Golden Ball

Now that the World Cup is over, Germany having beaten Argentina 1-0, this is as good a time as any to write a bit about how the tournament was a constant presence on the tour.

I'm probably the biggest futbol fan of the group, with Geoff a close second. For me the World Cup is a big deal. Has been since before ESPN was providing comprehensive coverage, when outdoor viewing screens in major US cities wasn't a thing. I knew going in that I'd probably watch less of the tournament than if I were at home.


To watch any matches would require some planning and some random luck, given we were often either soundchecking or playing during matches that mostly started at 6p, 9p and midnight Central Euro time. We ended up watching games in a variety of settings in 5 countries...from small hot dog restaurants to large outdoor beer gardens to our rooms in Bruhl.

Our time in the van commenced with the first match of the tournament. We landed on June 12, the day of the opening match between Brazil and Croatia. Our plan all along was to get from Frankfurt to Leipzig in time to watch, and we succeeded, even with the slight detour to see a castle.

We were in Berlin when Germany played their first match against Portugal. Whenever Germany scored loud cheers came from all over the city. I bounced from a small bistro near the apartment where I stayed to meeting the rest of the band in an outdoor space in Friedrishain that not only had a big screen for watching tv, but a rock-climbing wall in the same space. Good combo that...beer and rock climbing.

The US v Ghana match didn't kick-off until midnight, and as I mentioned, I watched it sitting outside a corner store where the owner had put a tv in the window.

A memorable night came in Regensburg. After a fantastic show at Mono Bar, the staff lowered a big screen, fired up a projector and showed the US v Portugal match. Another match not starting until midnight Central Europe Time, it made for a late but incredibly fun night. Portugal's last second goal to tie wasn't all that much of a downer, all things considered. We had a blast watching the match in what seemed like a clubhouse with an open bar and fun people.


Even when there was no tv, as at Chmury in Warsaw, we made do to watch US v Germany with my laptop and the on-line stream from Polish tv.

The Germans were definitely most into the tournament. Fußball is by far the most popular sport in Germany and it showed...every bar, restaurant, corner store and coffee shop had a tv tuned to whatever match was showing. When Germany played, outdoor spaces all over the country drew hundreds of thousands of people.

In fact, one of the reasons we ended up in Strasbourg France for the June 21 show was because no German club wanted to book us. Why? Germany played Ghana that night. We were told nobody would come out, and most bars would be showing the game anyway, and didn't want to risk people not coming in if they saw the match wasn't on but we were.

And what about Strasbourg France? I had trouble finding a spot to watch Argentina v Iran. Might have been the neighborhood surrounding the place we played, but even the one sports bar type place I found had horse racing on, no soccer.

The Danes were fairly lukewarm to the World Cup. Our team (yes, our...remember, I was born there...I root for Denmark first, US next) didn't make the final 32, having been bounced in qualifying. Also I was told the national tv networks made it a bit expensive for bars and restaurants to show matches. So we had to work a bit to find places to watch Germany v Algeria and the US v Belgium.

The night of the US-Belgium match was also the last night the four of us would be together for the rest of the summer. Prior to the match we had a wrap-up meeting, then were joined by my sister and a bunch of friends. Gathering for a World Cup match was a fitting end for a tour where the biggest tournament in football loomed in the shadows during the biggest thing any of us had done in our music lives.

Visionary Road Maps

The Talkhouse has quickly become a favorite read for me...their tagline is "musicians talk music" and that's indeed what it is. This post, wherein Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg talk about life on the road, gets at the tone/voice I was shooting for...but then he's a better writer and has a better bunch of stories from which to chose and does a good job of putting them into readable snippets. The stories are culled from the liner notes to Shearwater's Fellow Travelers album.

Mushroom Cloud of Hiss

Warsaw, June 26

Our last show in the old eastern bloc..Lepzig, Berlin (we played in what was East Berlin), Prague, Ponznan and now Warsaw…

This show had us buzzing for a long time after the last notes of glorious and crazy noise finally quieted from the speakers. The spirit and energy at Chmury, the space we played in Warsaw, is vibrant, unpretentious, and varied. The Facebook page describes it as a clubhouse - an apt description.


Good coffee, great beer selection, an incredible vegan hot dog…the coffee-shop front half of the space is a good place to spend an afternoon. The bartender/barista for the evening rolled up to the club dressed in all black, dark shades and black scarf, hair dyed a greenish white…she looked like a goth Audrey Hepburn heading to a funeral. But like everyone there was incredibly nice.

The back room performance area features a good-sized stage and a very good sound system run by a guy who really knows what he’s doing. Knows the equipment, knows the room. Sound engineers like that make a touring band’s life so much better.

It’s set back in a cobble-stoned courtyard in the Nowy Praga (New Prague) part of town. Chmury shares the courtyard with a bigger club, theater space, a bar that looks like it’s right out of the Paris Left Bank circa early 1900s…cool art on the building walls…when we rolled up we knew it was going to be a good night…the vibe was spot on right away.


This was our 3rd and last show with Evvolves, a band Geoff and Jules found in the course of booking the tour. A bit noisier and low-fi than us, they have a compelling sound and look. Two women, two men…Bibi plays keys, Maciek Mat on bass (which he plays on guitar, using effect pedals to change the sound), Magda plays electronic drums, but live…doesn’t just call up pre-programmed patterns, actually plays the keypads live as the band plays. Her boyfriend Pawel Gie is on guitar. Pawel and Magda strolled up to the club hand-in-hand, she dressed up hipster smart, he looking a bit scruffy…like I imagine Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon must have looked walking up to CBGB’s in the early days of Sonic Youth. We bonded well with them…they’re a blast to be around. It was Julie’s birthday, so during Evvolves set they got the audience to sing the Polish happy birthday song. They seem to be part of a very cool indie scene, centered around the club.

All of this combined for an amazing show. We were in good form, this being our 3rd show in 3 nights, the second 3-in-3 we pulled a 7-day span.

At a pre-soundcheck meeting we discussed the idea to use the Illuminate outtro to fold in a couple of minutes of the Joy Division song Transmission. Jules had the song in her head since at least Regensburg, singing it aloud as we walked along that town’s streets. With no real rehearsal, just a brief pass at soundcheck, we pulled it off. Geoff got the guitar line, I was able to pull that bass riff from memory…it worked in the way it’s going to work when you’ve been playing a bunch of shows or rehearsing a lot in a concentrated stretch of time.

We invited Pawel and Maciek up on stage with us to make noise on guitars, Bibi and Magda sang a bit. Once the crowd caught onto what we were doing they were all in, singing along to the “dance, dance, dance to the radio” line. Maciek and Pawel stirred up some great noise..they were the last to leave the stage.

We were spent…our most energetic set in a great space, great crowd…I’ve already written that Copenhagen was an incredible set, an amazing end to the tour. Before the Copenhagen set we weren’t sure it would be able to match the spirit of the Warsaw show.

That’s how good Warsaw was for us.

Warsaw set list:
Black and White
Mountain
Day for Night
Duck and Cover
Slowboat
Illuminate (w/ Transmission in outtro)