It takes us a long time to get moving today. I think we ate breakfast and went back to bed.
These things happen.
We’re fighting with hotel internet as I thought I was using wifi but was actually using data and am now being throttled. It feels like 2002 when we’d wait until after 9 pm to make phone calls because we only had so many minutes to use every month. But in this case it’s throttled me down from 5G to 256k and holy shit is that slow.
Wifi and touring are big deals but don’t make for good tour diary entries.
Tonight we’re playing a house concert in Delmenhorst. Petra and Heinz-Günther have hosted us a bunch of times. Sometimes as Riddle & The Stars, sometimes just me and sometimes Tracy and I. Every time we get so much love from these folks it’s unbelievable.
We are greeted with big hugs and lots of catching up. Petra tells us all about the 2 woman play she was in last year and how Heinz is in a new production of MacBeth. They have a big spread of food out for everyone and the living room arranged with chairs and the stage at one end for us in front of the fireplace.
Jens is here, he brought a little Zoom video recorder and sets it up on the floor in front of us. Heinz is taking either pictures or video with his DSLR camera and Petra is just to the right of me as we play. It’s great to see Kevin here as well. He’s excited to get a new t-shirt so he doesn’t have to keep wearing that trashy King of the Tramps* shirt.
Tracy and I tell some stories, sing some songs. We get two sing alongs going and even talk about some of our Riddle & The Stars stuff. Folks here miss Ben Riddle too and we really hope we can tour with him again someday.
When we finish playing, Heinz tells us to sit down on the couch as they have a preset for us - they have made us a slide show of pictures and dates/captions of where and when they saw us play and it’s amazing. Turns out we go back 6 years together. Petra says “it’s a small present that you can fit in your stuff.” And hands Tracy a USB drive with the video and pictures and more.
Seriously, so sweet. So special. So perfect. Thank you Petra, Heinz and everyone else in Delmenhorst that made tonight so special.
Love you all.
xo
*Ha! KOTT are not trashy, I just like giving Todd a hard time. See pic.