Gerardmer: the last show of the tour

We were delighted with Gerardmer, Alsace, France. We left the highway from Brussels (via a bonus country, Luxembourg, with its lovely park) and were guided down smaller and smaller roads until we reached a beautiful lake, a lovely town, with trees and mountains, all around. We set up at le Grattoir and soundchecked with the wonderful owners Joe and Pascal, and eagerly headed towards the lake.



It was our first swim of the tour, and beautifully warm and still. We returned for dinner at 8.30pm, quiche and chips and salad cooked by the charming Patricia, and in wonderful company. We learned that this is a holiday town, sailing in the summer, skiing and iceskating in the winter. We learned that at the moment, at 18 degrees, everyone thinks the water is freezing cold. We learned that 8,000 people live here, and that the size can triple in the holiday weeks. I felt sad that this was the last show. We played, and talked to the nice people. The bar is the ground floor of an old hotel. We slept in the old rooms upstairs, with a ghostly feel and wonderful decor. Look at the amazing ceiling I got to wake up to:



Now it's the end of the tour. I tried to encourage those men, but in the end these blogs are all by me. Looking back, I think they are fairly accurate. Tour was basically just this with: more frisbee, more games in the car, more waiting, more confusion, more exhiliration. We loved it. Thank you. We wish bliss for you.

Brussels, muscles

One of these shows that will remain nameless, I was talking about how I would do it in my venue: firstly, I'd welcome the band warmly. Then I'd tell them where to park and where to unload their gear. I'd offer them a drink and maybe some snacks. We'd sit down together and I'd tell them what was happening for the evening, how the sound check would work, when we'd eat, what time we'd play, how long we should play for, how the door would work, what our roles and responsibilities were, how payment would work. As other people arrived, I'd introduce them and tell them their roles. We'd soundcheck, maybe eat together, maybe if there was time I'd tell them where a park was, and then later we'd play, and I'd give them a nice place to sleep. But all this is baubles: the most important thing is to let everyone know what's happening.



So it was wonderful to arrive in Brussels to our warm hosts saying, and I quote, "we will take care of you" - giving us snacks, letting us know what's what. They were lovely people and great dinner table companions. Le Bar du Matin is a really great venue, with free gigs at least every week, and lots of people. It's huge, with the longest continuous bar (circular) in Europe, and tables on the broad, broad pavement. People gathered there, happy for the warmth after weeks of rain. It was a great show, and the fresh mint tea was delicious. We partied on, talking to the people from all over the world that frequent Brussels, or at least this bar. Eventually Angus and Ben led us to the hotel (!) that they had already been to. This took several hours. At first it was because the men were playing frisbee, while I hissed at them not to hit any cars, and I was forced several times to confiscate that frisbee. Secondly it was because we got entirely lost. We walked for hours on the empty streets (sometimes the same ones, several times...), philosphising, disagreeing on the correct direction... We finally arrived and managed to check in. I set off some alarm by not closing the door correctly. High drama. Lake found a cool hair dryer.



The next night there was more frisbee/lying down in the park, and we got our tourist on. We stayed with Halit, a guy from couchsurfing we'd met at the gig the night before. Turkish, he lived in the Turkish part of town, and took us for pide and told us the history of modern Turkey. He took us to drink tea in a local community centre with some kindly old Turkish men. Halit was awesome. The men watched a two week old rugby game on the internet, and we made ourselves comfy on the floor for a good rest.

Clermont-Ferrand: Urbantramper makes it to a hotel room

Clermont-Ferrand is a lovely city surrounded by forests and volcanoes. We were first here a few weeks ago, staying the night with a couchsurfer on our way from Bordeaux to Prague. That couchsurfer was the lovely Isa, who has since joined us at out gigs in Ulm and Stuttgart. In Clermont she lives in a squat called Hotel de Vils. This was once a youth hostel, and this group of people have occupied it for three years. They run a pay-what-you-want restaurant, put on talks, movies, gigs and art events, have people to stay for free, and have made an abandoned hostel into a thriving and welcoming community complete with vegie garden, bee hives public spaces, private spaces, a cinema, a darkroom, a wood room, a mechanic room, a dance room. The people there are kind took us to "Cafe-Lecteur" and fed us delicious quiche and taught us to juggle. We were delighted to discover that the hotel we were provided with for this time was right next door.



