altadena wildlife for our Rogues’ Gallery collection. The room is long and thin so she had to do it in three shots.
After the show it was hard to say goodbye. New friends and old – we just love performing at Bob Stane’s Coffee Gallery Backstage.
The picture says it all.
Saturday, 17th October, 2009 Zoetermeer The Boederij in Zoetermeer was special in many ways.
1. The building was designed specifically for the purpose it was being used – restaurant, bar, showroom, great sound, great lights.
2. John’s niece, Lily, who lives in Paris, caught a train all the way up to Holland to catch our show.
3. Mari and I had two dear friends that we hadn’t seen for over thirty years, Conny & Roel who also came along to catch the show and catch up with us in general.
4. We had another chef, Jolanda, who blew us away with her killer burritos.
The only photo we have of her is kind of taken from over her shoulder. Sorry Jolanda – maybe next time we’ll get the camer
5. We had a chance to meet the owner and manager of the club, Arie, who booked us not having a clue what kind of a show he was booking into his room. So thanks Arie for betting on us.
6. We got to meet some long time fans who brought along some ancient photos and articles for us to sign.
7. It was our last show of the tour. All of our rehearsal shows were behind us, and I felt like this one was the real deal, this was “opening night” at the Boederij..
If you look closely at the last photo, you’ll see Sumi standing between John and me taking this wildlife photo of Zoetermeer.
8. After the show, no-one wanted to go home and it was really great meeting some facebook friends who’d come to see the show.
I don’t know if it was because it was our last show of the tour, or if it was because of all the reasons I’ve just listed, but the Zoetermeer show was the most fun of all the fourteen shows of this tour.
Back in our room, we had our final farewell toast to Jean-Daniel as he took this photo.
Well, if the creek don’t rise, the bombs don’t fall, the economy don’t crash, the battery in my pacemaker doesn’t go flat, my knees don’t give out on me, we don’t get hit by a meteorite, etc etc etc (you get the drift), we’re talking about a return tour to Europe in Spring of 2011. Thanks for coming along with Mari and me on this Trippin’ The Sixties ride.
Keep an eye on our Schedule page for up and coming shows and tours. Barry & Mari
Friday, 16th October, 2009 Hilversum We only had about an hour to drive to Hilversum, so it was a late check out for us. We had a lunch date with Leen and Ria La Riviere. They had been in charge of the De Bron Conferences all those years ago, and now Leen is a “Sir.” A busy, busy man, but he and his wife wanted to take a couple of hours out just to have lunch with us. I kept wanting to call him Sir Rivi, but I wasn’t too sure how his Dutch sense of humor would handle it.
After lunch I crashed while Mari answered email, and started repacking for our trip home. Then it was a lovely walk “just around the corner,” across town to Carel and Ingrid’s home.
I first met Carel nearly thirty years ago at a music festival in Holland. He was and still is an incredible keyboard player. We spent a few hours just catching up on all the years.
Of course, Carel had to take us down to his music studio that he had actually dug out under the house one shovel at a time to create his own man cave. Did I mention he also builds sailboats?
The aroma that was wafting out of Ingrid’s kitchen was more than Dick and John could stand. So she bribed them with wine and cheese to keep the hungry boys at bay.
Ingrid, put on a meal for us that was pure five star delight.
Then came the big surprise – a real birthday cake and this time I actually got to have a bite of it. Yes, if you must know, Mari and I shared but nobody else did!
After four or five hours of food, fun and laughter, Ingrid could see we were all fading and let us know it was time for us to go back to our rooms and get some sleep – once a mother, always a mother.
Just as I was putting my jacket on, Carel slid onto his piano bench and we did a little “Saturday Night Fish Fry” jam..
Some things never change… ain’t it grand!
Thursday, 15th October, 2009 To tell you the truth, I didn’t even remember that the day was your birthday, so when Mari and I showed up for breakfast and no-one was there but us, I just thought to myself, “Oh, we’re early.” So Mari and I were over helping ourselves to the breakfast buffet, and we heard voices singing “Happy Birthday to you…” We’re looking around the room to see, “What’s going on?” I still didn’t remember it was my birthday. Two dutch guys were sitting there having breakfast and they were looking around too. Then they both looked at us, shrugged their shoulders and said, “It’s not our birthday,” in a dutch accent. Then I remembered, “Oh, it’s MY birthday.” From behind the curtain walked, John, Sumi and Jean-Daniel singing the final words to my birthday song. What a nice way to start a new year.
Leaving Assen, at first it was just normal city driving,
but then JD called Bart and got the directions to the old De Bron Conference Center and the roads started getting back into that one lane Dutch country thing again.
Finally, the GPS guided us right into the front gate. They changed the name of the place to Mooirivier www.mooirivier.nl
As we walked around the Center, where we had all met together back in the seventies, we couldn’t believe it had been thirty years – WOW!
It was like walking through a barely remembered dream – all the people…. All the faces, all the laughter and conversations …. The main lounge had been totally redecorated, so we went in for a nice cup of hot coffee and some homemade apple cake.
Jean-Daniel, our illustrious tour guide/driver/and concert co-ordinator was overjoyed to be back at De Bron after twenty years. Actually, it was a great treat for all of us.
After my third cup of birthday coffee and apple cake, I started getting a terrible headache, and I figured I better get out of here, quick, because I could feel my old Viking dna starting to kick in.
It was all thick plastered walls and thatched roofs and big wheeled bicycles. Felt like we were on a Hollywood movie set, but this was the real deal.
Almost everything had been updated and refurbished except the old amphitheater which had fallen into a bit of disrepair.
Then it was back on the road with windmills, happy ponies and lazy cows. What a country!
With a heart full of memories we headed on the next leg of our drive to Zwolle.
Edo, our chef, joined us for my birthday dinner
He cooked us a roast pork that absolutely blew us away, in fact, we ate so much, I didn’t have any room left for my birthday cake, so Edo just gave me the candle…too funny!
The theater itself was a high tech dream.
And the show was its normal avalanche of sound and singing along.
Sumi caught a quick couple of shots of the Wildlife in Zwolle.
All in all, it was a 74th Birthday I’ll never forget.
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 Bart met us right after breakfast and took us to Radio Noord in Groningen.
It was an early morning drive from our hotel in Assen.
They weren’t quite ready for us so I took the opportunity…….to snooze a bit
I didn’t wake up until we were half way through our first song.
If you want to hear a live stream of Radio Noord, you can click on this link, and maybe, just maybe it’ll be there – in Dutch of course…… We thought we’d been waiting a long time to do our interview, but man, this guy’s been there for so long that he’s turned to solid stone.
