april 28 – homeward bound

on the plane now, somewhere over the atlantic on our way into chicago o’hare where we’ll split with allen (meeting him next week as we begin tour 2, u.s. with glenn tilbrook & some solo shows) and head off to l.a. and our beds. looking forward to the cd release show (tomorrow night) and seeing & playing for our friends back in los angeles.

hoping things just keep going this way for a while – touring, making new friends and fans, bringing the music to the people, singing songs every night. feels like it’s been a long while coming, and i look forward to whatever’s next.

many thanks to my band, adam and carson, who i rely on every night and who consistently push me musically. allen, who took care of us and put up with us... alanis, and her band and crew, who treated us so well and gave us such an amazing opportunity with this tour. and the people and places littered throughout this blog who gave us shelter and sustenance along the way. we owe you big time, and can’t thank you enough for showing us such wonderful european hospitality.

THANKS FOR LISTENING

april 27 – sleep sleep sleep eat shop sleep walk shop eat drink pack sleep

sleep late. gradually slide out of the apartment around 230p into a gorgeous frankfurt afternoon, grab a weird lunch at an indian place that was supposed to be closed, incite argument between hostess and chef, head to antique shop and pick up random stuff, back to the apartment for phone calls, then walk towards merianplatz & dinner. beautiful walk through sunny frankfurt, through old neighborhoods, over bridge/river, through town fair, ultimately meeting matt peterson (my friend from l.a., living/working in frankfurt) and his girlfriend fritzi (german native), & george (al’s old friend from san antonio – at some point i was involved in a high school motion picture production of “old man and the sea” featuring george as the old man & al & i as supporting cast) at flipper’s for dinner & german bier. a real day off, rest/recovery before our flight.

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.

al’s guest entry (in all lower case because—look at me!—i am so cool and such a rule-breaker)

part i, a sylvan fable
as we step off the motorcoach into the idyllic sylvan setting, we are greeted warmly by gnomes and wood creatures, who—chittering and chattering—usher us toward the theater, pressing a variety of homemade items into our hands for alanis to sign and return to them. “we’ll do our best,” we promise, secretly knowing that our best isn’t likely to be good enough. “we’d like to, but we hardly know her,” we say. the woods go silent and stay that way for a while. “but...” the stunned woods creatures eventually protest, “if i were she...” we smile wistfully at them. “we’ll do our best.”

part ii, a day in the life
forest national, we are told, is the largest and most prestigious theater in all of belgium. absent any compelling evidence to the contrary, we choose to believe this. once inside, we begin a tightly choreographed and time-tested routine that goes something like this:

instead of allowing me to lead the way, asking carefully worded questions of the appropriate people, adam barrels ahead with carson in tow. they pass gabriel and me several times going different directions, complaining wanly about my not having phoned ahead to determine the exact locations of everything they want. carson occasionally stops to read signs and other literature that piques his interest, like ingredient labels.
eventually, whether by process of elimination or inquiry, we all arrive at the dressing room, at which point the bands bags are spread in an elaborate obstacle course on the floor and attentions are quickly re-focused.
“i am so g-d hungry.” “al, where is catering?” i am asked, without any particular regard for the answer. speed is more important than accuracy when it comes time to quell the band’s primal needs. i maneuver to cut them off, with the vain hope of asking permission to eat the left-overs before they start main-lining them. tam’s buckwheat vegetable soup pleases them greatly.
once sated, they hunt down their equipment and begin the assembly process. if we are lucky, my post-show instructions have been followed and no one has adjusted the altitudes or angles of adam’s drum stands.

while they situate themselves, i deliver the guest list—on this occasion, filled with the names of our couchsurfing.com hosts and some friends of lenny and tjerk (see april 17-20) — to the production office and take the piece of paper destined to become the night’s set list. i also like to check in with the evening’s merchandising machine, whose wheels jeff skellon (alanis’ merch guy and irreplaceable friend to the band in their efforts to maintain financial solvency) has usually already greased. little signs are made indicating that autographs will be signed by the burgeoning rock stars after their show and alanis’.
when i return to the stage area, the band and sound crew are usually taunting each other over the sound system. when they have exhausted their repertoires, they launch into an impassioned-if-somehow-incomplete tour through Toto IV. i have, after all, arranged for them to be professionally filmed tonight by alanis’ video crew; so, why on earth would they be practicing their own material? paul, alanis’ assistant sound engineer, comments on the quality of the selections and i assure him that they are carefully chosen in order to irritate others and pre-screened on unfortunate train passengers.
i deftly switch to my documentarian mode and begin photographing and filming these magical moments—moments we are sure to look back on (possibly in the bonus material of some retrospective dvd), surrounded by commemorative triple-platinum records and oxygen tanks. for my efforts, i am chastized about my unsteady hand, likely trembling from lack of sleep or consistent malnutrition and/or fear of reprisal.
back in the dressing room, it isn’t long before it occurs to the group to eat again. when our mouths are full, we have discovered, we do not have to talk/listen to one another. and, as has previously been observed, the catering on this tour is worth the price of admission. if i leave this tour with a small collection of recipes that includes treacle pudding and custard sauce, i will consider myself a wealthy man.
our final pre-show trip to the dressing room sees adam “warming up” on his practice pad while gabriel and i walk through the night’s set-list. after teasing me with the possibility for weeks, the band has finally agreed to play “overflow,” which is my favorite song. we drop it in in place of “wish this love away.” copies are made and topical notes are added for gabriel and the video and lighting guys. carson heads out to the stage EARLY for his pre-show tuning ritual and i head out to drop the lists and the cd-r off in their various spots. then, i lose myself in the floor audience and prepare for filming.

