Germay, day 7, the pinnacle of germanydays

A sad day, because Ben, the bassist/trumpeter, had to leave early this morning for Important Things In Paris.

But, also, a happy day because…

WE GOT BAUMKUCHEN!

At our final gig, in Gottingen, the brilliant, lovely, amazing, talented, and, over-it-all, sweet boys from Dogs Run Free presented us with a gourmet, in-a-fancy-box-and-all, authentic, Baumkuche. Wow. Wow! After the gig (At the Blooming Bar, a great space with lots of great people in it) we chopped it up, carefully, reverently, and, at last, sampled “The King of Cakes.” It had been cooked on a pole! It had ten whole layers of cake! And a chocolate coating! Wow. Dogs Run Free are amazing, check them out, everyone. We didn’t get them a cake. Instead we made them a card with a lot of dogs on it.

And...germanyday6

You know how sometimes you’re magically able to eat more food than is physically possible? Like more than the size of a human stomach, by far? We did that this morning, when Heiko from our German label, Dandyland, (also the brains behind this ‘Songs and Whispers’ tour) made us a gigantanormous brunch. Hurrah for eating! It was great.

Then a gig in Achim, at a place called “Katakomben.” There was bat-and-witch themed décor and lovely nachos. The audience put up brilliantly with my inane punning-across-three-languages banter. Oh, and we played some music, pretty well, I think.

And then we were German, Day 5

Wow. We hurt. Last night’s foosball, Jagermeister, and robot –dancing almost killed us, it turns out. We stumbled through our balconytv set in Hamburg as well as we possibly could, then we ate a lot of emergency falafel. (The Balconytv.de tune will be up for watching in about four weeks, we are told.)

And on to Delmenhorst, for the evening’s gig. They give us really nice sandwiches. We play our songs slightly slower than usual.

The Cedar+German. Day four

TODAY WE ATE PANCAKES ON A PIRATE SHIP!

It’s true. We did. There’s a restaurant-boat in Bremen. A Pirate-Pancake boat. Amazing! Isn’t it?! It is! Our waiter was wearing a triangular hat and billowing trousers. A lot of things were made out of barrels.

Then Neil bought a new bag and we played a little afternoon gig in a record shop (Hot Shot records). They supplied me with a stool, which was nice because usually I don’t get a stool.

Our evening gig was in a theatre (a real theater this time, not a movie theater. There were false moustaches in our green room). During it, Neil made up a new German word: “Entgeldschon.” Also, three kind audience members told us where we could get proper, non-Aldi Baumkuchen. Yes! YES!

After the gig, our brilliant support act, Dogs Run Free, took us out on the Bremen-town. Until 6am. Wow. Not only do they play a mean tune, those boys can also rock the party with the foosball, Jagermeister, and robot-dancing. Watch out Bremen.

The Cedar and That German Country: Day Three

Day 3:

We actually had some time to site-see today, hurrah! We saw a famous Bremen statue of a bird-on-a-cat-on-a-dog-on-a-donkey. We saw many other gorgeous Bremenese things, but that was the definitely the highlight.

Our gig was in a place called Oldenburg, in a venue called “The Polyester Club.” They let us play even though we weren’t wearing polyester, which was nice. We explained to the audience about the legendary German cake “Baumkuchen” about which Ben had seen a documentary and for which we were desperately searching. They kindly explained to us that it could be got at Aldi. Oh.

The Cedar and That German Country: Day Two

Day 2 (March 25):

Here in Germany, it snowed today. Big, fat, wet snow. I got up and ran in it, in my shorts. Sounds nice. It wasn’t nice.

Then we played a mini set at the Bremen airport. Which was hilarious.

Then we went to Bremenhaven for the evening gig. Bremenhaven is great! We saw a WWII U-boat! They have a polar bear! (In the Bremenhaven zoo, not in the submarine. Although, we didn’t actually go in the submarine, so there might have been a polar bear in there too.) Our gig was in a movie theater, which was, actually, really great. We played up on the stagey bit in front of the screen and the blue-and-red lighting cast our stretched shadows longly onto it.

The gig was way easier than last night’s, and an audience member gave us a pen. Free German pen! What a place, Bremenhaven.

Cedar goes German-Day One

Summary: Go straight to your gig after 18 hours straight travel and play a 90 minute purely improvised set while unable to stand. That sort of thing.

The English Bit:
We left town in Ben's big black van at 3am, driving east ever east, until we reached Harich in time for our 9am ferry. Watch the sun come up over flat Essex fields.

The Boat Bit:
First of all, I didn't know ferrys could take six hours. In my mind, anything longer than two hours is a sea voyage. We undertook a sea voyage, on what I know understand to be one of the choppiest seas around. The North Sea. I never had trouble with sea-sickness on the ferry to Vancouver island. This was not that ferry.

The Holland Bit:
We landed, finally, finally, in the Hook of Holland. Also known as Hoek Van Holland. We drove through very very slow traffic past very many windmills and general Dutch loveliness. No time to stop for Cheese, unfortunately.

The Germany Bit:
And then lots more driving. Loads of driving. This time in Germany. We ran late. Two hours late. Certainly no time to stop at the hostel before heading to the gig. We head straight to the gig.

The Gig Bit:
The audience was waiting. The opening act had been playing for two hours. There were open Becks from the down-the-street beer factory waiting for us. No time to set up drums! No time to soundcheck! Emma, Neil, go make stuff up! Which we did. For almost two hours. Ben and Ben sneaked in when they can. People seemed to love it. Not being on a boat made me dizzy and woozy, which is weird, but there it is, and I couldn't stand up. Played most of the gig kind of leaning against mic stands. More beer. We were given eggs on buns and then we were done.

And then bed. Two more gigs tomorrow.

Germany!

Germany.

Go to sleep, boys.

Phew. Touring is exhausting.

And here's why: when your day is based around just one main event, your day shifts to make that event the middle of your day.

Or, in other words, when you have a gig every night, you spend half your day working up to it, and half your day winding down from it. And if your gig doesn't end until midnight, and then you factor in travel back from whichever town, so you don't actually get back to your home-base-cottage until 2am, your "afternoon" starts at 2am. You get in, start dinner, make a fire, break out the chess board and the twister etc, etc.

It's a whole new kind of time-change, touring. And a whole new kind of jet-lag afterwards.


Back on the road (this time some German roads) in a little over a week.


(Thanks, Erin, for the photo.)