The Travel Disruption Tour: The Monochrome Set in Germany, October 2019

Arriving into Frankfurt

Well, I said in my last post that I would write about the recent German tour of The Monochrome Set 'very shortly', and to do so in under ten days definitely counts as that, given the current, languid pace of my blogging. I could take to calling it 'slow blogging', but I am not sure that that would be seen as a good thing. It is not as though I am producing an unctuous beef stew at the end of it that has been simmering for six hours, or a coat that will last you for ten years instead of a couple of wearings. Oh I say, look how many slow things there are as part of the 'slow movement'! There's also 'slow travel', which the relentless pace of this latest trip most certainly was not, though arguably the many train delays we incurred might perhaps be described as 'enforced slow travel'. No, we should have stayed in one spot really to qualify as slow travellers, rather than zigzagging hither and thither as the gig schedule dictated. As has become the pattern for my travel posts, I shall approach this one thematically rather than chronologically, starting with:

Stop-and-Go statt Rock 'n' Roll 

Check out the advert below for the German railways, aka the Deutsche Bahn: 'Time at last for Rock 'n' Roll instead of Stop-and-Go'. Oh, the irony...the exact reverse is the case! To be fair, Easyjet should take some of the blame for making us arrive into Munich two hours late on Day 1, so that we missed our specified train and were obliged to buy fresh tickets for the next one. I had run on ahead to the travel centre to see what could be done, while the band collected their luggage. By a horrible quirk of fate, had they not hoved into view (no really, that is the past participle) within the next four minutes, we would have missed that train, forked out over 50% extra for the one after that, and got to our destination later still. As it was, we thought we might miss our onward connection to Nuremberg at Munich, as there didn't seem to be any carriage No 23 on the train standing at the platform stated on our itinerary. Now there were just two minutes to work out where the correct train was: it turned out to be joined to the back of the one we were puzzling over. Well, actually we had 20 minutes in hindsight, as the blasted thing was delayed by a technical fault. I rang ahead to the promoter to explain about the hold ups and revise our ETA. Thus it was that the band walked on stage - not having eaten or sound checked or changed, and half an hour later than their nominal stage time - but as cool, calm and collected as though nothing had happened. Delighted that they had made it, the audience gave them a rapturous welcome, and called for several encores at the end of the set.

Source: Horizont.net

Overly elaborate hotel instructions

This next topic only relates to me, as on the first night I opted to stay in a different, cheaper hotel from the band. When I realised how late I was going to be - with no time to check in before the gig - I thought to ask how I would in fact get in, as there isn't always someone on reception 24/7, and so it proved. Instead, whilst I was still on the train, I was sent an email from the hotel with instructions:

'We will deposit the room key in our key safe at the night entrance at [street address] (white box). The night entrance is located on the right hand side round the corner from the main entrance, in [street address], under the illuminated advert for the [hotel name] (opposite [name of] hair salon).

You will find your key, together with additional information, in locker No 1. Your personal opening code is xxxx. If the door of the locker doesn't open within 5 seconds, please repeat the process again.

Please hold the chip on your key on the reading field to the left of the door until the green light comes on. (Watch out: the door opens outwards!) The white chip card opens the entrance door and also the door of your room. Your room is located on the 4th floor (Room number 455B.)'

And just in case I wondered...

'Room 455A is not occupied.

You are welcome to take the lift up to the fourth floor. When you step out of the lift, please go left towards the rooms.'

They haven't quite finished thinking of all eventualities...

'If the doors of our hotel or your overnight room do not open with your room chip, or if you have lost your chip, we kindly request you to contact: The emergency key service of Company x on tel no y.'

Readers, I managed everything okay! NB This is NOT the entrance I used...;)

Source: Wikimedia Commons

An ornamental sink

At the Hamburg venue on the last night, each individual cubicle in the ladies toilets was equipped with its own miniature sink. However, Jane, the other female member of our party, had gone in before me and warned me that the sink was purely ornamental, and that I should wash my hands in one of bigger basins beyond. Have you ever come across such a futile fixture before? Maybe they just haven't got round to plumbing them in, but it didn't look that way. The mirror was handy, to be fair.

Neither use nor ornament?

