Road Shots Part Two - May 29

03 June 2009

Road Shots Part Two - May 29

Ryan Keberle, Jen Wharton, Mike Fahie, Sam Sadigursky

Our too-short stay in Amsterdam (would love to actually spend time in the city at some point) wrapped up at noon on May 29, as we lit out of town and headed for Dortmund. Google Maps had this pegged as a 2.5 hour trip , but with holiday weekend traffic (congestion? On the Autobahn? Indeed) took nearly twice as long, and we missed the first hour of our soundcheck at Domicil. A bit nerve-wracking, as hollow stage + 4 subwoofers directly underneath us + limited setup time + severely exhausted band = reversion to middle school band trip behavior (see below for photographic evidence), but luckily the Domicil sound tech was both patient and solid, and we worked it all out in the end. Actually, all of the sound techs we worked with this tour were remarkably good, the odds of which surely approach infinite improbability.

I hadn't done due diligence on Dortmund and was expecting a much smaller city -- turns out it's the seventh-largest in Germany, almost as big as Stuttgart and bigger than places like Düsseldorf, Bremen, Hanover, Leipzig.... And Domicil is a very hip multi-genre club, the kind of venue that wouldn't be hugely out of place in NYC. The crowd started small but filled out as the show went on. They were uncannily silent during our set but incredibly appreciative afterwards -- I wish we'd had time to give them an encore, but the club had a live radio broadcast happening after our set and we needed to clear out of there.

We had just (barely) enough time in Dortmund to soundcheck, eat, play, then pack up. We left that night for our final destination, Moers, getting in around midnight. Like any group of road-weary musicians, we headed immediately for the hotel bar, where we were joined by members of a local bowling league, who before too long were singing lusty drinking songs and insisting we all join them in shots of Underberg. I leave you to guess which Secret Society co-conspirator actually brought home a 12-pack tin of the stuff.

More photos -- both mine and Jon's -- below the fold.