The month-long marathon European Tour of 2009 is history. We started out in Northern Ireland after a short but miserable flight from Newark. The airlines are the new Greyhound buses. Enough said. Got through passport control/customs in record time and got our rental car – we decided we’d drive ourselves throughout Ireland for the first 10 days. Sounded like fun at the time – but I soon had second thoughts. The rearview mirror looks impossibly wrong. The danger of scraping the car on the lefthand-side curb (because of depth perception issues) is surpassed only by the danger of having a head-on collision due to a minor lapse in judgment. Still, we (and the people of Northern Ireland) managed to survive. We played a series of beautiful, state-of-the-art concert halls with fabulous sound and great crew. Our saving grace was our merch guy/soundman Brendan Donnelly, who saw to every last detail and made us sound great. We were buoyed by an incredible audience in Belfast, revisited the sweet little Bronte Church in Rathfriland, got lost on one-lane roads that looked like little more than sheep trails, had a wonderful 24 hours in Dublin where we visited friends at RTE Radio, had a great Italian dinner on Dame Street and took a stroll down in Temple Bar afterwards.
In Rathfriland, we began a stretch of dates which we found ourselves calling “The 14” – 14 shows in 14 dates, over 3 countries. We’d been in denial, but now it was crunch time. We paced ourselves through five Northern Irish dates, then flew to Heathrow and played Buckingham that very night. Our tour manager/merch man/nanny, Paul Sawyer kept us on the right (left) side of the road while we absolutely flew through England. Hotel/venue/hotel/van/hotel/rinse/repeat. We raced through six great English shows including especially magical nights in Maidstone, Bath and Stockton-On-Tees. How lucky are we to see so many familiar faces again, meet some new ones, and play to packed houses every night! After a very rainy stay in Bath, we were off to Amsterdam to finish “the 14” with a show that night in Lage Vuursche and two more before a blessed and much-anticipated day off. In Lage Vuursche I was presented with a birthday cake, a bottle of champagne and 160 Dutch people serenading me with “Lang Zal Ze Leven”, the Dutch birthday song. I had a good excuse – it was my birthday. Can’t think of a better way to spend it.
The last night of “the 14”, we played in Eindhoven. Thanks to a tip from George, one of our New York fans who travels there regularly, we booked a dinner table at Antonio’s restaurant nearby and had an amazing meal – the best of the tour so far. That would have been enough, but Muziekcentrum Frits Philips turned out to be our new favorite venue in Holland – a gorgeous theater with pristine sound and a nine foot Steinway piano. We had a great crowd – where did all these people come from? – and sailed through the last night of the 14.
We spent our first day off in 2 weeks in Den Haag, where we stayed with our hosts Lenny & Hein in their gorgeous house near “the Fred” (Frederik Hendrikslaan) – a major shopping street. We savored every minute – lingered in a cafe over cappuccino with the cafe’s resident dog, Sam; shopped in a great bookstore; walked to the harbor, and generally lazed around. Lenny had prepared a fabulous rijsttafel and that evening we were treated to a great dinner party with lots of wine, lots of food and lots of fun. So much for being good.
While in the Netherlands we played three shows with our old friend John Lester on upright bass, which was great fun and added some class (and bottom end) to the whole affair. The Dutch dates were all in wildly different venues but with uniformly sweet and enthusiastic audiences. It was also very gratifying to see how the audience size had grown since last time – it’s nice to know you’re making some sort of impression. The One To The Heart, One To The Head album has been very popular in Holland, so we added in some more songs from it, including “If I Had A Gun” and “Snowin’ On Raton”. In many cases there was “recognition applause” at the beginning of the songs, even though we were mostly playing in cities where we’d never been. Amazing to feel the impact an album can have before you even get the chance to introduce it personally.
The very last show of the tour was Bush Hall in London, and between Barry and me, we thought it was the very best. I guess after 22 you find your rhythm. We had a packed-out room, a grand piano, a very demonstrative audience (especially for London!), and great sound. What more can you ask? See you in May!