the set looks and sounds good and the crowd seems to be into it, but the guys leave the stage a little disappointed in themselves—gabriel’s voice had started to give a bit mid-way through among other things. although, as i’ve occasionally reminded them when they become too self-critical, it’s far more important to have fun on stage than it is to play a seamless set. when the audience sees you having fun, they’ll forgive a lot. anyway, the hardest workin’ band in show business helps me and the stage crew clear their equipment and heads off, sharpies in hand, to sign some discs.
while they are away, basking among the glowing embers of stardom, i hurriedly pack up their equipment—with varying degrees of help and enthusiasm from the local backstage crew—before alanis hits the stage. for my entertainment, my employers sometimes hide the cases in different spots around the venue, leaving me to a sweaty easter egg hunt in the dark.
near the end of the up-packing, the band usually passes by to check on my progress, sometimes stopping to teach me some finer points about the disassembly and care of their instruments. they are doing their best to turn me into a true renaissance man, and i express my appreciation, laced with snide back-talk.
once alanis makes it to the stage without tripping over a pile of instruments, most of my evening responsibilities have been fulfilled and i am free to take in some of her stage show with the band. for my money, you can’t beat the song with all the jumping in it. jumping is infectious. i like to watch it; i like to do it. who knows? maybe i am doing it now.
towards the end of miss morissette’s set, i put on my game face and head to the promoter’s office to collect the nightly fee. no, we does not want it in kroner/euro/whatever, we wants it in dollars, baby. that’s what we use back home to buy the super big gulps and all-you-can-eat buffets, see?
i wrap the money in the little receipt it comes with, sort of like a fish monger, and place it alongside other, similar packages in an elaborate and exacting accounting system from which i perform currency exchanges, pay for all band expenses, and (please don’t tell gabe) bet on the ponies.
a post-show trip to the cd/merch table, during which cds move much more briskly and the fellas are often mobbed by lovely autograph-seekers, is the high note on which our evenings tend to end. i lurk in the shadows, shooting footage of the frenzy.
afterwards, the band heads for the dressing room for organized looting, filling their bags to the bursting point with a healthy array of chips, chocolates, wine, beer and soda, while i collect a second pile of cash-ola from the vendors, less the taxes europeans use to finance silly things...like healthcare, daycare, and education. talk about a priority problem!

part iii, denoument
as our night ends, we discover that our hosts have tired themselves out the previous night and will be unable to take us out for a night on the town. and it’s likely just as well. after the siren-song of the sprite-light girls distracts us just long enough to miss a cab, we find our way back at the apartment in time to sleep for, oh, maybe THREE hours before the cab i’ve scheduled arrives at 5:30am—my absolute favorite time of day. going to sleep under those circumstances with as much at stake as there is here makes me a nervous wreck with signs of OCD. on/off. on/off. on/off. no snooze button on this baby.

april 24 – rock stars in brussels, no sleep ‘til frankfurt

slept late, awoke to light streaking in through carson’s makeshift styrofoam shutters. breakfast arranged in the kitchen by our hosts. their dining room overlooked the city, a great view from the top floor of the apartment.
straight to the venue, tram to bus, in theory. allen and carson decided it would be nice to take a little stroll instead of waiting for the bus. began the walk past some beautiful cherry blossoms, bus zooms past. apparently there was some sort of misunderstanding we run up a path with heavy loads about 500m to catch it at the next stop and board totally winded, carson’s jacket flowing like a cape, kind of a double-time sound of music moment.
few stops later arrive at the venue, forest national in brussels.

before we get to allen’s guest entry, allow me to describe the biggest rock-star moment of the tour thus far. after selling our wares in the interim between gm/alanis sets, we looked for our way to the backstage area, but found nothing discrete. so we entered the venue proper, near the stage, and made our way down through the audience – someone took notice, however, and soon the entire floor was looking our way, & the venue erupted in applause.

april 23 – through the woods & over the river to mainland europe, passover in brussels

spent much of the next train ride signing cds for the band and crew. allen went up and down looking for somebody with a sony cybershot so we could weez on a power supply (which i left somewhere in rotterdam i think), but to no avail.
this train from manchester to london was filled with a bunch of randy nurses drinking mimosas, as evidenced below:
allen (retrieving luggage): do you mind if we slide by?
nurse (striking similarity to flo from mel’s diner, but with glasses): you can slide by me anytime.
allen: ok, we’ll do it real slow.
(adam runs over her foot with his bag.)
nurse: oh, i didn’t know it was gonna be a toe job!
stopped at london euston, scanned the papers for show reviews, tube to waterloo, adam got a tuna paste sandwich, there was some sort of bagel fight about bagel love (living proof we’ve been on the road – tensions running high over bagels – as we discuss it now seems totally ridiculous), then onto the chunnel train (eurostar) to brussels. before i move on, might be worth mentioning that the entire eurostar area of waterloo station had no trash can. carson cased the joint. no trash, so we just left ours on the table. sorry london...
finally found a passenger with a cybershot, he let us borrow his power supply and we juiced up our digital camera. breathed sigh of recharge relief.

lodging in brussels was with couchsurfer.com host #2, sarah verhees (not vorhees like friday the 13th), who was sick and basically out of commission, but her boyfriend fabian (french dude, former couchsurfer as well), brother johannes, two belgian cousins jeroen & thomas, & nico the italian visitor made us feel totally at home in their spacious apartment (replete with pool table/game room) above the car wash where jeroen & thomas work.
i ran out for a bouquet of flowers, as i would be attending a passover seder with an american diplomat somewhere near the brussels forest. i left everyone thereafter and headed off to the seder, while they spent the evening enjoying a multiple-course italian feast prepared by nico. farfalle with little shrimps & cream sauce, cucumber salad & meatballs. large portions and authentic italian. jeroen (or maybe thomas) apparently tried to make margaritas with lemon juice and 6 cubes of ice, but which were mostly tequila, making for a hefty night...
i got a ride to the seder, drove through the brussels forest (apparently reserved originally for the king to have some place to ride his horses in the city). seder was very nice, jonathan & sandy bensky, american diplomat hosts, a few other diplomats living in brussels, and other civilian english speakers. four questions were performed by mo, in japanese, and myself in hebrew. much thanks to the benskys for opening their home to me, a warm home away from home.
allen at some point blew up the bed, causing quite a stir upon turning in. fixed it once, fell through a 2nd time, then jerked the mattress off and put the frame up against the wall. carson felt this would be a good time to assemble a styrofoam puzzle to block out the morning’s sun. i must have been online downstairs at this point, but returned to what i thought was a normal scene...