As we were leaving the building, John and I spotted an old merchant ship tied up next to where our cars were parked. Being an old sailor myself, I couldn’t resist having a snoop around. Our luck was that there was a fellow on board, Bert, who invited us to have a look around the ship. www.mvourworld.com
It was built in 1952, originally used as a freighter between Norway, England and Holland. It was headed for the scrap yard when they rescued it, and they formed a charitable corporation to give people an opportunity to learn a trade by helping to restore the ship. Bart took us by his place of business www.hof.nl an audio and lighting company.
We did a tour of his building, and afterwards enjoyed a couple of cups of wonderful coffee and special Dutch buns and cookies.
Then we headed off to Kamp Westerbork. www.kampwesterbork.nl Kamp Westerbork was a concentration camp in the Netherlands during World War II. The Nazi occupying forces deported more than 100,000 Jews via this transit camp.
The camp was originally built in 1939 by the Dutch government as a Central Refugee Camp for Jews fleeing Germany. In 1942, it became a transit camp headed by the SS. From July of that year, the Dutch Jews, German refugees, gypsies, 245 Sinti and Roma and dozens of resistance fighters were deported from this ‘hell’s gate’ to death camps such as Auschwitz and Sobibor.
A total of 93 transports left the camp, and only 5,000 of those deported returned alive.
One of the victims was Anne Frank. Her father Otto was among the few survivors. They were sent to Kamp Westerbork after their arrest in their secret hiding in Amsterdam.
In the camp, they were sent to the punishment blocks where they were to stay for several weeks. In these punishment blocks, the Nazis detained not only people who had been arrested while in hiding, but also camp prisoners who were being punished.
Their fate was to be put on punishment transport as soon as possible. On 3 September 1944, one of the last trains left Kamp Westerbork. Anne Frank was among the 1,019 deportees on that train as were her sister Margot, her parents, Otto and Edith Frank, and the others who had been in hiding with them.
As we walked along the old railway beds and down the side paths, we could actually feel the grief and hopelessness of the people who spent their final days here.
It was a walk through the silhouettes and signs of the barracks where thousands of people slept and worked. We walked along the barrier and the barbed wire fences at the edge of the camp,
and came finally to the end of the railroad line where the trains would stop and take on another thousand people, none of them knowing they were headed for the extermination camps of Germany. All in all, 102,000 men, women and children walked these grounds, some for only a day or two, others for several weeks.
Unbelievable, how unbelievable! Political corruption, Yes, today was a day of remembrance.
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 It was an early morning quick breakfast and then off to a radio interview at Radio Drenthe .
We got there with time to burn, so we had a cup of coffee just killing time with a new friend with pure white hair, who was doing an interview before us, all about growing mushrooms.
Mari was sitting in a chair that had wheels, and you know me, I couldn’t resist giving her a quick zoom around the room in the waiting area.
JD’s old friend Bart, introduced us to Aaldert and Tina who met us in the lobby and took us into the studio.
They told us the program was an internet stream www.rtvdrenthe.nl
RTV Drenthe TRV link
Since it was a show night, I crashed all afternoon at the hotel while Mari took a long hot bath, (sorry, no photo) LOL, and then she worked on emails and Facebook for a couple of hours. We left for the venue about 5 p.m. and what a place it was! The Cultural Café de Amer in Amen www.cafedeamer.nl was about twenty minutes away from the hotel, but the last fifteen minutes of the drive had us out in the middle of farm country – cows, sheep, barns and fences. Seemed like a one lane road with trees closely lining both sides, yet somehow, when a car came the other way, we zoomed past each other without neary a scratch on either vehicle.
The venue itself had a thatched roof, looked to be a couple of hundred years old, was originally a cow barn but had been remodeled years ago as a restaurant concert hall.
Every wall was covered wall to ceiling with eclectic artwork.
The tables and chairs looked older than the building itself, but surprisingly they were all in pretty good nick.
Our pre-show dinner was one meatball each. It was the size of a Sunkist orange – never seen such a big meatball in my life! Of course it was served with salad, and sandwiches. Our hosts seemed so overjoyed to meet new friends.
The show room itself was so crowded with people that we could barely get through to the stage, holding our guitars up over our heads. The room was filled with lots of old friends and many new ones too.
I think the club owners were totally blown away by the number of people they had packed into that room. It was a Tuesday night and they told us they had never had a show on a Tuesday night before. They normally only do weekends, but made an exception for us as it was the only night we had available.
A good time was had by all. Monday, October 12th, 2009 Bremen to Assen, Holland The last look we took out from our hotel balcony revealed a grain ship that had come in overnight and was taking on a whole new load.
It was a kind of a day you’d expect if you were driving in New Zealand. Beautiful, long white clouds, white on the top and dark on the bottom with occasional shower squalls and then bright sunshine.
We stopped at the border for coffee and cookies.
Then came flat, flat, farmlands of Holland – happy cows and sheep grazing around the beautiful, slender, graceful wind generators and ancient windmills that were scattered everywhere.
We rolled on into Assen at 2 p.m. JD checked us into our new home for the next three days, Hotel de Jonge www.bestwestern.nl/dejonge On the outside it didn’t even look like a hotel, but our room was on the top floor where we could look out over the city.
Mari and I couldn’t stand just sitting in our room, looking out at the city so we hit the streets for a walk around town.
That evening we met with some very dear friends who treated us to an awesome dinner in the Hotel Restaurant.
Of course I forgot my reading glasses so I had to borrow JD’s and the mood was set for a romantic candlelit dinner, which in reality meant I couldn’t see the menu and when I did, it was all written in Dutch, so I went for the chicken.
Food, food, food – seems like we’re eating our way across Europe.
What happened to my 1800 calorie a day diet? Boy, will we be hitting the treadmill when we get home! But hey, when you’re hanging out with old friends, it’s time to celebrate.
Sunday, 11th October, 2009 HA! Well, not quite a day off. Mike showed up around 11 a.m. and took us off to a local church where his son and daughter-in-law attend. They asked me to do a couple of songs and then Jean-Daniel interviewed me in front of the congregation asking how I got into music and how the music got into me, how I had come to discover Christ.
Although the congregation sang in German, the fullness of their voices and harmonies came straight from their hearts and I was awash in a sea of love and adoration. The Senior Pastor, Andreas, told me how he had magnetic tape recordings of my songs from the Sixties, and how he had listened to them and still had them safely stored away at home. One of the things that impressed me most of all was how Pastor Lothar was one of the last to leave the church. We had stayed for coffee and as we were leaving, we saw him walking out into the parking lot in the rain and getting on his bicycle to pedal home through the puddles.
Our sponsor, Mike, had turned down a round trip ticket to Moscow and an invitation from the German ambassador to accompany him to the final playoff game between Russia and Germany to see which team will go to South Africa for the World Champion Soccer trophy. Instead, he chose to stay with us and show us around the wonderful city of Bremen, and what a city it is! Our first stop after church was The Park Hotel for cake and coffee.
It gave Mike and I time to just sit and enjoy each other’s company and catch up on the last thirty years of our lives.
Next stop was the old City Center, and man, was it old!
