Jimmy Bowskill Band - European Tour Blog - Jan - Mar 2010

January 30, 2010

Today we travel to Hannover, Germany to play the Blues Garage, a venue we played last year with Ash. I remembered the owner, Henry, being an odd guy with an unhealthy obsession with the USA. Both his club and the motel we stay in (Motel California) are adorned with American memorabilia and Henry is decked out in a leather vest and cowboy boots.

The last time we played, Henry gave Steve a hard time about Steve wanting to do sound and treated us somewhat subpar as a result, but we felt good about this time. However, right from the moment we came in, Ash’s front house soundman, Daniel (an incredible soundman from France) was struggling with the dated PA system that had many serious issues. As we carried in gear, Steve talked to Henry about doing sound for us that night.

The second trip in with gear, both Jim and I were told by Henry to take our stuff back out and that we were not playing tonight. Apparently, Henry had told Steve that either he did sound or we didn’t play. It should be noted that he didn’t protest Ash having a soundman, so he obviously had it in for us for some reason. The tension mounted as we carried our gear back out to the van. Holger, Ash’s tour manager, talked with Henry and smoothed things out enough to have him agree to letting Daniel do sound for us (thanks Daniel) but only gave us limited channels in the PA. Our stuff was set up on stage when Steve decided that we would not play unless they gave us more channels.

My frustration with my home life crisis, coupled with the cold, my feeling like crap and this fiasco that was unfolding before caused me to lose my cool with Steve and argue with him onstage. In the meantime, Henry and Daniel were arguing to one side because Henry would not provide mic cables for us to use. It was an awful start to the night. Steve and I mended the disagreement quickly (I wasn’t really mad at him, I just wanted to reach a conclusion as soon as I could). We got things up and running enough to play and once again ate quickly and took the stage.

The sound was good all things considered and we played well. So well, in fact, that we had one of our best merch nights yet. It should be noted that the people in the club were among the nicest we’ve met on this tour thus far. This night saw us selling our new CDs fresh from Ruf Records in Hamburg with new jewel case packaging. We loaded up and went back to the Motel California to lick our wounds and try to sleep. I stayed up most of the night coughing.