Die britischen Indiepopdandys The Indelicates sammeln in diesen Tagen ihre ersten Erfahrungen auf deutschen Bühnen und berichten exklusiv für das Popblog vom wilden, wilden Leben. Teil 2.
February 14th: Freiburg, Swamp
The drive to Freiburg was relatively long and relatively uneventful. The drives are starting to blend into one really, it’s usually raining and it takes a while. We unloaded at SWAMP in Freiburg, a quaint venue with a stage just about able to take the five of us. After a swift sound check and excellent meal across the road, Keith decided to take the opportunity to have a few hours sleep in our hotel as we would be making the 9 hour journey to Berlin once we had finished playing. The show went very well with, once more, demands from a packed SWAMP for a second encore! Not quite being used to actually being allowed to play for more than 30 minutes, The Indelicates don’t know enough songs for such things, however, we did once play The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” at Christmas, so we had to bring that out…
And we remembered it… kind of, I think there may have been a missing verse, but that just left room for extended guitar solos from Simon Indelicate.
Loading the van in yet another storm at around 2am, we set off for Berlin. And I’m sure NO ONE stole ANY pillows from ANY hotels…
February 15th: Berlin, Magnet
While many of The Indelicates slept in the van, Keith TOTP drove stalwartly through the night to get us to Berlin in time for a TV interview and acoustic performance on Blend, a music show on the TD1 station. We spent an hour with Martin Jörg talking rock things and playing three songs acoustically; “New Art for the People”, “Waiting for Pete Doherty to Die” and “Julia, We Don’t Live in the Sixties”’. Not being able to plug in her bass, Kate was given a swift lesson from master percussionist Keith TOTP just minutes before broadcast – she does not hold him responsible for the results…
Sound check tonight began at 11pm at the MAGNET in central Berlin. And it was fantastically quick, must have set some kind of record thanks to the speediest sound engineer in… well, Berlin, maybe. Taking to the stage at around 12:30am, we played another great show to a packed Thursday night party before eventually crashing to bed about 4am. Perhaps it was the severe lack of sleep, maybe it was the 7am breakfast of McRibs and fries, or perhaps drinking beer from a hollowed out pineapple, but for some reason Keith wasn’t feeling too well…
February 16th: Würzburg, Cafe Cairo
Würzburg was today’s destination and we set off at the much more reasonable hour of 12pm. Something probably happened on the way. We arrived at Café Cairo about 2 and half hours late, and, feeling very guilty raced up the stairs to the venue. However, the people at Cairo didn’t seem all that bothered so sound check commenced with little stress. Ed entered the venue still wearing his trusty travel pillow from the van. It wasn’t a turn on.
After sound check, we were served a HUGE meal that I have forgotten the name of; once again we were fed very well and were ready to play another show. The night’s entertainment began with the rather excellent ‘Freizeit 98’. We took to the stage at around 10:45 and once again seemed to go down rather well with the large crowd. It is becoming apparent that audiences in Germany actually LOOK like they are enjoying themselves, they dance, sing along and smile for a good hour. After months of playing in London, one can be forgiven for finding this rather extraordinary. Kate got to use an ampeg, which was a highlight. Beds for the night were to be found at the promoter’s house, although there seemed to be a suggestion that they were only expecting three Indelicates, so Ed, Al and Keith joined Redmond in his hotel a little way into town. By all accounts, everyone slept exceptionally well.
February 17th: München, Prager Frühling
The journey from Würzburg to Munich is actually a reasonable distance as it turns out, so for the first time we had enough time and enough sun to do a little sight-seeing. Würzburg is an excellent city it seems, with some very impressive castles and historic bavarian monuments. We took a short drive up to the nearest Schloss and had a look around, desperately fulfilling our ‘local culture’ quota for the day. We even found a well to make wishes with… but Keith never did get that extra McRib…
No time for hanging about – we made our way on to Munich and stopped off at the ___Uni / College where Julia and Simon were interviewed for m94.5 radio station, interspersed with a few choice songs, and people phoned in for tickets, which was very exciting.
Interview over, we headed to the last venue we would play in Germany – an ex-strip club (photos of Al on the pole will surely appear shortly): Prager Frühling. Al was also ecstatic to find a Starbucks, which is probably quite embarrassing really, but just loves them vanilla lattes. Once again, the show was spectacular, particularly good sound I think I remember, and the support band Celest were a lovely bunch and very good too, turns out the singer shops for his ties in the same place as Ed and Al too! Sleep was to be had in the easy palace hostel, as we arrived to check in, loudly over the stereo came the E.P. I’m not sure what to say about that.
Simon, Julia and Keith took the opportunity to go into town with James and Justin from Weekender Records, the other Indelicates, being considerably less “rock and roll” decided to have some milk-less earl grey in their room…
February 18th
It only takes about an hour and a half to get to Innsbruck from Munich, so we left at around midday and got to Innsbruck at around 4pm. Yeah, there’s absolutely no time zone difference, it’s just that a vehicle full of people, instruments, suitcases and THAT KEYBOARD doesn’t quite travel as fast as one might expect. Still, it’s our night off, so there is literally nothing we have to do! After arriving at the fantastic Weekender club and settling into our flat for the next two nights, we all went for walks around the town, and all managed to split up and get a LITTLE bit lost, which was excellent. Innsbruck, despite being in the Alps was actually the warmest spot on the tour. That night, James and Justin treated us all to a fantastic meal in Innsbruck. The Indelicates and Keith TOTP started to completely relax for one night, and wondered whether we’d be able to ‘Bring the Rock’ the next night having allowed ourselves to recover. This was the night of the biggest bust up we have ever seen, Ed is heavily bruised, Julia lost an eye and Kate may need some reconstructive surgery after the drunken, drug-induced rock war that ensued. No, it’s just not true, sorry, we had tea and fell asleep again.
February 19th: Innsbruck
The Indelicates had a hankering to ‘go up the mountain and find snow’. After trying to find some kind of transport to take us that DIDN’T require Keith to sit behind the wheel for a while, we gave in, accepting K-Mizzle’s offer to drive ‘towards Sölden until it goes up hill too much’. Luckily we found a gondola in Oetz that would take us to 2200m in 8 minutes. Good. We piled into the gondola and soon found ourselves surrounded by skiers and sipping hot chocolate on the mountain. Simon was particularly happy to see some snow and ski lifts as he has not for nearly a decade. It was all too soon that we had to return though and load in our equipment for one last time.
The gig was simply excellent. Socks were rocked all over the place as it seems. In fact, some were lost. And as the final strum, hit, pluck and strike of ‘Fairytale of New York’ rang out, The Indelicates first international tour came to an end. And it was glorious.
Tour Diary by Alastair Clayton, The Indelicates.