The month-long marathon European Tour of 2009 is history. We started out in Northern Ireland after a short but miserable flight from Newark. The airlines are the new Greyhound buses. Enough said. Got through passport control/customs in record time and got our rental car – we decided we’d drive ourselves throughout Ireland for the first 10 days. Sounded like fun at the time – but I soon had second thoughts. The rearview mirror looks impossibly wrong. The danger of scraping the car on the lefthand-side curb (because of depth perception issues) is surpassed only by the danger of having a head-on collision due to a minor lapse in judgment. Still, we (and the people of Northern Ireland) managed to survive. We played a series of beautiful, state-of-the-art concert halls with fabulous sound and great crew. Our saving grace was our merch guy/soundman Brendan Donnelly, who saw to every last detail and made us sound great. We were buoyed by an incredible audience in Belfast, revisited the sweet little Bronte Church in Rathfriland, got lost on one-lane roads that looked like little more than sheep trails, had a wonderful 24 hours in Dublin where we visited friends at RTE Radio, had a great Italian dinner on Dame Street and took a stroll down in Temple Bar afterwards.
In Rathfriland, we began a stretch of dates which we found ourselves calling “The 14” – 14 shows in 14 dates, over 3 countries. We’d been in denial, but now it was crunch time. We paced ourselves through five Northern Irish dates, then flew to Heathrow and played Buckingham that very night. Our tour manager/merch man/nanny, Paul Sawyer kept us on the right (left) side of the road while we absolutely flew through England. Hotel/venue/hotel/van/hotel/rinse/repeat. We raced through six great English shows including especially magical nights in Maidstone, Bath and Stockton-On-Tees. How lucky are we to see so many familiar faces again, meet some new ones, and play to packed houses every night! After a very rainy stay in Bath, we were off to Amsterdam to finish “the 14” with a show that night in Lage Vuursche and two more before a blessed and much-anticipated day off. In Lage Vuursche I was presented with a birthday cake, a bottle of champagne and 160 Dutch people serenading me with “Lang Zal Ze Leven”, the Dutch birthday song. I had a good excuse – it was my birthday. Can’t think of a better way to spend it.
The last night of “the 14”, we played in Eindhoven. Thanks to a tip from George, one of our New York fans who travels there regularly, we booked a dinner table at Antonio’s restaurant nearby and had an amazing meal – the best of the tour so far. That would have been enough, but Muziekcentrum Frits Philips turned out to be our new favorite venue in Holland – a gorgeous theater with pristine sound and a nine foot Steinway piano. We had a great crowd – where did all these people come from? – and sailed through the last night of the 14.
We spent our first day off in 2 weeks in Den Haag, where we stayed with our hosts Lenny & Hein in their gorgeous house near “the Fred” (Frederik Hendrikslaan) – a major shopping street. We savored every minute – lingered in a cafe over cappuccino with the cafe’s resident dog, Sam; shopped in a great bookstore; walked to the harbor, and generally lazed around. Lenny had prepared a fabulous rijsttafel and that evening we were treated to a great dinner party with lots of wine, lots of food and lots of fun. So much for being good.
While in the Netherlands we played three shows with our old friend John Lester on upright bass, which was great fun and added some class (and bottom end) to the whole affair. The Dutch dates were all in wildly different venues but with uniformly sweet and enthusiastic audiences. It was also very gratifying to see how the audience size had grown since last time – it’s nice to know you’re making some sort of impression. The One To The Heart, One To The Head album has been very popular in Holland, so we added in some more songs from it, including “If I Had A Gun” and “Snowin’ On Raton”. In many cases there was “recognition applause” at the beginning of the songs, even though we were mostly playing in cities where we’d never been. Amazing to feel the impact an album can have before you even get the chance to introduce it personally.
The very last show of the tour was Bush Hall in London, and between Barry and me, we thought it was the very best. I guess after 22 you find your rhythm. We had a packed-out room, a grand piano, a very demonstrative audience (especially for London!), and great sound. What more can you ask? See you in May!
x
G