april 22 – over the river and through the woods to manchester

allen claims carson threw his leg over him sometime last night, or at least tried to several times in his sleep. thankfully he never felt skin/thigh/leg, but just sheets, and as quickly as it started it was over again. i may be getting a bill (legitimate business expense, i think) for some kind of post-coital trauma therapy from al when we return.

training through the english countryside now, rolling hills, patches of trees and old country houses, sheep, little bridges, little winding rivers, bright yellow flowering fields, to our hotel in manchester where we’ll be luxuriating with two (2!) rooms.
allen’s been filming from the train, somehow turned into an interview about the old-school nature of my music. i started talking about the artists i like and somehow wound up on “lady,” a kenny rogers song written by lionel richie with one of the best bridges ever written. “lady/your love’s the only love i need/and beside me is where/i want you to be/you’re the love of my life/you’re my lady.” sounds cheesy, i know, but you gotta hear kenny sing it. only lionel knew how to write words so cheesy and make ‘em sound like you never heard ‘em before. i gotta find that somewhere (record surplus on pico in l.a. usually has that kind of stuff, though it can be tough to find through the stacks).

checked into our hotel (somehow it’s french in spite of its location in the middle of manchester, england), dropped off our stuff, headed over to the manchester apollo, sent allen off in search of charge for our digital camera (he wound up, as he always does, finding people who’d been looking forward to going to the alanis show but couldn’t get tix, and comped ‘em). the apollo’s remarkably similar to brixton academy in london in layout, but its a bit smaller and the audience seemed more intense somehow.
dinner with some of alanis’ band (cedric/bs, blair/drums, jason/gt, much talk about hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy – cedric had just seen the premiere somewhere or the other, said it was ok, not great, but it inspired him to read the book. my brothers were big fans of the series growing up, i didn’t read it ‘til last year, but devoured the 5 books in the series in short order. hysterical, laugh out loud stuff from the twisted mind of douglas adams. if you haven’t read it you should probably look into it...
manchester fans were crazed, which was a pleasure, always fun to be signing everybody’s cds and taking pics with them, makes us really feel like we’re getting somewhere. went out to a pub with couchsurfer simon, whose brother wouldn’t allow us into their place for fear we’d steal stuff or something. he felt bad, so hosted us for the evening and discussed american politics ‘til we returned to our french hotel.

april 21 – spaghetti bols, brixton academy london debut

slept decently, ate a wonderful lunch of “spaghetti bols” (bolognese) out in the backyard prepped by the fabulous emily, who also rehearsed us for the day’s coming interviews. allen’s relationship with olivia, the 18 month old, blossomed somewhere in there. he was giving her instructions to clear the table which she somehow seemed to grasp, saunter over with her newly useful legs, picking up teacups and bringing them back to al. emily was slackjawed in amazement...
headed to the venue relatively early, much to do at brixton academy with the two interviews, soundcheck, and wurly exchange. brixton is not such a great neighborhood, tons of people wandering the streets, open market, stall vendors, with a big rock venue smack in the middle. when we showed up there was already a line to get into the show, as it was sold out so i guess people like to make sure they get a spot down front. new wurly was waiting for us, but my distortion pedal was missing so we had to track that down and get them to bring it back, easier said than done.
1st interview with terri knudsen, an independent journalist doing some sort of exposé on artists who perform at the hotel cafe. she’s norwegian (loves grandiosa), lives in london, and is trying to bring stuggling american artists to england and do some promotion through her website, incitingscenes.com. she did some filming of soundcheck as well, which was a little nuts due to brixton academy’s layout – lots of slapback from the house, so we had to crank the monitors to hear ourselves properly. it’s quite a venue – i’d been there many years before to see the pixies before the broke up and reformed – you can really feel the history of shows in there, and it’s not so big that you get lost.
2nd interview with clickmusic.com, who had some sort of contest to win tix to the show, won by harriet jackman. met gil, the interviewer, my kind of dude with a david lee roth shirt on, and yet another vereker, tom, on camera.
grabbed a quick dinner with alanis’ band and her fiancé ryan reynolds (van wilder) who had joined the fray.

put on a good show where we subbed in “overflow,” what al claims to be the best song on the record, to good response. emma was there, as were adam’s parents (his father teaches theatre in rhode island, and comes to england every so often as part of that program), hanging in the vip area above the audience. another new set from alanis, organized by her band, always nice to see. capacity crowd thrilled. much insanity at the merch table afterward, always a good sign. my voice has been compared to many different people on this trip, including elvis costello, lenny kravitz, peter gabriel, and phil collins, the latter always with a “don’t take this the wrong way, but you kind of sound like...” met some l.a. friends and hung out with the alanis band after the show in the vip bar, as usual last people around, taxi home. taxi driver very charming, plenty of english humour which is one of the wonderful things about this country.

april 20 – chunnel to london, emma’s house in clapham south & old speckled hen

up early again
tram
to the train to brussels
adam’s getting sick...
long wait while they deal with work permits
to the eurostar through the chunnel
onto the london underground at waterloo
short walk to emma’s house in clapham south
collapse

emma’s an old friend of our manager, and welcomed us with open arms. she’s got 5 kids, four of whom were at home, a boarder from mexico, and an australian ex-runway model nanny. entered to friendly chaos, beautiful children, and generally a warm atmosphere, a marked change from the hotel vibe... after introductions (emily – nanny, anna – mexican boarder, jack, 12, mollye 9, cici 4, olivia 18 months) and a spot of tea (yes, they really do that here), adam went straight to bed where he remained ‘til the following morning (it was about 330p at this point). adam and i shared the eldest son harry’s room, he was away at boarding school. surrounding the two not-quite-adult-sized beds were larger-than-life photos of nude women in various sultry poses, including the requisite lesbians in the shower. excellent.
allen, carson and i went for a walk around the clapham south suburb, as we happened upon london during a brief period of great weather. looking for decent food (stereotypically a challenge in england), we found a great barbecue place called bodeans where they have a “beat the clock” menu (price = time on the clock). delicious...
manager’s brother rupert came over with some old speckled hen, classic english beer. jack, youngest son in house of emma at 12 years old, recommended the other flavor and promptly cracked one open for himself (he was supposed to be studying the good samaritan or something from the new testament, so he was keen to get a good buzz on). charles, emma’s husband, is the chef, and he arrived home and plunged straight into dinner prep. had a great dinner with the gang minus daughters who’d retired by that point, stayed up late talking.

