Erica Freas, Muncie Girls acoustic and Matt Canino at Astbury Castle in Peckham. 13th October 2014.
More photos and video of the show after break.
Bangers at the Montague Arms in Peckham
Bangers, Doe, Exhausts, Pale Angels, Ginger Alford, Happy Accidents, at the Montague Arms in Peckham. 4th October 2014.
Slow Science at the Urban Bar in Whitechapel
Slow Science, The Dauntless Elite, Luke Godwin and Big Wow at the Urban Bar in Whitechapel. 25th September 2014.
More photos and video of the show after break.
Trip to Hurst Castle
The Lion And The Wolf at Grammatikoff in Duisburg
The Lion And The Wolf and Jimmy Broomfield at Grammatikoff in Duisburg. 29th August 2014.
Last night of tour. We went to the Duisburg Museum, which was a good antidote to Nuremberg. Lot of information about the German Resistance to the Nazis in the Ruhrpott. Final gig was at Grammatikoff, and a nice finish to the tour.
More photos after break.
The Lion And The Wolf at Spatz & Wal in Unna
The Lion And The Wolf and Jimmy Broomfield at Spatz & Wal in Unna. 28th August 2014.
Morning after Utrecht was a short drive back into Germany to Unna, so we spent some time in Utrecht before leaving. Introduced Tom and Jimmy to kaassouffle as well.
More photos from town and video of the show after break.
The Lion And The Wolf at WS92 in Utrecht
The Lion And The Wolf, Jimmy Broomfield and Het Spook In Mijn Hoofd at WS92 in Utrecht. 27th August 2014.
Wee bit of hangover for the other two, but we headed off to Utrecht in the Netherlands via a quick stop off at the Nurburgring. Kind of cool to look at from the road, visitor centre isn’t up to much at all.
After that it was a drive to WS92. This was another house show, but this one was on the 18th floor or so of a tower block in the middle of Utrecht. Amazing place, amazing views, and really good gig.
More photos and video of the show after break.
An unplanned stop in Nuremberg
An unplanned stop in Nuremberg while on tour with The Lion And The Wolf and Jimmy Broomfield. 26th August 2014.
Best laid plans of mice and men. The day we have the longest drive is the day that the car has problems. Annoying. Avoiding focusing on the personally negative, we did get to visit Nuremberg. It’s a mixture of fascinating and depressing, but I’d heartily recommend going if you get the chance. The Zeppelinfield has a football field in the middle, and the review stand is a state of decay. Tom spent time trying to arrange a place to stay on short notice, and myself and Jimmy visited the Documentation Centre museum.
After the car got sorted we left Nuremberg, stopped at Ikea to replace the pillows Tom and Jimmy had left in Leutkirch, and headed to Wurzburg to stop with a friend of a friend called Benny. Got to Benny’s, and had a bit of polite too and fro with Benny politely asking if we wanted to go out to a club, and us politely saying that we couldn’t possibly take him out on a work night, before figuring out Benny WANTED to go out. So Benny took us out to a club called Labyrinth, with a bat on the sign. This involved a lot of drinking by the other three, a lot of shouting of “DO YOU LIKE EASTENDERS?” by Tom, Jimmy headbanging off his glasses and dancing to bad metal music. Benny is a good man. We got back to his at about 3am, Jimmy got stuck on a door handle, and Tom couldn’t figure out how to make a pillow case work before falling asleep.
More photos after break.
The Lion And The Wolf in Rosenheim / Schloss Zeil in Leutkirch
The Lion And The Wolf in Rosenheim / Schloss Zeil in Leutkirch. 25th August 2014.
Morning after the Leutkirch gig Matthias took us up to the castle Schloss Zeil above Leutkirch for a walk around. Only increased the feeling that we were somewhere out of a fairytale.
That evening’s gig was in Rosenheim at Asta Kneipe. Sven was putting this gig on – Tom had done some work for him for Timezone. Made it over to Rosenheim, Sven took us for a good Chinese (I think I remember I ate a sharing platter of veggie gyoza on my own… mmmmm…). Went to the supermarket and stocked up on various junk food for the drive to Kiel the next day, we were basically in the far South of Germany and had a 1,000km drive to the far North the next day. Stopping was not going to be on the agenda.
Gig and venue was spot on, as with pretty much every one on the tour.
More photos from the castle and video of the show after break.
The Lion And The Wolf house show in Leutkirch
The Lion And The Wolf, Jimmy Broomfield, Mr Instead and Michael Stelzmüller house show in Leutkirch. 24th August 2014.
Today was going to be one of the longer trips of the tour, we had to get from Essen in the Ruhrpott to Leutkirch, which is just before the border with Austria. Before that though, we needed to stop off in the middle so that Tom could randomly look at a guitar (I think it was a friend of a friend was selling it). Jimmy liked the sound of it as well, so the solution was probably going to be a knife fight. Get there, Tom decides he doesn’t want it, but Jimmy has that look of sheer love on his face from the minute he picks it up. Kind of appropriate, because the guy selling it was the absolute spit of Jimmy as well. Third guitar added an element of jenga to loading up the car, but we managed it and left. Then turned back, got the correct Jimmy and headed to Leutkirch.
Confession time, because I’m English and crap with foreign languages, I didn’t realise that Wohnzimmer was German for living room. Got all the way there before realising it was a house show. Anyhow, we got to Matthias’s family house, and it was like something out of the Sound Of Music. View across the valley to the Alps, balcony, castle above the village. One of the guys originally was going to leave early, so it turned into one of those evenings where each of the acts does a few songs in rotation. After everyone was done Matthias took us all up to the top of the hill above the village for some stargazing and party guitar. Really special evening.
More photos and video after break.