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DAY 5
After a few hours sleep on the bus we rolled out
for Hamburg at around 7am and arrived at the Markthalle around 11:30.
We'll be loading in and getting ourselves organised in a little
bit so I'll come back to the diary as the day develops!!
Time for a little shopping (cigarettes, film etc…) and then
a long-awaited shower! Hamburg is a great town and this is a great
venue with very professional staff and facilities backstage that
make it easy to relax and to prepare for the evening.
After sound check the first of our guests arrived, Oliver, Stefan
and Carsten, Lars Ratz with Stephanie and the kids, Manlio Celotti
(our publicist) and Oliver from Manlio's office. It began to have
the feel of a big-town gig and we enjoyed hanging with everyone
backstage. Boris Dommenget lives near Hamburg and he came down to
do dome work on the guitar he made for me back in 1995 so it looked
like everyone was going to show up. Also I received a very nice
welcoming fax from the folks at EMI Music Publishing in Germany
and I had a chance to chat with Iris Kray and that was when I realised
something was very, very wrong here! She told me that she had found
out about the gig "by accident"! Carsten had told me some
time ago that he didn't see much promotion for this show but I thought
that would be fixed in time. Apparently it wasn't and the promoter
told me that he had only just received the posters!! The prospect
of playing to a very small audience in such a big venue and in a
town that has been a Heep/Hensley stronghold for so long was very
disappointing to me but the show had to go on and, as it happened,
this little crowd made a big noise!
We had a nice meet & greet afterwards and then back to the dressing
room to say goodbye to Martin and prepare for the 4 hour drive to
Essen. Essen means "to eat" in German so I was definitely
looking forward to this trip. Despite the difficulties we left Hamburg
having played a great show and with mostly good thoughts and feelings.
So a big thank you to those of you who did come and as for the others………
we'll get them next time!!
Next day...
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