april 19 – halfway point, 10000+ @ rotterdam’s ahoy & jeff buckley on the jukebox

train into rotterdam from helmond, checked into our hotel by the river, pretty quick turnaround to the venue, rotterdam’s ahoy, which is apparently the standard by which all are measured in the netherlands. alanis sold it out, 10000 plus another 5% or so wedged onto the general admission standing room on the floor. we had her video team do a live production of our show, which we’ve now got on dvd and hope to have on the website in some form or other very soon. makes us look like big rock stars, which is probably a good thing...
the big difference between playing for 2 to 4000 and 10000 is the roar. it seems to come from the depths of the earth and take over the space, whereas with 2/4000 it’s somehow a little more comprehensible. we also took up a little more of the stage so that we could be directly under the lights for the benefit of the taping – that resulted in a mild feeling of isolation for each of us, and we had to adjust our monitor mixes accordingly (e.g., i couldn’t hear adam’s drums too well all the way across the stage, and heard a lot of slapback from the room, so i had to crank the kick and snare in the monitors to stay in time).

alanis opened “you oughta know” with “to all the girls (except she said ‘boys’) i’ve loved before.” julio iglesias came out of the audience wearing no pants to do a duet. just kidding. but she really did open with that song.

went out after the show with some scottish friends of allen’s and linda, a rotterdam local who we had met on the tram earlier in the day and offered to take us out afterward. landed at a remarkably american-seeming bar near the hotel, with a jukebox playing great stuff all night long, including some nice jeff buckley, one of my absolute faves... oh, and at some point carson wound up in a canal brandishing a large fish.

april 18 – marillion, van gogh, schiele, & chicken fajitas

tjerk’s favorite band of all time is called marillion, a prog rock band who based their name on part of a tolkein novel’s title (the silmarillion). we were treated to their cd as we ate our dutch breakfast of bread, chocolate spread, and the little chocolate things swensen’s used to put on ice cream sundaes.
quick train into amsterdam where we went to the van gogh museum, filled with hundreds of paintings over the course of his career. i’ve always been a huge van gogh fan, especially after reading stone’s lust for life, a historical fiction bio and a great book if you’re into van gogh... a few of my favorites are the potato eaters (dark and brooding image of a potato-farming family sitting down to dinner in their hut, from his earliest period – this one doesn’t look much like what he became famous for later on), one of an almond tree against an amazing shade of blue sky (painted for his nephew, brother theo’s son vincent – i think my mother must have had a book of van gogh prints or something, because this one and a few others always look familiar), and a series of paintings of cherry trees in blossom, where it seems he was trying to get the perfect rendition by repeating the same image in subtly different ways. when you look at these paintings close up, you can see the intensity with which van gogh painted, the paint sticks up off the canvas in thousands of little waves. there’s a song called vincent by don mclean (the guy who wrote american pie) which captures his spirit, i think—you gotta check it out. then go find the version by sixth wave, a group i produced, theirs is a wonderful arrangement with thick harmonies.
downstairs was an egon schiele exhibit with live performance artists doing interpretations of his paintings – he’s always been controversial due to his use of young nude women as models...
at some point in there adam ducked into a local salon for a haircut and the rest of us walked around the streets of amsterdam where it began to rain. still, a great walking city it seems to me. allen had gotten a recommendation from a passerby about where to get the best food, apparently an italian place down some side street packed with ethnic restaurants. we passed by several, but al had a bee in his bonnet about hitting this particular place where you get a pizza or pretty much anything else on the menu for 5 euro. so that’s where we went...

for some reason when you order a coke in europe, you get something about half the size of a coke can, like a mini orange juice glass kind of thing. this is a source of constant frustration to us americans, who are used to a nice 72-ouncer with free refills from 7 eleven. this brings me to another subject:

AMERICA! YOU GONNA EAT THAT?©
we’re going to start a campaign to bring more tourists into america. it will feature the image of a full-figured man and woman chowing down on a burger, holding a 72 ounce coke, with “you gonna eat that?” in a cartoon bubble.

after our fill of amsterdam, back to helmond where allen cooked a tex-mex dinner for the drouens & the band, chicken fajitas, guacamole, etc. allen’s a man of many talents... early night for finely quaffed adam and myself, allen and carson were up late doing god knows what...

april 17 – mongo’s, train to the netherlands, r&r in helmond

...and up at noon or so after a good rest. uber-host ulf took us to mongo’s mongolian bbq for brunch. huge variety of meats – kangaroo, lamb, antelope, african cow, duck, etc. carson and i went for the variety, which may not have been the best idea. carson’ll tell you that when you have 12 meats in one bowl, it’s easy to lose track of what you’re eating. a little focus probably would have been good, but it was pretty incredible nonetheless. over-long lunch leads to (you guessed it) another mad dash to the train station for the ride to the netherlands and a couple of desperately needed days off. some colorful characters on the train up to helmond, like jackie (again, see photo) who started hanging all over adam, and her mom, who had an unsettling predilection for belching.
off at the wrong helmond station, called lenny & tjerk, our friends, and within a few minutes, we were maxing and relaxing at their home.

