Honour Before Glory in Germany - Day 8/9

I'm back home in England now, trying to establish something resembling normality. The last few days in Germany were just as fun as everything else. It is nice to be home, but I will miss the Sometree guys!

I left the story in Regensbourg after zero sleep and a drive to Dortmund. I wasn't playing this night as it was a Visions Magazine Anniversary Party. This also meant Sometree were supporting the awesome Robocop Kraus, and lots of other things were happening, including Biffy Clyro play across time

So not much to tell, as I generally felt like a spare part for the initial part of the day before heading off to go watch Biffy, who'd flown in from Dublin for the show. It's always interesting to see bands you know well play to a foreign audeience, and the crowd went crazy for the Puzzle / Revolutions heavy set. Afterwards, I suprised the guys back stage, leading to a ridiculous backstory explanation - like, what the hell I was doing in Dortmund. Good to see them and their's though!

But unfortunately I managed to miss Sometree who played one of the best shows on the tour apparently. Had a relatively early night at our rock star filled hotel, and up for another long drive to Leipzig, fully refreshed after an awesome shower experience (you know, great temperature controls, really powerful)

With all the driving over the last few days, I'd finally got to working on some new bits and bobs for songs I've been playing acoustically to record 'fuller' versions in the studio. Was good, and hopefully I'll get in to the studio again by the end of the year

Anyway, Leipzig. Today we were joined by Tobias aka And The Golden Choir. With an early curfew, time was pushed, and we had to bail on watching Schalke v Leverkusen. The gig was great though, and everyone tore it up afterwards. 'Helium Man' made an appearence, people dissapeared, we danced to bad metal, and at somepoint we managed to make it back to the hotel

The next morning we bid a tearful, no, hungover, farewell. Sometree & Tobias headed off to Cologne, while I wandered wearily for some food before the trip to Berlin and home. Thanks guys! It was hella fun. We should do it again sometime

Soundtrack to this post: Sometree, And The Golden Choir, Throwing Muses

Honour Before Glory in Germany - Day 4

It was a pretty relaxed journey to Stuttgart, and everything was done with a decent amount of time, checking into our hostel and loading the venue - the veritable maze of rooms.

While Sometree soundchecked I went for a walk around the city, which is supposed to be one of the richest in Germany - so lots of boutiques, and it's always cool to see a totally pedestrianised city centre.

The funniest thing for me though, was seeing a German Christmas Market, selling the kind of Bratwurst and Gleuwien found in Leeds & Manchester city centres every year. The Sometree guys found my amusement pretty funny - it's just that it was exactly the same as we have in Leeds. Surely there's no 'novelty' in having it in Germany?

The gig was a really good one tonight, the crowd came down early and were really kind to me and seemed to listen so I felt a bit more confident. Sometree got an amazing reaction tonight, even getting two encores and vinyl and CDs were being signed for quite a while after

This morning we had a lazy morning, with breakfast and internet check-up, before the light drive to Frankfurt. The gig that was supposed to be in Frieberg has been cancelled unfortunately, so we have a day off - but it will be valuable rest as we have to traverse the long journey into Austria on Thursday!

Soundtrack to this post: Grammatics, Throwing Muses