april 25/26 – frankfurt’s jahrhunderthalle, & final show in fürth feat. the a-team

april 25 found us meeting more fabulous hosts in frankfurt. axel, christina, and zacharias schneiderhahn (more old friends of al’s) basically moved out of their apartment so we’d have a place to stay, so generous. spent a little time walking around their beautiful neighborhood before heading to the jahrhunderthalle on the outskirts of town, near a chemical plant (where apparently your car will change colors if parked nearby for too long). beautiful venue, interesting layout.
of note at the frankfurt show was jason orme, one of alanis’ guitarists, joining us for “over the world” at the end of the set... nice to indulge in a big guitar solo during our set, something noticably absent in a keyboard-based band...
after the show we met the band & skeely (in charge of the band) at their hotel (nice) in the kaiserplatz, closer to central frankfurt, but not before a little trek (nightmare) through the middle of nowhere from the venue to the s-bahn stop. nothing can ever just be easy... local residents treated to a cappella renditions of michael macdonald songs as we made our way.
drinks all around at the hotel, where the concierge had given us the once over while we asked him where our friends might be... found them ultimately in the bar and hung out for a bit trading random bits of gossip about the l.a. music scene, a time-honored pastime. all off to bed for a bit of sleep before next day’s fürth show.

apparently frankfurt is the only city in all of germany with skyscrapers, not sure exactly why that is, some sort of law. but there’re 82 million residents in the country, spread out all over, and on the train from frankfurt to fürth the next day (april 26) we got our first glimpse of the quaint german towns that dot the countryside in the south of the country. each town has its own church right in the center, and many germans who work in the larger cities commute out from these perfect little towns. the train takes you from town to town, through rolling hills and eventually down the austrian alps.
off at fürth, a small town just near the larger nürembürg. our hotel screwed up our reservation, so we kept walking down the road to the venue (stadhalle, about 1800-seater, smallest of the tour) and planned on taking a late-night train back up to frankfurt.
walking up to the venue some fans recognized us on our way in, i guess they’d seen the shows elsewhere in germany, so we spent a few minutes signing stuff, gave me the feeling we’ve gotten somewhere after so much time in germany.
soundcheck featured alanis’ full band joining us this time, with drummer blair and keyboardist zac switching instruments, cedric doubling carson on bass, and both guitarists (dave & jason) in full rock mode, taking “over the world” slightly over the top...

dinner, some last-minute internetting, and adam & i went down to catering for a pre-show aperitif, where we met ryan reynolds (alanis’ fiancé) who apparently caught the frankfurt show and expressed his compliments. we spoke a little about the ideal method of drinking jameson’s whisky (he likes it out of the bottle, i prefer ice & a soft drink with mine, adam’s just ice) & we were off to find carson & do the final show of the tour.
tried my best to take this one in, knowing it’ll be the last big show for a little while. the audience was excellent, featuring a gaggle of what looked like our first full on german fans singing along to much of the set. we gave chris, who’d attended all the germany shows in the front frow, a cd from the stage before the last song, and launched into our final “over the world” where the a-team joined us on stage in a free-for-all.

somewhere after the 1st verse i heard a roar coming out from the crowd, turned to my left and there was alanis, tambourine in hand and big smile on, joining the party on stage. what a trip... at the point we usually put in a breakdown, dave levita took a guitar solo way out, and i used the opportunity to give alanis a big hug, thank her for everything, and generally get out of my customary seated position. apparently adam knew this was gonna happen, as blair (drummer) had come over to grab the tambourine early in the song, and from adam’s vantage point he could see alanis/ryan/band waiting in the wings, listening to “overflow” as we neared the end of the set. anyway it was a great surprise, and a wonderful way to end the tour. pretty sure we’ve got good video of the whole thing, so hopefully you’ll be able to see it soon (that is, if you didn’t happen to be in fürth the other night).

we took some video of alanis’ band as they headed to the stage, got a nice alanis pout into the camera & a shot of ryan offering his skillz as a triangle-player when the need arises (something i’m sure we’ll take him up on at some point).
as carson and i waited upstairs at the end of the show for the last song and the imminent rush of cd buyers & autograph seekers, adam was apparently down at the stage and was invited out to play some tamb of his own for the last song in alanis’ set... he was ultimately forced to the front of the stage by the a-team for requisite rock & roll tambourine stomp. so bummed to have missed that, but i guess we can’t complain about the night in general. got more than we all bargained for.

extended goodbyes, address/email exchanges, and a short walk back to the train station headed to frankfurt. nightmare of a final train ride back to frankfurt, 2 transfers in the middle of the night, finally arriving at the apartment at about 5a. there was some sort of key/lock issue in the hallway outside the apartment, so i took the opportunity for a nap on the landing. finally in and crash.