helmond literally means “hell’s mouth,” and when we mentioned where we were staying, people seemed taken aback. we were told that this friendly little town is, in fact, where all the dutch criminal-class hangs out... just goes to show that you never know who’s lurking behind those well-manicured lawns and town-house doors.
our hosts made us an excellent pasta dinner, and we all watched monty python’s “erik the viking”. i’m normally a big fan of monty python, but couldn’t appreciate this... a few choice words from roger ebert on the subject: Every once in a while a movie comes along that makes me feel like a human dialysis machine. The film goes into my mind, which removes its impurities, and then it evaporates into thin air. "Erik the Viking" is a movie like that, an utterly worthless exercise in waste and wretched excess, uninformed by the slightest spark of humor, wit or coherence.

sleep come free me...

april 16 – video camera saga III

implementing plan 8 to extract the video camera from frankfurt’s airport fedex office. up at 445a to catch the 528a train to frankfurt from munich. that’s where we are now, trying to get the digital camera to relinquish its contents onto the computer.
speaking of which, gear seems to be gradually expiring... adam’s video camera died on day one, my cell charger/converter wouldn’t work in europe for some reason so i had to get a european one, now my digital camera won’t connect to the computer anymore... AAAAAGGH. my kingdom for reliable technology. will settle for universal voltage.
...camera working again. apparently bluetooth and usb cameras are incompatible???

arrival at frankfurt’s airport train station, discover my jacket is headed to cologne ahead of me moments before train’s departure, necessitating a coordinated sprint-and-stall maneuver (i race in ‘n’ out while al blocks departure). ditch carson/adam at airport’s vigilantly guarded comfy-chair exhibit in the airport, while al/i taxi out to fedex. musa the afghan taxi driver agrees to wait for us, and—suddenly--there she is, in all her glory, the most dangerous video camera in europe. back to the station for another wind-sprint to the cologne-bound train, on which we start charging the new video camera! from now on we should be able to augment the trip with fabulous video technology. by the way, the ICE train goes 293 kilometers/hr, which is about 180 mph, which may explain why we didn’t see much of the german countryside, apart from a blanket of fog across a blur of farms.
eventually wind up in “chickito” in the cologne station, waiting for ulf, our first host from future tour-sponsor couchsurfing.com. very excited. apparently we’re staying at his parents’ house and should have lots of space and a local to lead us around... we’ll drop our stuff at his place, shower if we get the chance, and head to the venue. al’s testing out the new video camera on our dining experience, ironing out the kinks.

COUCH SURFING
among other things, allen has used this tour to explore a relatively new concept in world travel, couchsurfing.com. you must check it out to really appreciate what this is all about. as promised, ulf met us at the chickito, drove to his house like a bat outta hell, crashed hard (that is, slept) after having barely slept the night before. awoke in a daze and headed to the venue. at soundcheck the Db on my wurly was flat, so we got alanis’ keyboard tech to come take a look. one by one it seemed like the whole crew wound up looking in on the process, which ended up getting the Db pretty close. might get a sub keyboard in london, where the gear rental company is based.
took my dessert to the balcony ‘cause our dressing room seemed to be functioning as the exhaust for the kitchen & most of the backstage area, and—at long last—met alanis. we spoke about the tour, she said she was a big fan of my music, wants to buy lots of cds to give to her friends, and generally wanted to make sure we were having a good time and everyone was treating us well. very, very nice, and very complimentary, great to finally meet the woman in charge of getting us out here on this adventure...

cologne show was to a packed house of somewhere around 2000. playing to lots of people is somehow easier than playing to smaller groups, i’m not sure exactly why. perhaps it’s the anonymity, or the fact that no one knows the music and we have to give them everything and show them exactly why we do this every night... it’s just easier to perform for a large crowd, and the response is so huge, so many people cheering and paying attention, somehow it feels like what we’re doing is more important. not to say that small shows don’t have great value as well – i love the intimacy of room 5 and the hotel cafe, one can definitely get closer to individuals in the audience, literally and figuratively... the big audience is just a totally different experience. lots of people have been asking about whether we’ve been nervous playing for so many people – i actually feel like there’s less pressure playing for lots of people we don’t know, and i hadn’t really thought about nervousness, but it hasn’t really been a factor. not that i haven’t had my experiences with nervousness, but not on this tour, at least not yet, thankfully.
alanis played a totally different set again – it’s nice to see her change it up all the time. after the show did lots of signing again, that’s a trip in and of itself, something that takes a little getting used to. we all try to keep it unique for each person, but after 100 or so cds signed it’s tough to come up with new material... made a deal with a guy named thomas – he was at munich and cologne in the front row, and if he shows up in the front at frankfurt and furth we’re gonna give him a free cd at the show. so thomas, if you’re reading this, you’ll know we haven’t forgotten.

then out through the streets of cologne with ulf and his guest, mira. first stop was a huge colognian biergarden where the lights are on full and the server was a slyly surly 70-something. drank “kolsch” or similar, the local brew, in tiny little glasses. then to a packed dance club where we all got soaked through on the floor dancing to some old school hip hop. words won’t do that justice—you have to check out the pictures. back to ulf’s to sleep it all off...