Serial meetings with people from Stoke

During a smoking interlude outside the venue in Frankfurt, Bid the singer got chatting to a member of the audience, who turned out to be a guitar player - from Stoke-on-Trent. 'Oh', he replied, 'I know someone from Stafford'. Indeed the Stafford person in question was yards away at the time. A couple of days later and we had reached Hamburg. During the band's sound check, I got chatting to the tall blond guitarist in the support group, who were local. Ah, local they may have been, but it didn't take too many steps in our conversation before he revealed that he had spent a year in Stoke(!), studying Engineering Management, and taking a lively interest in the Potteries music scene. He suggested a few venues there that might be suitable for The Monochrome Set. We segued into neighbouring Newcastle-under-Lyme and the conversation rapidly descended into the realms of the surreal.

Source: geograph.co.uk

Excessively dark venues

It is customary on the music circuit - well, indie and rock, say - to expect dark, grungy, often subterranean interiors, but one venue on this trip took the cake. Not only was the green room plunged into almost total darkness, but the stage was pretty gloomy, and at several points Bid the singer was unable to see his own guitar to play. I seriously need to work on my nocturnal knitting skills, and it was also difficult to check the fillings of the rolls that constituted our 'arrival snacks'. Given the presence of two vegans and a vegetarian in our party of seven, being able to accurately ID what's in the food is pretty key. The walls of the green room were not unlike the Santa's grottos in department stores of my childhood, only black rather than snow white. I guess there was a clue in the name of the club - The Cave.

Lederhosen and Dirndl frenzy

This latest tour coincided with Oktoberfest, and we shared quite a few of our troubled train journeys with large groups of both sexes sporting the traditional Bavarian costume of Lederhosen and Dirndl. The latter being those corseted Nell Gwynn-type dresses that give women supernatural amounts of uplift. We couldn't help but be distracted by bouncing bosoms at every turn as the trains juddered along the tracks. I failed to capture any of these gaily got up festival goers on camera, though later spotted outfits for sale in a vintage shop on my final day in Hamburg.

With bonus building reflection!

Lightning quick hotel turnarounds

Speaking of outfits, one notable feature of this trip - linked to the train bother - was the fact that we had next to no downtime in our hotels before heading out to the venue. We would reach our hotels around four or five (if at all!), after being on the go all day. Then half an hour later at most - or as little as ten minutes, even - we would meet in the foyer and embark on the next leg of what always ended up being a very long day and night. Sometimes my brain went into meltdown trying to decide what were the most important things to accomplish in that short window of time after checking in, and whatever I did manage to do I invariably laid complete waste to my hotel room in the process! This photo was taken the following morning, but as you can see I haven't tidied up in between. ;) NB I was to lose those bed socks in the sheet chaos the very next night.

The big swizz that is "the world's narrowest street": Spreuerhofstrasse in Reutlingen

I did not make a detour to visit it, but Mike the drummer was curious to check out this Guinness record-holding street in Reutlingen after their gig. It measures only 31cm (a foot to you and me) at its narrowest point, and was constructed after most of the town was destroyed in the great fire of 1726. Mike has devoted a whole post to it on his blog, Urban75. He dismissed it as most disappointing, and 'a passageway at best'. ;) Check out his amusing piece here.

Source: Wikipedia (via kathrin_glaisser)

Fizzy in-flight fun

As is often the way in pressurised cabins, on the return flight home my sparkling water sprayed over the man in the seat next to me. "It will prepare you for Manchester?", I volunteered lamely, after first 'showering' him with apologies. Then I resumed my knitting, whereupon the man inquired:

"What are you making?"

"A scarf."

"Oh, I thought it might have been a towel."

Source: hamburg-airport.de

Graffiti galore

I have included pictures of graffiti-strewn venues on the blog before (see, for example, this post from 2012), but I will add one of the finer examples of the genre I spotted in Hamburg on my final walkabout. And believe me, there are lots of awful ones on inappropriate walls and fixtures, that amount to plain vandalism in my view. But here and there there are colourful splurges - and splodges - of genuine whimsy and creativity.

Perfumes worn

To close, here is a note of the perfumes I wore over the course of the week (if I can remember!):

• DSH Foxy edp
• Diptyque Volutes edt
• Chanel Cuir de Russie
• Papillon Perfumery Bengale Rouge (twice!)
• Elizabeth and James Nirvana Amethyst

How real is that doggy in the window?

