Cottbus -Germany

It’s 7.25pm in Cottbus in eastern part of the beautiful country of Germany.

We just arrived at our hotel, when I say ‘we’, I actually mean just myself and guitarist Andy Gray, as Simon and Shaun somehow conspired to miss the flight.

Simon thought the flight was tomorrow and Shaun was probably just drunk. 
Here is an artists impression of Simon's face when he realised he would miss the flight

Cottbus has a population of approx 100,000 people, and was the old centre of the energy industry n the old GDR. Just a coupla weeks back we were in Wuppertal, here is Germany, famous for its overhead monorail railway.

To display how sturdy and safe this was, some bright spark thought it would be a great idea to borrowed Tuffi the Elephant from the local circus.

This was back in 1950, however, Tuffi wasn’t that keen and unsurprisingly, she jumped from the suspended monorail into the river below.

The elephant trumpeted wildly and ran through the wagon, broke through a window and fell nearly 40 feet into the Wupper River, thankfully suffering only minor injuries. A panic had broken out in the wagon and some passengers were hurt.

Tuffi is now a legend in Germany and the spot where Tuffi fell is remembered by a plaque to the unfortunate Pachyderm.

My room seems to be a bit close to the lift, I can hear the damn bell ding every time it stops on this floor! Ok off to eat now, and maybe a few ales in the bar.

More tomorrow .....

....and just why am I wide awake at 5am?

You will no doubt be pleased to hear that Simon and Shaun arrived on the later flight, missed dinner but the bar was still open, I think Shaun was in need of a hair of the dog..... and Simon just happy the bar was open.

Smoking is still allowed in the bar here, amazing how quick we get used to not smoking. So instead, we decided to sit in the restaurant and have a beer.

Andy missed breakfast so we are heading into town. Apparently there is a castle. As we leave the hotel, there is a big police presence and a crowd of people shouting in unison with something resembling The Haka, famously sang by the New Zealand team before the rugby match.

Although we usually have a warm welcome, and sometimes even a police escort, most notably in Venezuela, they even had machine guns, in Venezuela that is, not Germany, but this wasn’t for us.

The Erfurt football team were playing Energie Cottbus today in the German football league 3, and the team is staying in our hotel. That'll be all those blokes in Red then at breakfast.

In case you missed it, the local team are called Energie cos of the aforementioned power industry.

Cottbus is a nice town, they had their Christmas Market today, very picture post card image but freezing cold, and snowing, which adds an extra layer of authenticity to the famed Christmas Markets over here.

So after a Gluhwein it’s back to the hotel, as my feet are like ice, it’s a 5.45 pm lobby call so time for a bath and a snooze I reckon.

1am.

Thank you Cottbus, the venue really looked after us, and a capacity crowd who were appreciative from start to finish, we even played an extra 30 minutes beyond the curfew.

'Achilles Last  Stand' had an inclusion tonight.

As always 'Babe I’m Gonna Leave You' is well received, great, great live song, the dynamics are perfect. The acoustic set too, helps set the mood.

Nobody wanted to leave, and many where still there as we made ready to depart for our hotel a we have an early flight in the morning. However, the venue have been kind enough to throw an after-show party tonight in our honour, why are the parties on the days we have to get up early for our flight the next day?

I’ll leave it to the others to make our appearance, I am off to bed, g’night Cottbus, hope to see you again.

Karlsruhe - Germany

Greetings from Karlsruhe, with a population of around 300,000 it is the second-largest city in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located in southwest Germany, near the Franco-German border.

The time is now 1.20pm and I write to you from the comfort of our hotel, which is the strangest I have had the pleasure to stay at. Something if a cross between Hobbiton and a crazy golf course, we even had to dodge waterfalls on the way to the rooms, bit like It's a Knockout.

                                                Our Hotel

As this is a one off show we flew in early this morning. This bleak day did not start well, as to my dismay, my car had acquired a flat tyre overnight. But disaster averted as the AA sorted out in 15 minutes. Marvellous! So I made it to the airport in good time, indeed time for breakfast with the boys.

Leaving London with a scene of freezing cold and driving sleet, only for us to arrive in Germany to torrential rain. But mustn't grumble, I still have four hours 'til lobby call and considering my room has a huge sunken bath to take advantage of. So excuse me for a while, I shall return later after a luxurious soak.

