Going on tour isn’t all sunglasses at night, exciting destinations and a breathless timetable. Long hours in the car / plane / bus / train and too much personal contact with the same people / person 24 hours a day can be a recipe for mental extermination. Or the road to delirious delight. In-jokes abound, late-night meals, drinks and debriefs are all the go in your international passport to playing success.
All in the name of fun we just ran down 2,500 km in five days to spread our musical love around a little and this gives a small insight of how much of the world you can see from the Tour Car and what a skewed view it becomes.
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| Hamburg’s Reeperbahn |
Hamburg, and what a shower
Starting out in Hamburg, a city I’ve related before with its quietly sparkling subculture and quaint nord-deutsch charms, we actually had a moment to enjoy the first night out, taking in some culture to get our artsy glands warmed up, with a visit to the one of the city’s many cultural houses. Kampnagel is a great complex housing the best in contemporary performance, music, dance you name it.
The next night we played down by the infamous Reeperbahn (Hamburg’s red light district) – a sight to behold as it makes the change from daytime sparkle to nighttime neon: quietly busy, full of life and plenty (of all kinds) of colour, a great first night. Come time to leave the next day one thing stood out in my mind for the coming days – the shower at my tour-partner’s house was great, one of the best of the week: it had soap, was easy to operate, hot water on demand and a shower curtain for added privacy and splash-back protection. Not so much an observation but noticing the necessities early on.
Berlin, stuff happens
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| Breakfast in Kreuzberg, Berlin |
Just down the road more hours than it should have been (word to learn for the autobahn: Stau = traffic jam, or more correctly, mobile carpark) we eventually emerged in Berlin. We found the venue and the sleeping place was out the back, so we mentally prepared for the inevitable party trick of kicking everybody out when it would all be too much in light of the 600km drive to Munich the next morning.
Kreuzberg is one of the areas where stuff happens in Berlin. Not as young a crowd as Friedrichshain (over the Spree River in the old East), not as schicky-mickey as Schoneberg or far away as Wedding, there’s plenty of coffee shops, music, pizza, Berlin’s famous felafel and Indian/Asian/you-name-it food along Oranienstrasse between Oranienplatz and Mariannenplatz – and around the corner on Weinerstrasse (by Gorlitzer Bahnhof) there’s plenty to choose from, too.
The gig was ok and long after we played, the party eventually desisted around 3am and we got some shut-eye before the big drive to The South. The shower was a mystery (go for that sink-wash), breakfast was easy to find (Berlin’s famous breakfasts, or fruhstuck, can go as late as 4pm) and the autobahn’s beckon not too difficult to get to.
Away we went down the A9 and soon it was time for a stop at the Teufelshohle Rasthof and our first hostage of the tour. The little tea spoon that we befriended there was very useful for getting the halva I had bought in Berlin into my mouth while changing CDs and driving on the wrong side of the road at 160km/h. It’s the small things in life, in this case again true, that often prove to be the best and create that little comfort that makes it all just fine.
Munich, thinkin’ fellas
Eventually with hearts ablaze from the lethal caffeine, chocolate and sesame induced arrhythmia, we pulled into the circular building site that was Munich. Leopoldstrasse resembled something between a wasteland and a kids jungle-gym for all the scaffolding and reconstruction in progress, but we soon dealt with it and scooted round to the venue. Again sleep place was out the back, this time with some luxurious leopard-print mattress action – its proximity made for some easy après-music red wine action. After a 6pm arrival, the most harrowing sound-check of the tour began at 7pm and we started not too long after 8pm. The famous Max Planck Institute has one of its campuses in Munich and accordingly we played to a room with a higher than average IQ, the range of PhDs in the sciences made for some interesting after-concert dissections and postulations about what exactly we were doing.
Munich shower report: good, but needed to be started 20 minutes in advance, required starting a pump so you didn’t end up ankle deep in water, and the hot and cold taps seemed a little harder to operate than some of our equipment.
Munich being so close to Italy, we easily located the nearby espresso point during a midnight walk – many of the Bavarians go to Italy for their holidays so Italian and Spanish cafes and cucinas abound in the city. Besides the morning espresso another highlight was the second hand shops brimming with lederhosen and Bavarian dresses, the best one having a pitbull in the window wearing the southern trousers with a little hole for his sturdy tail. Practisch, robust, gut.
Back up through the rolling hills we’d seen dance by the day before, we paused on the other side of the A9 at Teufelshohle to eat and my partner took her chance to join forces with another teaspoon, for what I can’t recall as it wasn’t halva. For the second time we neglected to stop in one of the best named stops anywhere – Naturpark Frankenwald, sounding like Lon Chaney combined with the best of the outdoors.
Leipzig welcomes us
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| Our venue in Leipzig |
Soon Leipzig welcomes us with open arms in the afternoon, we quickly turned the venue upside down as we decided the back of the room should be the front and vice versa, made some nauseous noises as we tuned the room for the soundcheck (too much bass anyone? ) and then cut straight to the headlining act: dinner.
Leipzig has one of The Best vegan restaurants I have even had the pleasure to patronise. Every time I am in town I turn up and the owner doesn’t look the least bit surprised, which leads me to think the following is quite broad among locals and travellers alike. Reading more like a list of contemporary art than a menu, the range of food sounds as appealing as it looks and could have the most hardcore cattle-farmer in raptures. Zest – don’t forget it – the coffee is brutal, too.
As always, Leipzig was a relaxed and intimate affair – the room was full but the people have such a way about them that makes things very easy, could easily be the next big thing when Berlin becomes too much. The relaxed sensibilities of it all was only shattered late that night when we realised that Hamburg, where the car and gear had to go back to, was in fact at least four hours away and so it was one more early morning.
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| Bonus photo: In case you thought lederhosen were a myth. Think again. |
Between stau’s and more roadworks heading past Kassel, Magdeburg and Hannover, the 160km/h never-say-die driving style came through and got us to Hamburg an hour before the bus that was to ludicrously take me back to Berlin (for the flight home at 6am the next morning). Gear was unpacked in record time and the short trip from the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) saw me at the bus early, which was a pretty new concept for us.
The shower that last morning in Leipzig might have been good, but by now it felt so far away. After a last bit of dozing off on my rolled up towel it was back to Gorlizter Bahnof for a second pick at the Berlin foodwares and some late night scotch to keep the action going til dawn for that loneliest trip – the one to the airport- but leading to home, my shower and bed nonetheless.
Planning a tour (the Viator kind) to Germany? Browse Viator’s Hamburg tours and things to do in Munich and Berlin.
Posted on October 24, 2008 by Scott Mc in Europe, Places to Go, Travel Advice & Inspiration.