april 15 – video camera saga II, munich olympiahalle show

had every intention of sleeping that morning, but somehow wound up in the breakfast room of the hotel with skype, ichat, email, and george mehren on the phone trying to track down what the hell happened to the video camera. as various people in the hotel awoke adam noted that i was getting the ol’ stink-eye from everyone coming in for breakfast... allison had called with the update earlier.
- apparently customs seized the camera because they thought we were trying to operate some sort of import/export business, one camera at a time from the u.s. to germany, so they needed all kinds of documentation proving otherwise
- they also had evidently thrown the previous day’s fax in the trash, not really understanding what it was all about, in spite of us having sent it and all the documents therin at their behest
- several hours later we discovered that they mistook two tracking numbers, and believed our camera to be some sort of weapon, shipped to someone in the german military, and that it needed some additional documentation to clear customs (which begs the question – why is the german military ordering weapons from amazon.com?)
of course, in order to get the camera delivered before we left munich, the only option ended up being a private subcontractor ferrying the camera (we finally convinced them that was indeed what it was) from frankfurt to munich during rush hour. cost: $400 or so, pretty much the same cost of the camera itself. so that not really being an option at all, we finally wound up with the solution to get on an early-ass (read: 528a) train to frankfurt ourselves, taxi over to the fedex office at the frankfurt office, present passport, etc... then get on a one-hour commuter train on to cologne for the next show. nightmare. but at least we’ll save the extra $400 private shipping.
at some point during the negotiations, adam and al headed out to once again try to get his camera fixed—only to return with a video-camera-shaped paper weight and a sprockets-esque comedy routine about the “accumulator.” useless. anyhow, all of this information took about 8 hours to assimilate, a constant ichat connection to allison in the u.s., several dozen calls to fedex in germany and the international office. by then it was time to head to the show, so that was how we spent our nice extra day in munich. whee...

munich’s olympiahalle is in the olympic complex that was built for the 1972 olympics. it’s a beautiful area, and the arena and it’s surrounding pavilions have a sweeping webwork of arches, with dark panels and tethers connecting them to cement supports. after a leisurely stroll around the entire arena searching for the backstage entrance, we arrived in time for a quick lunch and soundcheck – the merch people were really into our soundcheck rendition of the commodore’s “easy.” still no sign of alanis, but we seem to be getting in a little closer with her posse and dog, “boogs,” so hopefully our introduction is just a matter of time.
adam found some sort of futuristic thing in the dressing room which turned out to be a wall-mounted hair dryer, and went back and forth between that and his practice pad, hair dryer, practice pad, hair dryer, practice pad... at some point after dinner (incredible – adam/carson got the grilled marlin, allen/i ordered southern fried chicken) i sequestered myself in a little interrogation area attached to our dressing room and tried to warm up my voice, which is losing a little bit on the top end but is so far holding up. dinner conversation with jason (one of alanis’ guitar players) consisted of 6 degrees of guitar players & ferret legging (that’ll need a whole article – if we can find it online we’ll link to it).
olympiahalle show was the best so far – rearranged the setlist to get the crowd singing “me and myself” for someone else for one day by the end of the set, and replaced go up to go down with wish this love away. crowd seemed into that one, the kids love their 8th notes. anyway, the clapping and singing gave us all extra energy and we put on a better show as a result i think. sold double the cds and must’ve signed every one, so we’ll probably stick with this new set for a bit. “overflow” has been voted down so far, although we’ll throw it in at some point ‘cause allen claims it’s the best song on the new record. alanis was feeling the energy as well, apparently, as she put on perhaps her best show of the tour thus far.

hard to believe we’re only 4 shows in, 7 to go, feels like we’ve been out for a long while already.

april 14 – train to munich, video camera?, chris pierce & seal in an airplane hangar

i write this at 530a on a train to frankfurt’s airport station where we’ll be taxi-ing to the fedex office. we’ll get to why we’re on this early-ass train soon...

april 14 was relatively relaxing, felt like as much of a normal day as we’ve had on the tour thus far. got up at a reasonable hour, boarded the 6-hour train to munich, nice views of the german/bavarian countryside along the way. this was our first experience with the dining car, a nice concept. we also met a pair of san franciscans who’re following the alanis tour around europe. al & i had a one on one scrabble game that opened with two 7-letter words (mine = leaking, al’s = deviates).
arrived in munich and walked around the corner to check into the hotel, found that the video camera that was fedexed from the u.s. had not arrived, spent some time trying to figure out why it was nowhere to be found. various faxes sent and received. while i was online and on the phone trying to deal with that, carson went into an arcade and came out a sex shop. evidently they’ve got some sort of unholy relationship...

then off to “zenith,” an airplane hangar turned venue where our friend chris pierce opened for seal, a great show and great to see a familiar face in unfamiliar territory. we had run into jeff, the merch guy from the alanis tour, on the way to the show, & he got us all some nice german bier. had a couple pairs of weiners at the more than fair price of four euro. mmmmmmm...... weiners. hung out backstage with chris, rami (seal’s drummer, also plays in goldspot with another l.a. friend, sid khosla), some others from seal’s band and various others. rami’s really into cigars, so we were all smoking little cuban cigarillos in the dressing room.
dropped jeff off at his stop off the u-bahn (munich subway), then back to the hotel for skyping & photo upload.

april 13 – sleep/recovery, hamburg show, adam & carson meet alanis...

slept ‘til noon-ish on the 13th, long enough to recover somewhat from the great gear haul from oslo to hamburg & the endless trains of the previous day. took a taxi to the wrong venue, where we were assessed with a certain degree of consternation.
security: (in german.) you’re opening for ‘night of the jumps?’
allen: yes, we’re the opening band. where’s our dressing room?
20 euro later we arrived at CCH3, where, thankfully, there was no motorcycle show, but rather a labyrinth to find our dressing room. ate some catering at long last, bonded with “boogs” (alanis’ dog).
the hamburg venue was all open, no seats, which was nice. soundcheck featured “eye in the sky” by alan parsons project, and things sounded great. afterwards allen and i went to deal with the merch dude, jeff, and adam and carson ran across alanis in the hall between her various interviews and photo shoots. apparently she was very friendly - all agreed that things were going well and she apologized for not having had time to hang yet. so al & i still haven’t met her, but she’ll come by our room to hang at some point and check out our show somewhere along the line... alanis is kept busy pretty much constantly with interviews, conference calls, photo shoots and stuff like that, so nobody really sees too much of her other than her entourage of assistants/stylist/masseuse/videographer/dog.
allen took a little stroll through hamburg to find cdrs for show recording, then to dinner with sweet new zealand treacle & kiwi for dessert. incredible.
adam and carson then did a 30-minute rendition of “jesus christ superstar” with adam as judas and carson as jesus and orchestra (electric bass sans amp – mostly vocals were audible, with occasional slapping on the bass). spectacular.