06 CITY CENTER BREMEN Then we got into the tiny little streets with tiny little shops that were filled with fantastic eye candy that you just couldn’t stop gazing at.
The street was called Schnoor, which in German means “the string” – a long string of shops.
One little house had been built in 1300. It had been sitting there for 700 years, but the incredible thing was that right next door to it was another house built in 1600. It was only 400 years old. It really boggled my mind to think that the 700 year old house was already 300 years old when the next door neighbor decided to build the house….
The streets kept getting narrower and narrower as we went along our way. Finally, we hit a street that was so narrow, Mike got stuck and I had to push him through.
Meanwhile, John and Sumi were off with their friends Hans and Bernie.
Actually, they were about fifteen minutes ahead of us on the Schnoor Walk.
To cap the day off, Jean-Daniel, Mike, Mari and I went to a fantastic Indian Restaurant, Maharani Restaurant, www.maharani-bremen.de Tandoori lamb, curried chicken, curried beef and some kind of an incredible Indian spinach dish with rice and Naan bread…mmmm….goood! My mouth was on fire, but wow, what a meal!
Back the hotel, I struck my final blow of the day, and off we went to our separate rooms for a well deserved night, night….
October 10th Bremen I had to restring my guitar (which is something I hate doing), so while I poked holes in my fingers, the rest of the team took off to explore the Waterfront Mall, which was within walking distance of hotel. Mari and Sumi really liked the German fashions.
One really cool thing about the weight limits they have on flying these days, is it really limits what the girls can buy….LOL…. I’m a chucklin’ now…. So all they could do was take pictures. Mike, our sponsor, had us booked into Nachbarchaftshaus, Bremen. It was a social center, a bit out of the way, but folks didn’t seem to have any trouble finding the place. We had a band called “Nightflight” that opened for us.
Then John and I hit the stage full tilt.
Of all the shows we’ve done so far, this audience seemed to be the most engaged, singing along from the first words of Green Green, bursting into spontaneous applause when they recognized the first introduction notes of each song. They were clapping, singing, stomping their feet, just a great kick of an audience for John and me.
For our second encore, I just went out and told the folks about the old showbiz saying of “always leaving the audience wanting more.” I told them we were planning a return tour of Europe in the Spring of 2011. Then I asked Sumi to come out and get her wildlife shot.
It was a small auditorium but it did not lack for positive energy and happy people who
hung around afterwards for autographs.
On our way out the door, Sabine, our hostess and her soundman expressed their appreciation for our appearing in their venue.
Once again, by the time we got back to our hotel, it was midnight. We all sat around with Mike in the lobby on the comfortable couches, just laughing and talking and basking in the afterglow of the evening.
It was just another typical workday with another happy ending.
Friday, 9th October, 2009 Bong, bongity, bong, bong……..it was a 7 a.m. wake up by the bells of Zwickau! We didn’t have to be down to breakfast till 8.30 a.m., but hey, there was no getting back to sleep so I had a wonderfully long hot shower while Mari held the bed down. Breakfast was old-world elegant.
Our hotel didn’t have an elevator, so we had to lug everything down one very long, winding set of stairs to the front door. Jean-Daniel brought the van around to the front and just as we started to load up, we noticed a hot air balloon heading our way.
It just kept getting closer….
We couldn’t believe it was blowing right straight up our street, until it was directly above us. We started yelling and waving and the guys in the basket started waving back – how cool was that!
As we were piling in the van for our five hour drive to Bremen, we said goodbye to the hot air balloon and the Zwickau birdies did a “fly by” bye bye for us.
Just as we were leaving town we spotted a Trabi. “The Trabants, or Trabis for short, were in production in the German Democratic Republic without any significant change for more than three decades. And although the last new Trabi hit the roads in 1991, the vehicle -- which turns 50 this year -- has gained cult status in Germany.”
The highway heading West was brand new – smooth and clean driving all the way and the wind generators were everywhere
Once again we passed the old remnants of the Iron Curtain check point – but this time we were on a different highway.
Pulled into the Innside Inn www.innside.de parking lot about 3 p.m. This hotel was built on the very site where the German U-boats were constructed back in the thirties and forties. The entire area has been re-landscaped and brought into the 21st Century with beautiful hotels and shopping centers.
While Jean-Daniel was checking us in, we made ourselves at home in the Star Trek Voyager lobby. Of course JD had to get a quick shot of Space Case Cowboys.
Then Mari and I went to our room to work on these stupid blogs…..LOL but stepped out on the balcony just for a moment to wave goodbye to John, Sumi and JD as they went exploring.
John and JD were searching for treasure,
as the sun was setting in the West.
At 8 p.m. we all met up with our sponsor, Mike Schnepel who joined us for dinner. I’ve known Mike for 30 plus years. Hans, a long-time friend of John and Sumi also got there in time to join in with us.
We sat at the table till almost midnight getting reacquainted with our old friends – what an awesome day Friday the 9th of October turned out to be!
Thursday, 8th October, 2009
Left Calden at 10.30 a.m. on a windy overcast day. Picked up some light sprinkly rain as we took the scenic route through the rolling hills back towards East Germany, passing a rural remnant of the Old Dividing Fence between East and West Germany – what a piece of history.
It was about a four hour drive so we stopped along the way for a cup of coffee and a pit stop. As we were leaving John spotted a kiddie play ground, and off he went to ride the scooter….
I think he needs a little more practice himself before he goes for the gold.
The City of Zwickau is deep behind what used to be the Iron Curtain and many of the buildings were allowed to fall into total disrepair.
Our hotel on the outside looked a bit shabby on the outside but the rooms were clean and comfortable.
Andreas was our sponsor, www.liederbuch-zwickau.de and had us booked into a 700 year old church building that had been totally renovated from the ground up and turned into a Culture Center.
Andreas’ friends helped us carry everything into the Center.
With Sumi at the board, it wasn’t long before the sound was dialed in.
The Restaurant was “just around the corner” as most things are here in Germany
I don’t thing they’d ever seen anything quite like our little traveling band of musicians as we crowded around the table.
The food was extra-terrestrial!
Mari could not keep her hands away from my homemade asparagus soup for which they refused to give us the recipe.
Then it was back to the venue. By now it was dark and we traipsed around to the back of the building to avoid the crowd out front, but lo, as luck would have it, the door was locked from the inside, so Andreas went around to get the key and left us standing there in the dark. A few moments passed, and this beautiful young lady came walking up out of the dark, went straight to John, gave him a big hug and kiss on the cheek while the rest of us just stood there like a bunch of dummies, wondering, “Who is this girl? Has John been here before?” And who knows what Sumi was thinking! Then the door opened and the light came on and all of a sudden the girl realized it wasn’t Andreas that she had hugged and kissed but was his look-alike, long-lost brother, John York from the US of A.
She was totally embarrassed and we all roared with laughter at the mistake. Before we knew it the show was under way.