Our hosts at Rat Pack gave us lovely hot bread and cheese and salad and then we played our show. What can I say? We were great and then we got to walk through the old streets to a hotel room!

Paradise: Switzerland

Our friends Monica and Matt, formerly of Wellington, arranged this gig for us in their pretty home town of Bishopschell. It was so nice! After some delicious pizza, we played at 7pm - what felt like a very dignified hour for a Sunday evening. Paul opened his pub, Jambalaya, especially for us, and Monica and Matt provided the gear and brought all their friends and family along. It was a good show, more chilled out than usual due to the Sundayness, and also the fact it was our fourth show in as many days. Everyone was kind and generous and cool. We wanted to live in the Swiss countryside too.



We stayed at Matt and Monica's that night, a huge former cheese factory for them and their friends, beside a river for swimming when it's not unseasonably cold like it was when we were there. We had tea and slept soundly. In the morning we were awoken by Monica's mum, bearing big bags and talking in Swiss German. She had brought us delicious food – so much food – for our journey. It was like Christmas.



On the journey we talked about how we loved Switzerland, how everyone is so kind and everything is so pretty. We arrived at Fribourg, another beautiful town by the river, to other dear friends. We has last stayed two weeks earlier, as a stop on our long journey from Bordeaux to Prague. Then, they had cooked us a delicious barbeque on the river after a swim, and the heat had suddenly broken in to heavy rain, and we'd walked the streets of the old town with the bells ringing and then the fireworks firing for the Swiss national day.



This time, Miga and Celine made us raclette, and we sat around a high-tech device where you could fry stuff on the grill, and melt cheese in little pans below the grill, and then you poured it all on boiled potatoes.

Ulmighty

The Hemperium is a hemp themed bar, a sunfilled bar and patio beside the motorway. Herman our host flys gliders for a hobby and has since he was 14 years old. After soundcheck he took us for a walking tour of Ulm. Ulm was heavily bombed during the war but the cathedral was spared. Albert Einstein was born in Ulm. The famous tailor of Ulm built a flying machine and launched himself off a big platform to cross the Danube. He failed but he lived.



Herman seemed to know everyone. We met some ladies on a hens night and the boys had to sing the tune from the A team. Herman our host told us to help ourselves to a buffet of hemp spezler, hemp pesto, salad, falafel and chips, and brought us hemp beer and mate soft drink.



We played well, late. After more party, we retired to camp beds in the restaurant downstairs. Ben, giving up his sleeping bag and campbed for a friend, slept on a bar bench, using his drum mat for a blanket. Noble man.

Berlindo

We spent a couple of days in Berlin, with dear friends old and new, cooking us delicious curry, drawing maps to 2 euro pizza and falafel, taking us on bike rides on wide streets, leading us to lovely canals.



We left for a night to Hamburg, and for our show Friday night we arrived comfortably, like yes, this is just where we should be.



Madame Claude is a great place, with furniture stuck to the ceiling to make you feel upside down, and people from all over the world conversing together. We were preceded by the soft electronic and heartfelt lyrics of locals Elephant vs Whale. When we played the small cellar room was full with people, and we all sweated together. The venue is strictly drum free: not even tambourines are allowed. Drumless I found it hard to relax into it at first, keeping hearing what was missing. It made for a different show, more quiet, and like we were all listening harder. I shook the egg as hard as I could, Ben and Lake keyboarded and guitared with extra rhythm, and the audience clapped their hands and slapped their thighs. It was a wonderful time.

Thanks Kareen and Christoph, and Annie, for your kind hosting!

Hamburg, porty city!

In Hamburg it rained. We walked through a ceramic tunnel under the river, and played Frisbee in port places.



After sound check our kind host Zucke (sp?) took us to our apartment.



Our apartment! It was beds on the second floor of a corner building nearby. It was wallpapered with the posters of the bands that had played in the venue, Molotow. I sat in the big windows and looked at the people in the park. All the people were goodlooking and stylish, and the grafitti too. It was hard to leave our Band Apartment, but needs must. We found our way past a glowing carnival back to Die Reeperbahn, a main-drag-feeling kind of street with lots of shops erotisches.



