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Friday, 11th February
Our first substantial tour of 2005 commences
in the snowy wilds of Germany as our paths converge
at the Lagerhalle in Osnabruck. It has been
a year since we were here and the first beer
is always a thing of great beauty: Dortmunder
Action Brau, it even sounds healthy.
The
area around Osnabruck, Bielefeld, and Herford
has for many years been the home of countless
foreign soldiers. (i.e. U.S. and U.K.) and at
this time we are here amidst the court martial
of three English soldiers who have been charged
with– and since found guilty of - mistreating
Iraqi civilians. As a consequence intrepid Dundonian
reporter Russ Appleyard and his team are in
town to cover the story for Sky news.
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Unfortunately courts martial are not particularly
open or public so they are largely waiting
for the result and as such are afforded
the opportunity to come and see the Batties
this night. Always with our finger on the
pulse of international journalism, we are
able to get the scoop on what is happening
outwith the court martial over a few pints
at the end of the night and the hot story
locally comes from Osnabruck zoo which apparently
house some gay penguins – it doesn’t
make you a bad penguin. This happened in
Edinburgh zoo some years ago – not
that this is some kind of competition you
understand, but as such I am sure that this
gaggle of journalists is well poised to
treat this story with the delicacy and sensitivity
it deserves. Needless to say the concert
and hospitality were great and we make our
way home on foot, dragging our luggage in
the fashion of a team of drunken flight
attendants. |
as
used and endorsed by Alasdair White |
Saturday
12th February
After
a sturdy German breakfast we make our way to
the next gig via a quick lunch in Enschede –
there is more to lunch than eating. Today is
the 20th anniversary of the Begegnungszentrum
Druckerei in Bad Oeyenhausen and they have chosen
us to play for this auspicious occasion. A great
night ensues replete with German gin and buckets
of excellent pils: so good I have forgotten
the brewers name. Once again the Battair staff
clatter their way home, well fed and well watered.
Sunday
13th February
The
Bischoffsmule in Hildesheim is an old favourite
and the audience are a great mob. Rob utters
today’s star epithet while we are looking
for the hotel to which we have no directions.
“That Church Rings a bell” says
Rob and sadly he is right; so thanks to Rob’s
masterful recollection of the suburban German
landscape, we find our digs with ease.
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The venue is intimate, smokey, and situated
immediately beside the local kayak slalom
course and it is said by the locals that
one should not look out of the windows
as the rushing river sometimes induces
sea-sickness. Well “Nae bother tae
a bunch of hardened air-hostesses like
us.” We think to our collective
self and the night goes without mishap;
in fact, we played real good if I say
so myself. At the show it is great to
catch up with a few folk from the Kula
Vampa motorbike club. The Kula Vampa (Beer
Gut) is a pan-German, anti-fascist motorbike
club for whom we have played several times
in the past.
Monday
14th February
Today
We are off so we decide to spend St. Valentines
day in Giesen eating Thai food and drinking
beer served with aplomb by a very courteous
Blacksmith. Well maybe she wasn’t
actually a blacksmith.
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Tuesday
15th February
It
has been some years since we played in the Halb-
Neun-Theatre in Darmstadt just south of Frankfurt
and this is a great gig for a number of reasons
but especially because of the boss – Jurgen
Keller - who is an old rocker and a man of great
generosity. So, We have loads of Turkish food,
German beer and a few glasses of Beaujolais
thrown in for good measure after playing to
a full house. Jurgen tells us of a charity gig
they had put on here for the local children’s
hospital as well as the victims of the recent
tsunami and for these causes they managed to
raise many thousands of Euros. So whatever the
circumstance, it paid off coaxing the Jurgen
and the boys out of retirement.
This part of Darmstadt houses a fair whack
of sex shops and their window displays
can be somewhat baffling: They tend to
be more like the window displays in hardware
shops: Full of ordinary household objects
which are magically imbued with some kind
of kinkiness just by their situation next
to the foot-fetishist magazines and PVC
couture. Big Rob spied a large plastic
cat and a good half hours debate ensued
as to what was the correct usage of this
item and by whom. This was of course never
resolved as we were all too embarrassed
to admit that we did not have sufficient
German to ask the sex shop assistant “
Whit are yez meant tae dae wi’ the
big plastic cat, big man?” …in
German.
After the show we get a late drink with
our Hotelier Ali, A Turkish architect
who has single-handedly built this excellent
hotel on the outskirts of Darmastadt.
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and
tonight, the light of love is in your
eyes...
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Wednesday
16th February
Another
day off and this time we venture to the University
town of Marburg and we are off to a flying start
as our taxi driver is a Persian building engineer
who went to University in Samarkand and takes
Alasdair and myself directly to a busy pub full
of locals hoovering pils and watching the Shalke
04 v. CSKA Moscow UEFA cup football match on
the television.
After a few beers and something to eat we come
upon the “Bremsspur Goth Alternative Kneipe”
whereupon we meet Alex who owns the tattoo and
body-piercing shop upstairs. Alex also speaks
excellent English as he attended high school
in Lousiana in the U.S. So if any non-german
speakers out there in Batty land find themselves
in Marburg in desperate need of these services,
then Alex is your only man as language misunderstandings
on the piercing/tattooing front can be disastrous.
Alasdair and I debated whether to get Tattoos
or Piercings but once again apathy won out and
we opted for the mysterious German spirit served
aflame in small porcelain pots. Yum yum. Alex
is also a D.J. and we were treated to some heavy-duty
German death-metal accompanied by German bagpipes.
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