hamburg show started without my lead vocal in the monitor, resolved by the end of the first song. somewhere during “ok alone” my wurly cable came unplugged, another near disaster, and magic the monitor engineer came running out to fix it... hamburg crowd pretty tame by all accounts, and a smaller show than previous ones (2000 or so), but judging from the cd signing frenzy things must’ve gone well.
one of allen’s many talents is his ability to find someone from our high school no matter where we are in the world. in hamburg it was robert stefan, a foreign exchange student who’d come to alamo heights high school in san antonio during the year the berlin wall came down (bad timing for him, a german away from home during the most historic event of his lifetime). robert came to the show from berlin, and afterwards took us to “turm,” a bar at the top of an old bunker with a spiral ramp which nearly ended us. off to the hotel after robert took advantage of the band’s chick magnetism, scoring digits from the german barmaid. he liked that phrase, “get the digits.”
hailed a cab back to the hotel, got online and talked to the u.s. via skype and ichat... learning to love internet telephony.

april 12 – day off on the hell train to hamburg

...up at 5a to get a 6a subway to catch a 7a train, oslo to gothenburg. relatively uneventful, certainly not indicative of the nightmare in store.
plan a: meet nigel (from multicardex, the people who printed our european cds) at copenhagen’s train station during our 10 minute connection to pick up 5 more boxes of cds & catch the next train to hamburg.
reality: last leg from malmo to copenhagen was late due to some kind of personnel issue, so we miss our non-stop connection to hamburg by 5 minutes.
plan b: 45 minute layover in copenhagen followed by a series of 3 trains.

train 1: we’re now loaded down with so much crap (800 cds, snare drum, cymbals, 4 bags, bass guitar, 3 backpacks, and a doumbek) we should probably just be playing shows on the trains. we had a dry-run where we practiced moving all this stuff from track to track, seemed to be doable. if it wasn’t for the bigger haps dogs, things might’ve been ok. just before the train arrived, we decided it was time for a nice sausage, specifically a “bigger haps dog.” delicious. about one bite in, train pulls up and we’re now racing to get seats on the train with all our crap plus hot dogs. carson trailed the pack, painting fellow passengers with mustard and ultimately choosing his bigger haps dog over his bass, ditching it a few cars behind as he searched for where we ended up. where’d we end up? the silent sauna car, where people scold you for talking and the a/c is on the fritz. at this point we’re sticking out like real americans, making tons of noise, sweating our asses off, eating hot dogs, generally eliciting stares. the train conductor wants us dead.
that’s where i’m writing this blog – it’s so hot in here, and carson just took off his shoes again. god help us all. if we make it to hamburg, i’m instituting a no-shoes-off-ever policy, and we’re never buying sausages again. here’s praying the next train’s on time...

train 2: AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. packed up the 9000 items, bailed from train one in the middle of nowhere, denmark, and took deep breaths in the cool air off the train. next train right on time, about 5 minutes later, mostly empty, plenty of room to stretch out and functional a/c. small miracles...

train 3: all good, other than the odor.

finally made it to hamburg after 16 hours on the train – too tired to write more now... suffice it to say we had a turkish dinner somewhere in the middle of the city near the hotel.... see ya next time.

april 10b/11 – grandiosa, the king of norway, oslo show

dag-are and anja (friends al met for 2 days in morrocco at some point) found us at the oslo central train station, picked up some frozen pizza (according to them, frozen pizza, specifically “grandiosa” brand, is the national food of norway) and headed to anja’s place. they prepared a trio of grandiosas, we all toasted “skål” (prounced skoal) with some wine from alanis’ catering, discussed the intricacies of norwegian cuisine, and passed out for the night watching tiger woods win the masters.
finally got a good night’s sleep, showered, brought stuff to the venue (the oslo spektrum, kinda like a basketball arena), then off in search of repair for adam’s incapacitated video camera. no luck there, unfortunately. we’d been videoing the first day or two, drained a battery, plugged back in and no juice. tried everything, and the repair guys (in some random office on the 7th floor of a random building in oslo). we’re workin’ on getting another camera going, as we have dreams of a “hard day’s night” style movie documenting the tour...
then off to the king’s castle, down karl johanns gate for our first actual sightseeing. the castle is guarded by a few norwegian soldiers, kinda like the ones guarding buckingham palace in england, but with no fence around the castle. we walked right up and it seemed as though you could just go in, nobody was stopping us... ‘til at the last second one of them started turning red and mentioned that we weren’t supposed to go in there. little stroll around the grounds, then back to the venue.

watched another alanis soundcheck, they worked on a different set than the one in denmark & i got some keyboard pedal recommendations (stuff to make your wurly go nuts) from zach, alanis’ insane keyboard guy. hooked into the venue’s wireless internet to upload blogs/pics while alanis played in the background... they finished & we soundchecked with “change,” replacing “when we are one” ‘cause we wanted to rock a little harder, and i added a distortion pedal to my scenario (carson’s been using one to great effect, beefing up our choruses with some dirt).
downstairs to catering for a quick dinner, then back up for our set @ 730p. another great one, tons of girls leaning over the security barriers... met lots of nice norwegians during the break, signed more stuff, and spent the alanis show stage left by the monitor engineers where we got a good view of the whole stage.
alanis did a nice long encore during which we headed to the merch tables to sign cds at the end of the show, always a nice way to finish. then down to the dressing rooms in the depths of the spektrum to hang with alanis’ band for a bit, then up again with all our stuff to “champs,” a bar attached to the arena. hung out a couple hours (the bar put the new cd on their stereo which was a nice touch i thought) with some people from the venue, as well as our hosts and some of their friends who came to the show.
then back home to anja and dag’s to crash for a few hours...