The car is prompt as we are whisked from our hotel to the venue for soundcheck. We are welcomed by the crew and there is a real buzz about tonight's show, our first in Karlsruhe and we are informed that tonight's show is already Sold Out! Speak later.

Slowly I stirred from a satisfying sleep this morning I am greeted by the first snow of the year. It must have been heavy in the night, as it is sitting thick upon the ground, The snow was just starting as we left the venue after the show last night. Good show actually, our first time in Karlsruhe and surely but it won’t be the last.

Very welcoming crowd too, they were starting to cheer a full 30 minutes before stage time, so nice to know people were excited to hear the band perform.

Talking after the show, many people had driven an hour or two to be here, last week, in Berlin, 2 people had travelled 300 kms from a small town near Bavaria to see Letz Zep.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them we played just 30 kms from their home town just the week prior. Nice girls too.

As I was talking to the local promoter here in Karlsruhe, I noticed he was wearing an old bent coin from the 1880’s around his neck, when I asked about it, he told me it was worn by his Great-Grandfather in WWI.

A bomb had landed near him and the shrapnel, although tearing his clothes, it never hurt him as the deadly projectile that surely would have taken his life, hit the coin in his breast pocket, damaging the coin, but saving his life.

It has been a family heirloom ever since, worn by his Grandfather and his father before him. And now he wears it everyday.

You could hear the emotion in his voice as he told his amazing story. Quiet moving really.

Traveling the world and meeting new people, and hearing their stories is a thing to treasure. Long may it continue.

They are calling our flight now, back to Heathrow today, I wonder what the weather is like back home?

Scandinavia

Welcome to our new blog, I'll be waxing lyrical about all things we see and do on our travels, which are many and varied.
Right now, I am relaxing in the Lake District in the north of England, at this moment taking shelter from the persistent rain.
We had an intense few dates last weekend, our first shows in Norway and Finland.

First impressions - its cold! 

Second, beer is expensive. Sounds a bit cliched I know, it'll get better, promise!
We, comprising of myself (Billy), Andy and Shaun jumped the train into Oslo, the capital and most populous city of Norway.

Oslo was founded as a city at the end of the Viking Age in the year 1040 as a trading place in 1048 by Harald Hardrada. 

We spent our day in the museum, not very rock n roll but informative and interesting.

On days off it is to our liking to visit local places of interest. Last week, in Germany we spend all day in the local Schloss, which means a Castle of course. Dead boss that.

The reproduction of the Spear of Destiny proudly displayed. The spear of Longinus, which, as legend has it, is the spear used to have pierced the body of Christ on the cross.

                                     The Spear of Destiny

But that was the previous week, this week, the Oslo museum, where they had a wall dedicated to all things American, Photos of the good and the great, Presidents, stars of stage and silver-screen, including Marilyn Monroe and Sean Connery, bit surprised at his inclusion, maybe it was meant to portray James Bond, tho' that character isn't exactly American Tho'. I didn't realise Einstein was American either, oh hang on, he isn't!

Good museum tho' nonetheless. nice staff too, very helpful.

Good gig too, the band played well, as always, living up to our rep as The Number One tribute to the mighty Led Zeppelin, we got them outta the seats at the end.
As we did in Finland the next night; we were up at 5am for a flight to Berlin. For some reason, I woke up in the night and couldn't sleep. Reaching for the remote I put the TV on. I sat bolt upright at the shocking news from Paris. The terrible events at Bataclan filled the screen. I have a lot of good friends in France, I lived in Paris once for 6 months. So worrying times.

I watched the news as I packed for out 7am flight to Berlin, the mood was sombre within the band. 

So, we say goodbye to Finland, and hopefully we will return soon. we really enjoyed the gig, just wish we had time to see more of Helsinki, the worlds most northernly metropolis.

Most of the day in Berlin was spent catching up on sleep. There's a real buzz about the city and despite the dreadful news from Paris only the previous evening, we had a sold-out crowd. Nice to have our own gear again too, driven here by Tino out backline and guitar tech. Does a great job pouring the drinks too. 

We even found time for a few beers in a quiet bar after the show.
Now, I am relaxing in a farm house in the middle of nowhere, The wind howling and the rain rapping on the windows. and the log fire burning brightly... erm... it's gone out !! I've been to busy blabbering on I hadn't noticed! OK gtg, relight the fire and that bottle of red ain't gonna drink itself now is it.
Until the next time, please stay safe y'all.