In the center of the room, there was a beam that measured about 30 inches by 30 inches. It was probably at least 20 to 25 feet high, and it held up the entire ceiling. How incredible it was to look at that beam and realize that 700 years ago, men just like us had cut it out of the forest, shaped it, and somehow brought it in to the brand new church that they were building and stood it on end, and through all of the wrack and ruin that this building has gone through, having fallen into total disrepair during the Communist occupation of East Germany, the roof had rotted out and caved in, but this support beam remained solid and steadfast, never once moving from the spot where those men had placed it.
The first half of the show took a bit of getting adjusted to, both for us as well as the audience. It was kind of like they were watching television while we would be singing a song, and we were thinking to ourselves, “Man, they’re just not getting it.” But then when the song was over, they would roar with approval and clap their hands on and on in a synchronized rhythm that sounded like a scene from River Dance. Finally, John and I realized that they were experiencing something they’d never experienced before, just as we were and we were all making friends with one another through the music and the stories translated by Jean-Daniel into the German language. Once again I called Sumi up on stage with her trusty little camera and she caught this shot of the Zwickau Wildlife in action.
How incredible to be singing in a 700 year old building and feeling the new life exploding from this present generation. The builders would have been proud to know that such joy was still being experienced by their descendants. Wednesday, 7th October 2009 Leaving Gotha,
We headed back to West Germany we passed Martin Luther’s safe house castle again, and we tried to get another photo going the other direction, but John couldn’t get the stupid window open, so you won’t be getting the second photo of the castle – it was just too funny. But Mari did get her window open and caught a shot of the security buildings where The Wall used to be – it looks like an Oklahoma truck stop now, but hey, if these buildings could speak, what a story they’d have to tell.
Pulled into our Hotel parking lot just before 2 p.m. It’s a beautiful hotel, Waldhotel Schaferberg Kassel www.waldhotel-schaeferberg.de How’s that for a website address?! It’s almost a paragraph long….
We had coffee and nectarines in the lobby and then a wonderful three hours for hot baths and naps before leaving for the show. Oh yeah, of course, we were hacking away on this blog after we had our naps, but hey, we have free unlimited internet here – how wonderfully decadent we feel. We had no idea what our venue for this evening was going to look like. First of all, we were way out on a country road with nothing but rolling hills and a few farm houses sprinkled here and there. I couldn’t help thinking, “Where are we going? Where’s all the people that are coming to the Sold Out show tonight?” First thing we saw when we pulled off the highway was a pasture full of beautiful horses.
Next thing we saw was the barn in which they told us was the theater where we would be performing.
Eighteen years ago the place had been converted from cow shed and feed storage building to a very unique and plushed out theater.
The dressing room was upstairs in what used to be the feed storage area. We had a wonderful view out the back window of the largest pile of horse manure I’ve ever seen in my life.
The owner of the venue runs a five star restaurant and had his chef prepare our evening meal for us. “Eat your heart our Gordon Ramsey!” This was a meal we will long remember, not only because it was SO delicious, (mushrooms and shrimp in a creamy dill sauce over homemade pasta, along with the freshest salad we’ve ever had,) but because we shared it with our longtime friends, Arno and his wife, Hannah.
Part of the dressing room had been set aside as a rehearsal hall and an exercise room, Sumi couldn’t restrain herself, so she went for the parallel bars.
We all decided she needed to work on her routine a little bit longer before going for the gold! LOL! The theater was not air-conditioned and by the time the show started we had a packed out house, in fact, they turned several dozen folks away, but let me tell you it was one hot night. Sumi had a wet towel for me so I could just slap myself in the face with it from time to time and try to get my body temperature down. Sweat was pouring off of me like I was standing under a running shower.
I couldn’t resist calling Sumi up on stage to get another wildlife photo of our Calden audience. They all were yelling out, “Konichiwa…” as Sumi shot the photo.
After the show people were crowding around the tables where John and I were signing their cds and some of them were telling us how far they had come to see the show, and the long distance prize went to a young man who had driven all the way from Berlin – over 300 kms (nearly 200 miles).
John and I couldn’t think of one person we would drive a 400 mile round trip to hear ‘em sing…we were truly honored.
Tuesday, 6th October, 2009 No travel today because we’re already “here!” So it was eleven hours of solid sleep and an easy day sitting in the lounge writing these silly, stupid Blogs…..that everyone loves to read – at least, we keep telling ourselves that.
Well, if nothing else, when we get old, which is as Alex says, “Just around the corner,” we’ll be able to look back at these great times we are getting to experience. Because we had some time in the afternoon, Jean-Daniel pulled us out of our rooms for some relaxed PR shots in this beautiful hotel lobby.
While Mari and I were hacking away on our blogs, John and Sumi went for a wonderful stroll around town. What a beautiful city this is! YOU GOTTA GO TO GOTHA!!!
Some languages are international.
Even though Alex assured us, “The Londoner, www.thelondoner.de is just around the corner,” we piled in the van with all our equipment and drove there. Alex met us with his characteristic, transparent smile.
We walked up two flights of stairs to the show room, and what a delicious room it was. Alex had set it up like a room from a German fairy tale.
Once again we were blessed with a soundman, who knew what he was doing. Peter and his helper, Joshua, (who is one of the students we had met at the high school the day before), had us up and running in about 15 minutes, then it was downstairs to eat. Alex had prepared it himself – a recipe he had picked up while working in Italy at a restaurant.
After dinner, John and I tuned up while Mari got the cd table squared away and Sumi did her final adjustments on the stage, (harmonicas, guitar pics, water – stuff like that.) The show started at 8 p.m. sharp, and off we went.
The first half of the show we noticed that as I was telling my stories, the audience was all looking at their shoes and politely waiting for the next song. It would kind of be like us listening to a German performer telling stories about his life in German while we’re all waiting for him to sing his next song. So the second half we asked Jean-Daniel to translate for us, which he did, and wow, what a difference it made. People were locked into every moment right through to the second encore. Of course, we had to call Sumi up to capture another photo – this time of the Gotha Wildlife.
The show ended around 10.30 p.m. but people were just not in a hurry to leave. Mari had a great time trying to learn German from Ute and her son.
After the room finally emptied out around midnight, just a few of the sponsors and their families, sat around sharing a glass of wine and just generally basking in the afterglow of the evening.
Before we said our final goodnight, someone suggested we all get up on stage and take a last group photo together.
I must say, that of all the places our little team has traveled over the last two years, Gotha was one of the loveliest places, filled with the friendliest bunch of folks we’ve ever met. It was REALLY hard to say goodbye to these precious new friends of ours. Let’s hope we all get to “Go To Gotha” again real soon.