Spargel Everywhere: The Monochrome Set Germany Tour 2015: Part 2 - Hamburg & Berlin (including a meet up with Anka!)

Photo courtesy of Caryne

COLOGNE TO HAMBURG

'Alaska's cave' - a tardis stuffed to the gunnels with Zubehör

Easter Sunday saw the first long drive of the trip, and my first experience of tour bus travel. It was in fact technically a tall van - a Mercedes Splitter - but seemingly the Germans would refer to it as 'ein Bus'.

The most remarkable aspect of the van was driver Alaska's comprehensive assortment of accessories and bloke-y tackle, which hung off the back of the headrests, were stowed under seats, lined the dashboard - and also dangled perilously from pegs clipped onto the roofliner. He had everything on board from plastic cutlery to a spare toothbrush, torch, screwdriver, whistle, straws, paper cups, tissues, penknife, bottle opener, obligatory pin up photo, drinks box, tote bag of 'passenger reading matter', first aid kit, and - most intriguingly - several sets of swimming goggles. And this list is by no means exhaustive.

A small snapshot of Alaska's bits and bobs

A rat's eye view of the Autobahn

On Day 1, seating habits were formed, which also included my travelling mascot, Max Rat, who assumed one of several more or less perilous poses to the left of the drummer's headrest. On cold days, he took to swaddling himself in the keyboard player's scarf, which also made for better stability (see one of his many toppling incidents below).

Motorway travel games and ghosts of projects past

Further to the head scratching over US states that also double up as Christian names, another travel game I played with the keyboard player consisted of listening out for travel bulletins, specifically any instances of a person or foreign body obstructing a motorway lane. This is an incredibly common phenomenon in Germany, and on a single trip could range from the customary burning vehicle or HGV tyre shreddings to 'metal poles', 'unidentified objects', and - our personal favourite - 'children'. We didn't encounter any 'Geisterfahrer' on tour though - so-called 'ghost drivers' who drive the wrong way down the motorway, causing a major risk to other traffic. Oh, and the bass player remarked that for a long time he had thought 'Ausfahrt' was a major city in Germany, as so many roads seemed to lead to it...

Max inexorably heading for the passenger reading matter bag

Then I am not sure if it counts as a game as such, but pretty much any sign off the motorway had associations for me with a particular job - or several, indeed, going back over the past 25 years...So, Laupheim (high speed blister packing plant), Hannover (blind rivets, rubber additives for tyres), Rottweil (architectural lighting), Wittstock (composite wood panels), Schneverdingen (wafer biscuits), and so on. On one - rather startling - occasion, a domestic appliance factory I had visited in the late 90s turned out to be bang opposite the venue! And when we stopped for lunch at a service station on the way up to Hamburg, I realised I had been there in 1994 to met a Dutchman in the cafeteria, whom I interviewed in German about stationary waste compactors. So whilst I was outwardly in 'band on tour' mode, the ghosts of my professional past persisted in popping out of the woodwork at every turn...;)

My jacket potato with 'no sour cream please'

HAMBURG

The gig that night was held in Hafenklang, a scruffy but capacious club by the harbour. All but obliterated by graffiti, as is standard for the German indie scene. Our rather 'retro' hotel was within easy walking distance, and I was invited to join the band - and Caryne and Dave, the husband and wife duo selling the merchandise each night, aka 'Die Merchandiser' - for a delicious homecooked meal at the venue.

Note the matching shower curtain with its cheery depiction of marine life!

The rhubarb lemonade raid

Now we were in Hamburg, we had squarely entered Germany's answer to Yorkshire's Rhubarb Triangle, meaning we had ready access at last to that sought-after soft tipple of Rhabarberschorle - the rhubarb equivalent of 'Appletizer', comprising rhubarb juice and fizzy water. The lemonade part is poetic licence to be honest, though you can also get a rhubarb version of that. And thus it was that at the end of the night I was charged with yet another drinks mission using band vouchers - to include as many rhubarb drinks as the bar had left.