april 10, on the train to oslo after the horsens, denmark show

day 3 of the tour began 3 hours after day 2 ended. i’ve been catching up on the blogging on the trains.
a word about the trains – we have a 3 week eurail pass for the band + allen, which gets us seats in first class (if they’re available). sometimes we’ve got reservations (more $), but usually not, so it can be a mad scramble for a seat before the train’s off, and we’ve got all kinds of gear with us so boarding and disembarking can be a nightmare.
as it was this morning, when we got on in horsens and stood in the area between cars waiting for some seats to open up. oh, and did i mention the smoke? filling the train. there’re “non-smoking” cars, which are not quite as bad, but it’s all one train, same air... anyway, mad sprint at a stop where they added a car got us some seats about halfway to copenhagen. ah, seat. and so the blogging begins...
...it’s now 830p on the final leg of the train to oslo. passed through hilly sweden, now we’re in norway, where it’s getting dark and it looks cold. band passed out in the middle of a not-too-heated game of scrabble. theoretically meeting another friend of allen’s at the train station, will stay at her house tonight and after the tomorrow’s show.

april 9 – enter alanis

hugo rouses team gm @ 1045a, after a few hours sleep, allen (tour manager, responsible for getting the band where they have to be at all times) having brought neither watch nor alarm clock with him on the tour. breakfast at the school (carson = meat & egg, then went back to bed), packed up, showered, searched for carson, and finally made the train to horsens for the first alanis gig.
hostel in horsens = 1 room, 5 guys in 2 bunkbeds and a trundle. we then departed on the fellowship of the gig, a journey (with much gear in tow – walking, mind you) through a bird sanctuary, several thickets, and a wooded staircase up to a few small farms, surprised farmers, and the load-in entrance for horsens forum.
met alanis’ band & crew, leisurely lunch at her catering (one of the big plusses of being on a big tour = good food), watched her soundcheck, set up our gear offstage, then soundchecked ourselves. little rough going to start, but managed to get it all together in time for doors just after 6p.
back up to fabulous catering for some dinner, last minute haggling over the setlist, then onstage promptly at 8p for 4000 screaming danish alanis fans.
when rocking an arena: 1. takes a minute to adjust to the lighting - can’t see anyone in the audience ‘cause the lights on the band are so bright. 2. the band has to rely on the monitor sound (as opposed to the house sound) exclusively to hear themselves, so there’s a separate monitor engineer that’s there to help out the band, responding to hand signals and facial expressions... 3. also, applause goes longer and energy level is high just due to the sheer numbers.
apparently the danes love to clap – about 1 bar into adam’s opening doumbek part on “gravity,” the crowd was doing the patented european-clap-on-all-four-beats, something totally unknown in america. this put us all at ease, & made the rest of the set a pleasure. after a set of stuff from the new album - gravity, someone else for one day, when we are one, lighted up, ok alone, go up to go down - and over the world from the lighted up ep, we were done & watched the alanis show (awesome) with some of the girls from the højskole where we’d played the night before.
sold cds after the show, and signed those, people’s tickets, shirts, arms, and stomachs.
alanis and her posse bailed right after her show and got on their buses to oslo. we’re kind of on the opposite schedule from them – we went out to a bar with some of allen’s friends and some of the ry students, slept a few hours after another late night. alanis & co. travel all night and arrive the next morning, we sleep (kinda) then travel during the day.
haven’t met alanis yet – she arrived at the venue just before their soundcheck, and we soundchecked right after, then ate, played, then she played, bailed. should be a bit more time in oslo, hopefully we’ll have a chance for introductions then... stay tuned.
sad to leave denmark, everybody here’s been ridiculously nice and the country is beautiful (as we train through it).

april 7/8 – 3 flights, 2 trains and a conga line

picked up carson on the corner of pico/westwood blvds in l.a. after he was late to get to my house where we were supposed to meet for the taxi. taxi driver not enthused. upon arrival at lax, treated ourselves to a fine pre-tour burger king feast.
flight 1 lax – chicago (4 hours) slept most of the way.
flight 2 chicago – london (8 hours) watched meet the fokkers (review – where’s owen wilson?), adam watched spanglish (review – excited for slapstick adam sandler, tricked into a chick flick), carson chose ocean’s 12 (review – it sucked: julia roberts played someone who looked like julia roberts). i also did some last minute excel spreadsheeting trying to figure out ways to not go bankrupt on the tour.
quick pint of stella artois in heathrow before...
flight 3 london – copenhagen (københavn) (2 hours) included seats made for half-wide humanoids, but otherwise saw us all near physical collapse and singing michael mcdonald songs in our delirium.
british flight attendant (thick accent): ham and cheese or tomato and cheese?
adam: what?
british flight attendant (thick accent): ham and cheese or tomato and cheese?
adam: what?
british flight attendant (thick accent): ham and cheese or tomato and cheese?
adam: what?
carson: HAM AND CHEESE OR TOMATO AND CHEESE!
adam: oh. tomato & cheese.
after she’d gone to deliver more “breakfast,” adam noted that he’d received the ham anyway.
copenhagen passport control = minimal. airport looks straight out of 2001.

waited for a couple hours in total exhaustion at the train station for allen rindfuss, our tour manager, my old friend from high school in san antonio.
allen managed to arrive at the station 5 minutes prior to departure, arms full of hundreds of cds, several backpacks, and 2 2-liter bottles of dr. pepper. jolted out of semi-sleep by the sight of him and calls of “take the dr. pepper!” we bolted down to the train and made the first connection.
after missing our next connection and learning several things about danish culture on the train (including “snovsen” and “nemlig!) from allen (who conveniently speaks fluent danish), we arrived and met hugo (manager) at allen’s old school (højskole) in ry (not pronounced “rye,” but rather like “woo” from the back of your throat).

as soon as we got in we played a show for the højskole at their bar/cafe. real piano, carson on a crappy school bass amp, and adam on doumbek, playing on fumes at this point, but it went beyond our wildest expectations. the students were amazing, and we got our first taste of a real european rhythmic clapping encore. first cd sale went to lasse, the self-proclaimed best lyricist and basketball player in the known universe. we would have tested his skillz, but were up too late in the bar doing conga lines, playing foosball, signing cds, and drinking far too much carlsberg & some cheap-ass odin.