Monday, 5th October, 2009 Gotha (Our son, Brennon’s 33rd Birthday, and our “Day Off???”) And here we are in East Germany where we can’t even make a phone call home to sing Happy Birthday! So emails and blogs are all we got to give….but hey, On the way to Gotha, Jean-Daniel pointed out to us the very castle where Martin Luther was protected by a Duke while he translated the Latin Bible into German. How incredible to see the very building where such history was made.
We passed the old check point that divided East and West Germany, and felt great awe at the reality of how the times have changed and what once was forbidden to East Germans was now freely available to them. We were on our way to Gotha, a very, very old city in Eastern Germany.
Jean-Daniel in his meticulous, Swiss way, drove us exactly to a place he’d never been before. Well, his GPS did help – LOL! We arrived at the Hotel AM Schlosspark www.hotel-am-schlosspark.de at 1 p.m. Alex, our host, met us in the lobby and off we walked to the High School, “Gymnasium Ernestinum” which Alex said, “was just around the corner”. He also told us that this High School was built in the Sixteen Hundreds and is the oldest functioning High School in Europe.
The teachers were even more excited about us coming to their school than the student were, and they were really jazzed, so all this to say, the place was buzzing when we walked through the door – filled with TV guys, newspaper guys and who knows who else was hanging around in the crowd.
After some quick preliminary shots, John and I got up on stage, sang a few songs and then opened the room to questions.
One of the teachers told us how she had been sixteen years old, secretly listening to the songs of the West – the Beatles, the Byrds, Barry McGuire, Bob Dylan, songs that were all forbidden by her government, and punishable by law if you were caught listening to them, and now what wonderful freedom they were experiencing to be open to the Western world. Tragically Gotha has lost about 15 to 20 thousand young people who have headed west since the Wall came down. Our sponsor, Alex, said out of his graduating house of around 200 students, he was the only one who is still living here in Gotha, and what a bright, brilliant young man he is. After the school assembly, we were scheduled to meet with Knut Kreuch, the Lord Mayor of Gotha. Once again Alex said, “His office is just around the corner.” It would seem that everything in Gotha is “just around the corner….” LOL! It had started raining, so Jean-Daniel grabbed some umbrellas from our hotel and off we walked to meet the mayor.
We were a bit late arriving, but the Lord Mayor was very open and friendly inviting us to sit and enjoy a glass of Gotha Champagne. Gotha is world renowned for its water, in fact “Gotha” means “Good Water!” He and his assistant were drinking orange juice as they had other meetings coming up after ours.
Then John and I were invited to sign the Golden Book. How incredible to be honored in such a way.
Then it was off to dinner at the El Toro Steakhouse, a favorite hang out for Alex and his friends with the BEST food in town. If you want to email them for a reservation, here’s their address eltoro-gotha@gmx.de As it was October 5th, they recommended to us the special Oktoberfest Beer – well, we had to try it, so we said, “Sure, bring us a glass..” Hahahaha…. We had no idea about the Oktoberfest glasses.
Alex had a big cheesy grin on his face because he knew he knew what he’d tricked us into trying….. and these were the “small” one liter glasses! The “boot” was a two liter glass that took both hands to lift to your lips! Ah, these Germans, they do love their beer, and actually, it was really good beer. The inside of the restaurant has been remodeled using old recycled material and has the feeling of antiquity, but it’s only a couple of years old.
Gotha has and is being entirely renovated from the ground up. Many of the buildings during the cold war had fallen into total disrepair, but since the wall came down twenty years ago, they have been bringing their town back into its old splendor. It has been so recently rebuilt, that all the technology is cutting edge. It’s like they haven’t had to update anything, they just started from ground zero with the best that technology has to offer.
If you ever come to Eastern Europe and want to walk the streets of ancient history, you must “GO TO GOTHA!!!” You will not be disappointed. Sunday, 4th October, 2009 Jim Tiedeman who was our host at the military USO show also hosted us at a most gracious and divinely appointed hotel, the Stegenberger Hotel in Bad Homburg www.bad-homburg_steigenberger.de
Jim and his family met us that afternoon and took us for a walk through one of the oldest parks in Europe. All the trees have been gifted to Bad Homburg by visiting royalty and dignitaries from other countries. Some were hundreds of years old.
We saw the first golf course in Europe – only a nine holer but it was gorgeous.
The park was filled with remnants of ancient Roman occupancy.
Also a lovely Russian chapel hundreds of years old lavished with real gold trimmings.
Our eyes could not believe what they were seeing, such intricate and incredible artwork. I couldn’t help thinking that if this structure was in Los Angeles, it would be stripped to the framework on the first moonless night….LOL!
On we went to the Roman Health Spa where if we had have had time, we could have had a hot mineral bath and a deep massage.
But alas, no time for Roman decadence, we were on a mission to experience as much as we could in as short a time as possible. So Mari and I had a little sit down,
while the others walked around the entrance to the Kaiser Wilhem Baths.
That’s typical of being on the road – so much to experience and our schedule allows so little time to do it. There was all kinds of eclectic artwork scattered throughout the park and wouldn’t you know it, Jim and I found one that looked just like us.
On our walk back to the hotel, wouldn’t you know, I dropped my sunglasses, my only pair of sunglasses. Some things never change.
Jim’s daughter kept pointing at me and saying, “Captain Hook Daddy, Captain Hook!”
But our little group just chortled away, tramping down the sidewalk, totally oblivious to my one-eyed observance of it all.
So that was just the afternoon after a one hour drive from Wetzlar – so, as Candace would say, “How Divine!” Our hotel room was just an extension of our walk. I opened the back windows of our suite and “Green Green” just poured in through our open window.
A quick afternoon nap for the old one eyed duffer, while Mari worked on Blogs, Facebook and Emails. Thank God I married my secretary, I surely couldn’t afford to pay her for all the work she does…. And that’s the truth! Sinkkasten – what a great club to play. We were there fourteen months ago and had a great crowd for our first time around the block, but this time, the place was packed out.
I think Werner’s radio show really got the word out. He and his wife Lydia came to see the show and of course, Mari and Sumi had to cheese it up, but hey, Werner’s personality is totally magnetic! If John and I had’ve been around we would have both squeezed into the shot too.
But we were so busy signing autographs after the show and saying hello to all our new friends, that we missed out.
Some of the younger people there were even pulling the posters off the walls and having them sign them. Phew….. what a day! Felt like it was a month long…no wonder I’m so tired…. Mari just said, “Poor Diddums..” I don’t get no respect around here….
3rd October, 2009
Helmut, our show sponsor and his daughter Rebecca, came by Petershof to join us for breakfast. Eggs, toast, cheese, bread, homemade jellies and jams…gallons of coffee….good, good, good….