There were so many of these vouchers that I decided to minimise my embarrassment by staging a split raid between the upstairs and downstairs bars. The upstairs sortie passed off without a hitch - was 'reibungslos abgewickelt', as the Germans might say - and I snagged five bottles of Rhabarberschorle. However, when I went downstairs I found the way to the bar deliberately blocked off with trestle tables and stacks of chairs. Nothing daunted, I managed to negotiate this veritable obstacle course of furniture and sneak through to the bar, where I scored another half dozen bottles of our rhubarb elixir. My cunning plan backfired rather though, when the woman from the upstairs bar - who must have wandered down for some reason, possibly to seek replacement stocks of rhubarb drinks from her colleague downstairs(!) - caught me in flagrante as I was clumsily clambering up the trestle table mountain on my way out.

Source: milchmaedel.de

HAMBURG TO BERLIN

The next day, Easter Monday, should have seen a fairly straight run down to Berlin, however we hadn't fully reckoned with holiday traffic, and got caught out with a vengeance a little north of Neurüppin. We were so behind schedule that I scrapped my idea to take the band on a scenic Umleitung to view the Trabant on a pole of a past post. My assigned mission that day was a spot of emergency navigating - using a paper road atlas, how impossibly quaint! - yet essential to figuring out a route that dodged the main jam and any likely spin off bottlenecks on the more obvious alternatives. To say we ended up off the beaten track is putting it mildly. Some of the minor roads we traversed were so minor they were cobbled, an oddity peculiar to former East Germany, as far as I can tell.

On this leg, I was also given the very important task of 'holding apples and envelopes of money'. Just briefly, you understand, while band members' hands were otherwise deployed.

BERLIN

The third and fourth gigs of the tour were back at Monarch, a quirky little venue overlooking the U-Bahn station of Kottbusser Tor. A full description of the place may be found in last year's tour report. Back then the dressing room had consisted of a subutteo table, but the ever resourceful Alaska took it upon himself to fashion one this time using a black out curtain and some of his extensive collection of clothes pegs.

Two English fans had come over specially for the gig, and proffered their necks for me to sniff - Simon (he of the Pratchett-esque beard) was sporting the über-elegant Chanel pour Monsieur, while his wife Mazz was rocking Aromatics Elixir, which wore beautifully soft and mysterious on her. I was rightly reprimanded for completely failing to recognise either of these iconic fragrances.

Photo courtesy of  Caryne 

At some point in the evening I embarrassed myself in the (heavily graffiti-daubed) ladies, when I followed a young girl inside without realising that the toilet cubicle itself was missing its door, thereby scotching the usual possibility of someone going to the loo while the waiting person touches up their makeup or whatever by the sink. The girl proceeded to take her trousers down in front of me, muttering with a slight note of petulance: 'Well, okay then, if you must', whereupon I legged it out of there as though I was on fire. I was sure to use the disabled toilet later on, which to my amusement was not completely free of graffiti either!

Hope and Anka

The following afternoon I had arranged to meet fellow perfumista (and Bonkers reader) Anka in a coffee house near our hotel, where I took a seat at a table by the window a little ahead of the appointed time. Anka recognised me straight away from my blog photos - while I recognised a woman with a look of recognition of her face ;) - and we spent a most enjoyable hour chatting about our respective jobs, her recent holiday, and that evening's gig which Anka and her husband had gamely agreed to attend! Our chat stretched my 'extrem eingerostet' German to its limits, but it was a jolly good thing for me to practise in this way. Surprisingly, we barely touched on the subject of our fragrance hobby...another instance perhaps of '(brand new) friends before perfume', to quote Val the Cookie Queen.

I didn't catch up with Anka and her husband till after the gig, though they had texted me their whereabouts, while I had left a notice by the door to direct them to where I was standing, in the unlikely event of their wishing to be as close as I like to be to the stage (for reasons of height and photography, mostly)! I was delighted to learn that they had enjoyed the set. Moreover, as they were eating their dinner before coming out, they had tuned into a live radio interview with the singer, Bid,  which had helped them to get 'in the zone', as it were. ;)  I should also mention that Anka was wearing Rozy edp, which smelt amazing on her. It proved to be an unexpected leitmotiv of the tour, as will become apparent in due course...

My confusing use of arrowheads was a source of some merriment

Oh, at the end of this gig the bass player sent me back upstairs to 'waste' TEN more drinks vouchers on beers for the next leg of the trip. I encountered the same resistance to the 'alcoholic beverage takeaway concept' as I had in Cologne, but in the end I managed to do a runner with all ten, though not before I'd copped for a serious ear bashing from the barman.

The singer leaves his mark at Hafenklang

PS Spargel (asparagus) will be along soon!