It was a nice little bar called Meanie Bar. Everyone sat down, and listened hard. We sold our CDs and the only ones we have left will be homemade ones artistically decorated with highlighter.

After, a long night which involved a lot of talking, some getting lost and some falafel.

30 x 3 – 5 - 20 x 20 - 10 x = Stuttgart

It was easy to arrive in Stuttgart, to pull up alongside our host Moritz on his bicycle, to have him unlock the door of his train carriage, the sun streaming in, and offer us the first of many beers. We crossed the tracks to his lovely home, a room set up especially for us with many mattresses and bedding, and dinner waiting: spezler, noodles traditional in these parts that he makes himself, with caramelized onions and a big salad: lecker, lecker, lecker.



It was harder to depart Stuttgart. It was Sunday afternoon, Moritz had slept one hour and now we had to get our gear our of his train carriage bar. There was a code. He scribbled 30 x 3 – 5 - 20 x 20 - 10 x and handed it to us. We found the padlock required 4 numerals. Had he created a riddle for us? We all tried to solve it. The night was only ending around us, people wandering around the old tracks and carriages and new trees, walking off the neighbouring rave dancefloor with dazed eyes, people eating pizza, the debris of the night all around.



Moritz’s bar, Anlage fur brennbare Flussigkeiten, or der Wagon, is an abandoned train carriage. All the people live or run their business their illegally. Mortitz has been there 11 years, bringing beautiful music to the good people of Stuttgart. Some people live there, others make art. Every year he’s thought this will be the one where they’re finally evicted. Recently, Stuttgart has decided to put the train station underground and do a big development where it is and over these disused tracks, so, despite big protests, this good thing may come to an end.



The train carriage was cosy and beautiful we played a good show to great people before sitting out on the deck with its view of the old tracks and the scrap metal, and dipping into the rave, a different style of dance music for every train carriage.



We slept a few hours and returned to der Wagon with the riddle code/equation. Giving up, Angus left for the house and returned and with the numbers 533. No luck. We marched back with purpose. I recalled the movies I’d seen, and shouted to Moritz. “We are Urbantramper. We are a band. Our instruments are locked in der Wagon. You know the code. What is the code?” Eventually, success! He awoke, for real this time, and we got the code and parted with good cheer.



Then the boys ran off excitedly to try it and I got lost trying to find the way back. I ran around abandoned train tracks screaming their names. Just because I go somewhere three times doesn’t mean I know how to get back. Eventually we were all happily reunited and we made it to Berlin by 10.30pm.

Dresden

It was good to return to Germany. Our approximately 15 German words (collectively) take us much further. It’s just two hours to Dresden from Prague, and we arrived to an apartment of our own, kindly lent to us by our friend Tino while he’s cycling Poland. It was nice to spread out, to clean ourselves and our clothes and cook food.



We met the kind locals lending us gear for night and found Veranderbar.. My favourite place. The warm hosts Anya and Ky gave us tea with knitted cupwarmers (see above). It was furnished with old mismatched and beautiful things and there was a garden. I could have sat there all day. But Dresden was beautiful outside too, with people out everywhere in the sun, looking nice. Then we played and the people were just as great.



I liked everything so much, I started gushing about it all. When banter goes bad. Later, we lit the fire, as we say in our French banter, with the dancy songs. At the end of it all, someone on the dancefloor called the encore for Wishing Bliss, and when we began, people had signs, saying Eating and Brocolli and Eating and Properly and they all lined up with them dancing. Dresden, you are too good! When the venue closed we joined some of the dresdeners on a warm veranda til late, and we thought about how we loved Dresden.



The next day was spent mainly lying around. Too much lighting the fire, no fuel for more. Ben made very peppery soup, and we walked along the lovely river to the old city, small and rebuilt after terrible bombing at the end of the war. There was opera in the old square, and we listened in the mist.

Making Pragueress / Czeching in and czeching out / The Devil wears Praha

Urbantramper Quiz! Which of Ben, Lake and Eli made up which blog post title?

Ye olde Praha, with your big dogs and strange bars.

We played twice in this fair city, in the underground scene, in bricky cellars, dark and musty.

Once, in a bar called Klub Final.