Sumi noticed a lovely mannequin in the dining room with a fox fur and a leopard skin dress. Actually, she was quite taken with it, so she struck a pose while Mari shot the pic. Of course, I couldn’t allow Sumi to upstage me, so I had to get into the act, and then John couldn’t stand it, so he also jumped in for his big photo shoot. Mari said we should do a contest and have people vote on who they think won the fashion modeling contest at Petershof. SUMI? Before we knew it, it was leaving time. Franz and Dagmar were like family and our goodbyes were very rich with hugs and kisses on the cheeks. Of course Emily was running all around our ankles so she got some hugs and scratches too, returning with big slurpy licks, but hey, that’s what dogs do. If you don’t like the licks, don’t pet the dog! LOL! As sad as we were leaving such a wonderful experience with our extended family and friends, we were filled with delightful anticipation because we were headed for another friend’s home. Thomas had just made it home from the hospital with a new kidney. No more dialysis, happy, but hurting with another surgery looming on the near horizon. That too was a great reunion for all of us.
We met Thomas and Petra last year, as Thomas was the organizer for our show in Siegen. (Scroll down to Blog, August 18th 2008)
They’d both been working all morning getting lunch together and what a great lunch it was PETRA’S KITCHEN Our two hours there seemed like five minutes. If we weren’t scheduled to do another show tonight, we could have spent two or three days. As it was, we crammed a lot of loving into a very short time.
On to the Hotel Mercure for a couple of hours rest before heading on to Franzis, our venue for the night in Wetzlar.
Manfred met us at the door and gave us some hot coffee and helped us set up for the show.
Another packed out house where they stood clapping, dancing and singing along with us for two and a half hours…..
We’re back in our rooms now writing this blog. It’s 2 a.m. and we’ve got another show tomorrow night in Frankfurt, so we’re shutting it down. Night, night….
2nd October, 2009 We couldn’t believe our rooms were that high above the street! I mean, John got a crook in his neck just trying to find where he’d spent the night.
While John was looking up, Mari wound up digging around in the luggage looking for our vitamins.
Finally we got it together and hit the road for Altenkirchen where we were booked into Petershof Bed and Breakfast, www.landhotel-petershof.de
We’d been booked there fourteen months ago and we were really looking forward to getting reacquainted with our old friends, Franz and Dagmar, and of course, the sweetest dog in Germany, Emily….
Emily came bounding out the door to meet us, all wiggly and cuddly. We could only imagine that she really did remember who we were. There’s something about a dog that makes you feel “normal.” I mean, you can fool people, you can even fool yourself, but you can’t fool a doggie. We arrived at Stadthalle around 5 p.m. Helmut and his crew were waiting for us. Usual quick set up and sound check and off we went to an incredible Chinese Restaurant over the road. Hey, we had an opening act, the Folk Group “Stimmklang” which means “Vocal Sounds of Life” in German. The room was set up like a nightclub with tables and chairs.
They had an open bar in the lobby and waitresses were serving the tables. People were waiting in line when we got there so when the room opened up, they came pouring in with drinks in hand ready for the show. Stimmklang did about a 30 minute set and we did our normal two hour show, and closed by inviting Stimmklang back up on stage to do a final song together. We decided to do a Woody Guthrie tune, so we closed the night out with “This Land is Your Land.”
October 1st, 2009
It was an easy morning with a late check out. Mari caught this photo of John and Sumi having breakfast at Hotel Christine.
About an hour and a half drive to Frankfurt. Green, green, the grass is green on both sides of the hill. What beautiful weather we’re experiencing on this tour and Germany is absolutely gorgeous. Why did people ever leave this country to go anywhere? Checked into the Frankfurt Marriott Hotel.
The Hessischer Rundfunk www.hr-online.de Radio Talkshow people had provided our rooms for us and the Front Office Manager, Raad said he’d upgraded Mari and me to a Suite on the 34th floor. We thought, “Wow, how cool! The 34th floor – wow, we’ll be able to see the whole city.” So off we went into the elevator, up, up, up, up, up. I noticed in the elevator a very loud electric buzzing sound. I thought to myself, “Wow, this elevator is really buzzing.” When we got out of the elevator and stepped into the hall, the whole hall was buzzing, so I thought it was something to do with the elevator, and our room was right next to the elevator shaft, so when we went into our room, the buzzing was even louder. We couldn’t believe it! This beautiful Suite with a loud, spiking electric buzz coming from every direction. Then I opened the curtains to see the city. Surprise! Our Suite overlooked the satellite dishes…..
So we went to John and Sumi’s room just down the hall. Their room wasn’t buzzing and look at their view….
So Mari and I went back to our room and I got on the phone and said, “I can’t believe it, this room has got a very loud buzz going on and all I can see out my window is satellite dishes. Do you think you could just give me a regular room? We don’t need a Suite, we’re only going to be here one night and I’d really like a room that doesn’t buzz.” So they sent up a young man with our new room keys. While he was standing there, I said, “Listen to this buzz, can you hear it?” He said, “Oh yes.” I said, “What’s making it?” He shook his head bewildered, “I don’t know,” he said. So off he went, and up we went to the 41st floor, noticing all the way the buzzing, buzzing, buzzing in the hallways and on the elevator and right into our new room. We couldn’t believe it! The whole damn hotel was buzzing. I’m starting to think, “I’m not going to be able to stay here, I won’t get a wink of sleep with that horrible noise going on.” So I called the desk again telling them this room was buzzing also. He asked me to hold on for a minute, so while I was waiting for him to come back on the line, I sat down on the chair at the desk, and lo, the buzzing got REALLY loud! I told Mari, “Hey, when I sit down, the buzzing gets louder,” and when I looked at my right, her carryon bag was sitting right next to my shoulder. I reached my hand over and touched her bag and it was buzzing away. I told Mari, “It’s this bag, what have you got in this bag?” So she came over and unzipped it, and there it was, her Pink Electric Toothbrush buzzing away. Did we feel stupid or what? About that time Raad came back on the line and I apologized to him and told him what had happened. We both had a great laugh and he told me that in all of his years in the hotel business, this was the strangest complaint he’d had! The next morning when we went down to check out, the whole front desk at the Marriott was laughing about the electric pink toothbrush. He told Mari this was the funniest thing that had ever happened.
But because of the buzzy toothbrush, Raad had extended Executive Lounge privileges for all of us and we really took advantage of his gift.
And the view from the Executive Lounge was amazing as it was on the 43rd floor.
John was so concerned about going up to the “Executive Lounge,” and not knowing the dress code, he had Sumi fashion a lovely toilet paper tie with the hotel logo printed on it.
I think Sumi could start making these things and selling them to restaurants where ties are required. Our radio interview was scheduled for 8 p.m to midnight.
Konnie, the Producer of TV show we did last year at Waldeck Castle, met us in the lobby at 5 p.m. to take us up to the dining room.
Before we knew it, we were in the studio with Werner Reinke, a long-time radio show host.
Three hours of live radio and it seemed like 30 minutes, laughing, talking, telling stories, playing all the old original recordings, “Tambourine Man” by the Byrds, “San Francisco with Flowers” by Scott McKenzie, “Everybody’s Talkin’” by Fred Neil, even had a copy of “Three Wheels On My Wagon” by the New Christy Minstrels.
