When I don’t write my diary immediately my brain feels like an etch a sketch that has been half shaken by the time I start writing and that’s where we are today.
I told you about Liekedeeler in Verden and the time with Nico and Mona and Heike - the next morning I wake up late. Late, like 10:45 am. Could’ve been the Willie Nelson, could’ve been the wine.* We have to leave around 6 pm tonight to get to Haus am See. So that’s like 6 hours at least from now and I drive over to see Sam Barnard at his guitar shop. He’s been apprenticing as a luthier and doing guitar repairs and the shop is not that big but has nice stuff in it. Ukuleles and guitars on all the walls and when I go in back to his shop it is just full on wood working equipment. He shows me the acoustic guitar he made and it is beautiful. The neck is great, even a little wider than normal and the tone - from what I can tell, it’s like a modified jumbo size acoustic body and just full and balanced and I absolutely love it and want one of his instruments now.
Sam and I have a nice catchup over coffee and tea. Sam has played gigs with me before - sometimes on cajon and sometimes on bass. He’s an accomplished musician beyond just being great at fixing and making them. I can remember one gig a few years ago where I just felt like playing a new song that we hadn’t rehearsed and Sam hadn’t even heard and right before we played it I was like “It’s C - D - Em for the verse and the chorus is…” and he was like “got it, I’ll follow you.” And the song sounded perfect.
Back at Heike’s I’m organizing some stuff, we are taking one car tonight to the gig and it is a small car. We don’t have a lot of stuff but 3 people, a small PA, merch and 2 guitars means we are packed to the ceiling.
Haus am See is only about 30 minutes away but the last 2 miles have you winding through neighborhoods and small streets and it’s like - how and why is anyone going to come here to see us? It is a beautiful site, right on a vacation-y lake and tables outside for the summer season and a restaurant and big room for music events inside.
“This is the place with the great schnitzel.” Nico reminds me and as soon as he says it, I remember.
We’re greeted at the door by Daniel the owner and he shows us in, a waitress takes our drink order and we start setting up. Again, setting up with Nico is a breeze. He’s got to take a few minutes and sort out a ghost in his looping machine and in minutes the PA is up and running.
We each place our order for schnitzel and then it’s just hanging out and greeting our fans that arrive for the gig - and they show up wearing our shirts too! I don’t know who ever started that trend thing about “don’t wear the band’s t-shirt to the band’s gig” but they were full of shit about it. Seeing folks wear your t-shirt is almost as good as watching them sing a long to your songs.
As they bring our schnitzel out to the table, I make a mental note that most other folks got the hamburger - and it is a real good looking burger, stacked high and it’s tempting. But you know, I’m in Germany, why the hell would I get a hamburger here when I can get schnitzel with mushrooms?
I’m on first tonight and with it being a quiet room, I feel weird just launching into the (acoustic) ROCK so I ease into the set. I do a couple of quiet ones - crooked jack, 10,000 miles, some salvation** and the crowd is pretty subdued too. Very nice and listening. I gradually ramp it up a bit and it all goes well. I’m playing some songs that I hadn’t played on tour yet so that is fun for me and I think the folks here that have seen more than one show already (some 2 and 3 shows already) appreciate mixing it up. At one point I unplug entirely and perform a quiet one in the middle of the room. It’s probably my favorite moment of the show. When I’m all done I get shouts of “Zugabe!” And one more song. I don’t want to cut into Nico’s time and I check with him and he’s cool so I play one more. Sonja has requested “APB” and so I sing it for her with my favorite moment being when I stop the song and ask her how to pronounce “Otterstedt” which I’m trying to put in the song. It takes several tries before I get it right.
Nico has a great set and his looping/ kick pedal/ tambourine and effects come off perfectly in this room. He unplugs for his last number and it’s a fav song of mine and ends up stuck in my head for the next day. “Oh, bottle of hope won’t you take me home…”
The chatting with folks afterward is the best and folks buying cds and what-not. Petra has brought me more chocolate and that is so sweet of her. We reminisce about the first time I met her - playing a church in Bremen where she wouldn’t even make eye contact with me until I kept singing to her and got her to smile. Then how she brought Heike to one of my gigs and that’s how I met Heike. And the world just continues to be amazing to me. I’m on the other side of the world in this tiny venue on the banks of a tiny lake in the tiny town of Otterstedt, Germany talking to folks that have traveled to see me here and locals that just stumbled in.
Daniel asks if we need any beer to take home with us. Nico takes him up on one giant bottle of something and we wind our way back to the garden in Bremen. We have a great post-gig hang with wine and biscuits and great conversation. I will miss this when I leave.
Sleeping is easy in the garden and the spiders in the windows seemed to have gotten bigger since yesterday. The web in front of window is bigger, the spider next to the outdoor toilet is not scared of me at all and there’s another on the wall that looks at me while I pee and I think he wants a fight. Heike tells me that I will miss her in the morning as she has to work today. We hug and make vague plans for 2025. Nico and I continue to plan for next year as well.
I pack up my bag and count my merch - I’ve sold quite a bit here already. Probably should’ve brought more but it’s such a challenge - you don’t want to bring too much and then have to carry it home and you don’t want to bring too little and then have nothing to sell at shows. We brought a bunch of t-shirts and sold them all, brought a bunch of records and I have 2 left, brought a bunch of cds and still have like 25 left. If you tour out of a backpack and one guitar - it’s a different type of traveling/touring than if you’re out of a traditional van/tour bus/whatever.
I think back to when we were playing all over New England in the 90s and The Gypsy Mechanics, shit, we’d forget to bring cds to sell at our gigs more often than not. Our first time in Canada we didn’t even have a cd to sell. At that time the business model was to play gigs, get interest, get on a label, make an album, label puts the album in stores and and you don’t even bring them to the gig to sell. I don’t know exactly when that changed but I know I changed in 1999 when my first solo album came out and Tracy and I started making our first merch table signs. And now hardly any bands go out performing without having some kind of merch to sell.
Was just different.
/old guy ranting at clouds
I wake up this morning to a great new review from a German magazine, a small container of cookies in my bag and a note from Heike saying goodbye until next year.
Tschüss Bremen. I’m on my way to Hamburg.
xo
~Bobbo
*As the Tragically Hip would say.
**It occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve played this solo and also why I have not played it solo. Tracy sings the second verse. I don’t know the second verse.