Our host gave us pasta and beer. The sound guy had a big dog that barked at the noises of sound check, ‘he’s musical’, said his owner, in one of the few exchanges we fully understood, feeling our severe lack of Czech.



We played well, to a varied assortment of people. Some Finns bought some CDs. We were happily reunited with Angus, who will be our secondary driver and primary physics specialist for the rest of the tour.

We were staying with a couchsurfer called Corinne close to this bar. She was kindly having us to stay despite being in the middle of moving house. Her apartment was crowded with belongings, two dogs, three cats, and her high energy.



The next day we walked around the old city putting up posters for the second gig in Prague touched up with artful fluorescent highlighters, liking the city tour with a purpose.



Waiting outside the next venue, Popo cafe in the old city on the other side of the river, I drew a picture!



Others unpacked.



We played beautifully, soberly, and skipped through the beauty home.

Urbantramper in Bordeaux (DJ set)

We drove South(ish) along with most of the population of Paris. We arrived travel-weary at the end of the long day and Bordeaux revived us, with its cobbled streets and friendly shopkeepers. Marina, El Boqueron’s owner, arrived and gave us cold drinks and we put the tables out on the street with her. The boys tried to figure out the sound desk and I drew a picture. Marina gave us rizoni and the neverending flow of delicious red wine began. Suddenly, the people arrived to fill the small bar. Attentive people who clapped their hands, whooped, and danced.



After the show we began our DJ set with great excitement. Highlights included: The Herbs (French Letter, of course), Animal Collective, Roy Orbison, Serge Gainsbourg, Goeorge Boissons, the Ruby Suns, the Cure, and Tracy Chapman (Fast Car - we won Marina`s heart with this one).



The delightful people who had watched our show became our dancefloor companions and intimate friends for the night, continuing hours after the bar was offically closed and the smoking began at 2am. Our hosts were marvelously attentive, always checking on our thirst: “Vouz avez soif?”, “Oui, un peu...”

We walked home through beautiful streets to Thierry’s apartment, the great man and bassist in such bands as Kiss Kiss Karate Passion and Shunatao, and he gave us delicious breads and cheeses and comfortable mattresses. When we awoke, more.



Bordeaux had been kind to us and it was sad to leave. But we were due in Prague, 17,000 kilometres away, for a gig in three days.

Paris

We had a good time in Paris. I spent some time thinking about all the things one’s supposed to see in Paris, and a lot of time sitting in a cafe called Assasin.



It was just down the road from our friend Alain’s apartment. The first night we slept on the cold concrete floor, the second two we slept on mattresses that we found on the street, which grossed Alain out a bit, but he accepted us just the same.



It was an exciting place to stay. We witnessed Montmatre, the Eiffel Tower, a fire, and several arguments from Alain’s balcony.



Later, we witnessed wine and cheese on the banks of the nearby canal, along with lots of other drunkards.

I loved our gig. We could walk there from Alain’s apartment. We put the mic stands and the pole-things that keep the drums together in a tartan wheely thing that Alain has, potentially to get things from the market. They gave us pasta, cheese, salad, and three drinks. Friends new and old showed up, along with many other friendly people, who said nice things to us. L’alimentacion Generale has free gigs all the time, what good folks! People watched the show attentively, clapping their hands. We tried out our French banter. I accidentally told people we buy CDs, rather than we sell CDs. People bought them anyway. I told them they were tres cool.

After our show it was straight on to rock and roll and excellent dancing. French people are hot.

Choo choo

Indietracks is an indiepop festival held at the Midlands Railway Park, near Ripley in Derbyshire, UK. The big names were the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and the reunited bands the Primitives and the Pooh Sticks. Instead of the dof-dof music common to festivals when the bands stop for the night, the kids bounced around to Belle and Sebastian and the Beach Boys.



We were joined by our friends Bob and Dermott. They ate burgers for every meal and were consistently entertaining.



Also, Chris, our friend from Nozstock who had us play at his local in Swansea a few weeks ago. He played in the Pooh Sticks with his amazing t-shirt.



The festival was manned by railway enthusiasts.



The event raises money for them to preserve the old trains and stations.



We went on a steam train and also looked at the model railway.



Our gig was in a beautifully peaceful old church, corrugated iron on the outside and wood in the inside.



Together, we walk from campsite to festival, and through the country lanes of life.