Then John came into the studio and we tuned up our twelve strings and did some live stuff for Werner and his listening audience.
We left the studio about 11.30 p.m. and made it back to the Marriott with enough time to zip up to the Executive Lounge for a nice soft glass of red wine and then it was off to bed for the five of us.
September 30, 2009 Early morning call – packed and ready to go by 8 a.m. Quick breakfast, brushed our teeth and we were on the road by 9 a.m. Five hour drive to Landsthul, where there is a US military base. Of course, I slept most of the way. Checked into the Hotel Christine www.hotel-christine.com HOTEL CHRISTINE where we occupied the largest rooms we’ve had so far in the tour. Beautiful King sized bed with a little wrought iron railed balcony overlooking the tiled rooftops of the village, VIEW FROM BALCONY Jake and Jim met us in the lobby and led us over to the Base where they’d already worked out our security passes. JOHN JIM JAKE BARRY The USO building was built two years ago in ten weeks time by volunteers. OUTSIDE SHOT OF USO Now volunteers staff it, using all donated funds so the guys can have a place to relax and recuperate from their war experiences and physical injuries. It was a very sobering time for us to meet these young men who had experienced so much physical and emotional pain, and yet, they could still smile and sing along with us. USO GUYS It was great just to sit and talk for a few hours about “normal” things – how to make mint sauce from scratch, how to roast a lamb or make pumpkin soup. We met guys from all across the United States – California to New York, Missouri to Michigan, just young American men “caught in the devil’s bargain” faithfully fulfilling the instructions they’ve been given by the powers that be, (whoever they are.) It was an acoustic show – no microphones, no amplification, just a big living room full of guys and a couple of girls, all in uniform. USO LONG SHOT Afterwards they fed us a great spaghetti dinner with a huge salad, parmesan cheese and hot garlic bread, finished off with strawberry shortcake and whipped cream. There went my calories for the day…..and no treadmill to burn them off with. We returned to the hotel about 9.30 p.m. and wound up in the lobby doing our Facebook and email and writing this blog page. Some things are the same the world over – the floor must be vacuumed, so we dutifully lifted our feet as the laughing lady house keeper zoomed around the room. VACUUMING LOBBY Last thing we said to each other before going to sleep was, “Wow, here we are moving on down the road, and those guys are still there in their outpatient dormitories waiting to be sent either back home to the States or returned to the front lines in harm’s way once again.”
September 28, 2009 Travel day from Winterthur to Ingolstadt. Got caught in a huge traffic jam, and experienced three different countries, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. I only experienced two countries because I slept all the way through Austria with my head bouncing against the seatbelt strap over my shoulder. Better than the window pane… We arrived at our hotel in Ingolstadt, the Park Hotel Heidehof, www.parkhotel-heidehof.de late in the afternoon so it was just a quick dinner, work on our blogs. The only channel on television they spoke English was CNN – “Boring!” So we turned that off and went to sleep. September 29, 2009 Had a wonderful 45 minute walk over to a huge shopping mall where we just snooped around. Tried to buy a couple of things but they wouldn’t take a credit card and we didn’t have any Euros, so it was a very inexpensive shopping trip. We just left everything on the counter and said, “Well, thanks anyway,” and walked out. Left for the club a couple of hours early. I needed to find a guitar stand and John was looking for a soft guitar bag that he could use to carry his guitar in and out of the venues and up to his room and back. His hard shell case weighs a ton. We located a quaint little music store called Music In www.music-in.de I found my guitar stand, John found his guitar bag. The guy working there was really cool, but it was obvious he didn’t play the guitar because he showed so little interest in John’s 12-string.
We had a great walk around the city center.
The Danube River ran right along next to the city so we were all singing Strauss’ “Blue Danube”. Jean-Daniel I think got a little embarrassed with us “crazy Americans” and was letting everybody know, “I don’t know them, I don’t know them, they’re not with me….” So we sang louder….la,la,la,la, oompah, oompah…..”as John practiced his rodeo training.
Seems like no matter how far we travel, even in downtown Ingolstadt, we just can’t get away from Hollywood. Can you believe that?
Mari and I got ahead of the others so we took a little break while the slowmoes, (the looky loo tourist types) were catching up with us.
Then it was back to the car and onto the club Neue Welt www.neuewelt-ingolstadt.de Another unique restaurant bar Music Club. Why don’t we have more of these in the States, especially in California? Why do we have to fly half way around the world to find an audience that will drive for hours to see our show? Oh well, whatever it takes. John and I are definitely “fools of the trade.” Once again, George, the sound guy was excellent. He grafted our on-stage mixing system right into his house system and had us up and running in about twenty minutes.
We retired to the dressing room that had a beautiful long table in it and in came the food.
Mari and I shared a bowl of pork vegetable soup and John and Sumi had onion soup. Jean-Daniel had a salad, and then we all had vegetable pasta with a light creamy cheese sauce mixed all mixed through it – not the thing to eat before a show. I should have just stopped with the soup, but the pasta was SO delicious, I ate the whole thing. Then we had about an hour and a half to show time, so John and I stretched out on the bench and caught a nap.
Mari knitted and Sumi took photos.
The show was very interesting for us. Maybe we had just been spoiled by our last audience in Switzerland, but it seemed these Bavarian Germans just sat there with their arms crossed looking at us very seriously. It took a while but they started opening up about half way through the first part of the show.
By the end of the show we actually had TWO encores – they just wouldn’t stop clapping, so in truth, it was the best non-response response we’ve had so far in Europe.
After the show people crowded around our autograph table telling us how wonderful the show was, how much fun they’d had and brought all kinds of old vinyl albums and even some cassettes for us to sign.
Said they’d loved the show. John and I were looking at each other wondering if this was the same audience we’d just performed for. It really was a wonderful venue and a great bunch of folks.
Sunday, 27th September 2009 Show days are always a bit boring because the show itself is such a high energy presentation that it takes everything we’ve got, so it’s just a “take it easy” kind of day and that’s what today was. Mari and I went for another 40 minute walk around town to see what we’d missed the night before when we walked around in the dark.
Then it was back to the hotel where I went up to John and Sumi’s room to work on some new songs while Mari downloaded some of Sumi’s photos and worked on our blogs. John and I were having so much fun laying out the tunes we want to do on our next recording that the whole afternoon slipped away and before we knew it, it was time to get ready for our trip to the Casino Theater. www.casinotheater.ch
It’s really a unique situation because the entire building is owned by a group of artists so it’s set up with the best sound and lighting we’ve seen in many a day.
The TV crew was already there when we arrived. They caught a few shots of our sound check and then we went down to the Casino Restaurant with Daniella (the artist co-ordinator).
