Firstly I’m going to introduce everyone on the tour to you before you read this so you know who everyone is. There are 2 bands on the tour, Dupec and We Were Promised Jetpacks. In WWPJ we have myself (Darren Lackie), Adam Thompson, Sean Smith and Michael Palmer. Dupec consists of James Yuill, Jamie Steel and Paul Bannon. Stuart Burnside is our merchandise man with the plan and in charge of us all is Andrew Bush a.k.a. big anders.

Day 1 – Hamburg (Knust)

After a night off spent in Cologne, which involved karaoke bars, big zombie cocktails and failed attempts to get a DürumDöner Kebab, we headed for Hamburg.

Upon arrival we were greeted with big trays of cheese and ham, and a lovely little basket of rolls. They know how to please us in Germany.
After soundcheck we went across to a little restaurant with Dupec and our promoter Phillip, where I had spaghetti with pesto… which wasn’t so good, before heading back over to the venue to watch Dupec. Thankfully they were a lot better than the food. It was nice to watch them play in front of an audience they had never played to before, the room was almost full for their set and they went on to sell a lot of merch which they were happy about… and when they’re happy, we’re happy.
The gig itself went really well, there are some crazy people in Hamburg. It’s generally only in Germany where we get to see mosh-pits at our gigs and there was plenty of that tonight. The crowd were great and we had a lot of fun playing! A WWPJ gig wouldn’t be a WWPJ gig without problems though, luckily this one only had the one. Adam snapped a string during the intro, which meant the rest of us had to play for an extra couple of minutes on our own. That wasn’t too great but we got by.

(Jamie and Paul after the gig)

We decided to head out for a few beers after the show and ended up in a place called Molotowon the infamous Reeperbahn, where we played charades… you laugh now, but we had a great time, before heading across the road and finishing off the night with a large Big Mac Meal. An excellent end to any night.

Day 2 – Hamburg (day off)

Another day off you say? Yeah, that’s right… we worked for a whole hour yesterday so surely we deserve one.
Getting to sleep in late while you are on tour is one of the best things that can happen and lucky for us we got to do that today. After waking up at around 1pm we headed out to get some lunch. Germany has some of the best Italian restaurants where you can get huge bowls of pasta for less than 5 euros, Spaghetti Carbonara was my choice today and thankfully it was a lot better than last night’s pasta.
We decided that since it was a nice sunny day, we would take a football to the park and play some Hampden pairs (2 against 2 is pretty much what that is). After a long walk through a lovely park in the centre of Hamburg we found our football arena… a nice flat bit of grass near a big lake. The stage was set, but unfortunately the ball didn’t last very long and we had to settle for everyone trying to score past myself and Adam using a ball which was close to exploding.

When the ball was no longer playable we headed for some liquid refreshments down by the Außenalster, the big lake in the centre of the city, and sat in the sun for a while. On our way there we stopped by the Rathaus where we chased some geese and saw a man urinating in the street in broad daylight. The Rathaus looked lovely in the sun so we decided that we would get a team photo in front of it, it’s one of the better photos we’ve taken on this tour.

Later that evening we went for a walk down to Grosse Neumarkt to take in yet some more Italian food (it was the cheapest restaurant in the square) before heading to a bar to play some table football. Random pairs were chosen and myself and Jamie from Dupec were the rulers of the table. Unbeaten in 9 matches, we looked unstoppable. Unfortunately we were beaten by Sean and Phillip on their 5th attempt and then were beaten by 2 German girls… it was an unfortunate end to that part of the night.

We headed back to our hotel rooms for a few whiskeys and spent the rest of the evening watching countless top 10 goal compilations on youtube. We savoured some delightful goals from players such as Ronaldo (both the fat Brazilian one and the skinny Portuguese one), Zidane, Roberto Carlos and Leo Messi. Yet another fantastic end to a night. Tours are fun.

(One for the mother’s)

Auf Tour:

heute abend spielen die Jetpacks im Lido in Berlin!