tour diary part 3 (I'm Alan Partridge)
I'm in an internet cafe in Hamburg trying my best to make sense of the keyboard... so typing is taking me twice as long...
The gigs in Amsterdam were great, although the crowd were the noisiest I've ever sung to in my life... The Paradiso is a beautiful venue with a great atmosphere, but I suspect any acoustic act would find it quite difficult to play there... Having said that, the people I could see near the front were very attentive, and I got lots of rowdy cheering at the end of songs, which was very cool... I put it down to being the support, although apparently Joe had similar problems with the noise.. having said that, for me it was just like playing to a London crowd, so I felt like I was at home.. :-).. I find totally silent audiences quite unnerving... And I LOVE Amsterdam... so laid back and civilized. What a beautiful city. I wish I lived there...
Our train journey to Hamburg was eventful to say the least.. On our way to Osnabrueck we felt a bang, and our train suddenly juddered to a halt.. It turns out someone jumped in front of us. In the middle of nowhere. Horrible. We sat there for two hours while the police cleared the scene. Luckily we didn't see much other than the coroner taking things out from under the train and putting it into a bag filled with stuff I don't really want to think about.. RIP whoever you are.
We finally got going, but were too late to make our connecting train. So we found ourselves in a place called Bad Bentheim waiting for another train to take us to Osnabrueck. I was suddenly struck by the fact that I speak no German whatsoever, which is problematic to say the least. Eventually we got on a later train to Hamburg from Osnabrueck. Antonio suggested we live dangerously and sit in first class. Which of course I found totally unnerving, and apparently there was a look of pure fear on my face as the ticket lady approached. Who of course, sure enough told us to move. I made a speech to Antonio about being law abiding at all times, and he called me the Alan Partridge of music. '..I don't like criminality. I will not break the law. I'll say that now...'
So here we are in Hamburg. Staying in a charming one star hotel with a nautical theme in the red light district. I'm knackered, but looking forward to the gig tonight...
our pad in Amsterdam...