After dinner I grabbed a 45 minute nap in one of the dressing rooms and woke up just in time to suit up for the show. The TV crew only wanted to do three of our songs that they would then use to edit into a production featuring many other artists.
I don’t know what’s happening with our show. I mean it’s really getting larger than life.
About half way through the second half, I asked Sumi to come up and get a shot of our audience. Once again I told them that we needed to get a shot of the Wildlife here in Switzerland, which gave them a bit of a chuckle as Sumi snapped the shot.
Right in the middle of the last song, the pick up on John’s guitar broke and with a bit of fiddling around, we realized it couldn’t be fixed, so I gave him my cable and we closed the show with “In My Life” where John plays and I sing.
While Sumi was packing up the gear, we were out front with Mari signing cds and just generally having a great time saying hello and goodbye to all the folks The end of another perfect day…..
Saturday, 26th September, 2009 We met in the hotel restaurant for breakfast about 9 a.m. and Jean-Daniel introduced us to Mike Bischoff and his video crew. www.sonntag.ch They had already set up a room at the hotel for an interview so we got to it and had a great time talking about the unfolding of our personal life experiences.
By the time the interview had finished, Mari, John and Sumi had everything waiting in the lobby to be loaded into our Renault Rent A Van, and off we went to Jean-Daniel’s house for lunch. His home overlooks Lake Geneva and while we were standing on the lawn looking out across the lake, a huge waterspout rose out of the bay just below and shot water over 300 feet straight up into the air. What a sight it was.
Jean-Daniel’s wife, Angela had prepared a wonderful surprise birthday meal for us as it is Sumi’s birthday today. They had invited two friends that we met on our last tour, Reto and Barbara who presented Sumi with some wonderful chocolates for her birthday gift.
After lunch Jean-Daniel invited two of his neighbors, Lisa and Jens over for a chat and they were really a fun couple of people – absolutely bursting with energy and so excited about coming to the show in Winterthur.
Jens and I got off together and started swapping stories and isn’t it funny how you can meet someone for the first time and feel like you’ve known them all your life.
After goodbye hugs and a kiss on each cheek, that seems to be what they do here in Switzerland, we were back on the road again to Winterthur. We hadn’t driven more than 10 kilometers before the four of us were sound asleep. Fortunately Jean-Daniel didn’t doze off as he was driving. It was amazing. It took no time at all to get where we were going. Funny that! Sleep is like time travel. You close your eyes and instantly you arrive at your destination.
Another super hotel – The Park Hotel www.phwin.ch After unpacking, even thought it was late, we got together for a walk around town which was absolutely delightful. Lots of shoe stores! Racks and racks of boots. They’ve taken an old section of the town, closed off all the streets and made a comfortably spacious place for people to linger and wander, to sit and talk at the outside cafes, just to go window shopping on a very cool, fall evening.
We found an Italian restaurant, Molino Pizzeria www.molino.ch It was rocket salad with balsamic dressing and shaved parmesan cheese, salmon risotto, salmon pastas and a vegetarian ravioli, accompanied with a bottle of red wine and finished off the meal with a cup of coffee for me, a cup of tea for Mari and three espressos. With a nice walk back to our hotel, it was the perfect end of a perfect travel day. No show tonight.
Friday, September 25, 2009 Since Mari and I didn’t bring our treadmill with us (they wouldn’t check it at the gate), we hit the early morning streets – lots of hills and long sidewalk stairways going up and down, so we got in our 45 minutes of rough going anyway. Had a great telephone interview for Sunday’s show in Winterthur, a nice afternoon nap, shower and a shave and off to the Muhle Hunziken Hall which was one of the more unique venues we’ve ever played. Check out the Front Gate
Originally 200 years ago it was a mill that had burned down twice and rebuilt both times. It still had the long pulley shafts that used to carry the belt drive systems to the machines on the floor. The place was filled with art – wooden sculptures, cast steel statues,
rows of leadlight windows, carvings, paintings, objects of all sizes and shapes, magical lighting everywhere. It was like performing in a wonderland of eclectic art.
Peter, the owner, met us at the load in gate and introduced us to his family who ran the entire operation. Our sound man, Tom, was an old pro and had us up and running in twenty minutes.
Peter’s daughter served up a kettle filled to the brim with curried chicken and another kettle filled with steamed rice along with exotic cheeses, sausages, fresh grapes, pears, bananas, oranges and fresh bakery breads, not to mention the bars of Swiss chocolate scattered on the table.
We were all tuned up and ready to go, but not understanding the language, we didn’t really know what was happening out on stage, so when the clock struck 21:00 (9 p.m.) I asked John, “Are you ready?” He said, “Yep, let’s do it,” and out we went. The audience immediately started clapping and cheering but Peter’s daughter came running up to the stage saying, “No, go back, go back.” So I told the audience to stop clapping and informed them we had to do it all over again, causing laughter to break out across the entire room. The show launched like a Cape Canaveral event – instant blast off, instant audience participation, and for the next two hours we went trippin’ the sixties.
It had been two months since our last performance and we were like race horses snorting in our stalls anticipating the gates springing open, and when they sprung, so did we. Mari said she saw me do some dance steps she’d never seen before. I think it was because of all the up and down stairs that we walked, my leg muscles were a bit wobbly and I was compensating. All the way back to the hotel, the five of us just chattered and chortled away riding the frizzy joy of what we had just experienced. I think Peter has become a friend of the Trippin’ train or maybe he just developed a great appreciation for Mari….LOL! What do you think….hmmmmm???
Thursday, September 24, 2009 After an evening’s rehearsal the night before, John York, his wife Sumi, Mari and I loaded up our Dollar Rent A Van and headed for LAX
A sweet drive to the airport – took the 210 to the 605 to the 105 to LAX. We had such fat luggage, we couldn’t get it through the narrow door into the elevator. Too funny….
We got to the check in counter so early that we had to wait 45 minutes before the ticketeers showed up, so we were the first ones in line, so we asked the people behind us to take this photo.
The flight from LAX to Zurich was only 10 ½ hours. Didn’t catch a wink that night, either did Mari. John and Sumi were snoring away – woke up just in time for breakfast. Going through customs was a non-event. We didn’t even have to fill out any forms. Just got off the plane, picked up our luggage, showed them our passports and walked out to the parking lot where Jean-Daniel, our Tour Manager was waiting for us in his Rent A Renault Van. Zurich to Bern was about an hour and a half of gentle traffic five o’clock in the evening traffic – not like LA that’s for sure…LOL! Checked in to the Hotel Ambassador www.fassbindhotels.com unpacked, had a shower, clean clothes, and went down for dinner in the Pavillon Restaurant. The meals were presented so beautifully, we couldn’t’ figure out whether we should eat them or frame them.
So we ate ‘em, absolutely delicious! Then off to bed for twelve hours of solid sleep. A long day and nine hours ahead of California. Thank God Thursday was such a short day for us.
|
|
