It’s a beautiful day here in Bremen, a touch warmer than is typical for this time of year, but still very nice. I understand that they have had a really rainy summer and not that many great sunny days so I don’t begrudge the sun too much. I have, however, been exceptionally warm as of late.
This is where the tour diary takes a short detour - I have recently started taking high blood pressure meds. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever taken a regular medication. I know that I am fortunate to have waited this long for anything like that but these meds have me overheating several times a day. Hot flashes and just dripping with sweat. I didn’t know what was up at first but it is insane and I guess not entirely uncommon but damn, this is unpleasant and I apologize to everyone - you will see it in the pictures.
/end medical stuffs
During the beautiful weather, Tracy and I take a walk through the BurgerPark that is across from the hotel. We’ve wandered these gardens and paths before but Matt mentioned a small zoo in there with alpaca and goats - we’ve never seen that! So we have a destination that we entirely overshoot. Tracy finds another place to get an Eis Kaffee and we walk back a ways and find the small zoo. All told about a 3 mile walk. And also find a children’s science camp going on. There’s all kinds of things going on today.
We get to Heike’s Garden about 3 pm and she has lunch waiting for us; vegetarian quiche with tomatoes from her garden and a crust made out of…not regular crust material…. It’s delicious. There are also chocolate/pear/apple brownie things that she made with fruit from her garden and they are amazing.
As we’re setting up Petra shows up and she has brought us chocolate from Hachez, the local chocolate where her grandfather used to work. She has also requested “Crooked Jack” and she’s here when I’m rehearsing it too.
More and more friends show up and all told somewhere around 50ish people in the garden - including Ina’s little boy Jonas and it’s his first concert. Things like that are just cool and extra special.
T-shirts and new albums are selling like crazy and we run out of t-shirts. Three shows in and we have a sellout!* I’m down to my last 4 vinyl records and we’ve started giving away some of the older cds in the merch box**, like buy one new cd and get one of our old RATS or TFS cds free type of thing.
I rush around trying to say hey to everyone and then take a quick break inside to change my shirt. Heike finds me inside and says there are 3 photographers here and one was already saying that I had to take my hair down otherwise they won’t get any good pictures of me. I change my shirt and take my hair down. I have to be pretty but there is nothing I can do about the sweating. Heike brings me a couple of towels to try to stay cool.
It’s hot but it’s not as hot as I’m showing.
I down another bottle of water and we start rocking and they are all with us from the first note. As I look around I see folks singing along. There’s a couple of people that seem to know all the words to all the songs. I can’t adequately explain what that feels like. We’ve created something and they have taken it into their hearts and are sharing it back with us.
We take a break and there’s more friends here. There’s no way I can start naming everyone off but it’s such an amazing night. I feel myself nearly floating through the second set. I don’t want it to end. I call out extra songs and we rock them all. We end and then the “Zugabe” starts up. We do two more songs and call it a night. We close with Jolene and Tracy tears it up. Matt is just gliding through all the songs - he even took the lead vocal on a couple of songs. It’s so, So, SO good.
Every person that ever picked up a guitar and wrote a song should be so lucky to play a place like this where everyone just loves and shares love and sings love back to you.
Packing up Matt shares details about the cajon kit with Niklas and I think they hear the potential in it. Heiko says something like “that cajon kit makes me have a think.” That means he likes it.
We all share hugs and laughs and talk about next year.
I don’t think I deserve to be this lucky.
Dankeschön.
xo
~Bobbo
*I always wanted to sell out.
**The merch box I leave here is like a 1960s typewriter case. It is fantastic as a merch box but it is stupid heavy. I remember when we brought it here - we flew with it and when it came down the baggage claim it was like a plow knocking other bags out of its way. Also, We still have a lot of Riddle & The Stars “new coastline” as well as some Fallen Stars “Way out West” and “Heart Like Mine”.