Tales from the German Rails – snow flakes and scary suburbs

Picture 5I’m sleepy! I blame yesterday’s 5:30 start to the day… but more on that in a moment… Right now I’m on a southbound train from Düsseldorf to Tübingen, which will take a good four hours, so time for coffee and laptop action. No sheep in the German countryside, just snowy fields and tiny villages zooming past my window.

Back to yesterday: I had to get up early to catch a 7:30 train from Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Rheydt Odernkirchen (Where? Exactly.) to record a small TV performance for the local station City Vision. The walk through the quiet suburbs was rather surreal: Me with my suitcase, guitar and shoulder bag, snow falling lightly and strange things like this in the window of the little shops lining the empty streets:

Picture 6

This was my first TV experience with a proper make-up lady, clip-on microphone and recording of teasers – much fun and over in a figurative flash. I’ll let you know once they’ve announced the broadcast date.

One hour and a couple of train stops later I arrived in Grevenbroich, which is between Cologne and Düsseldorf. The show was a one-year anniversary celebration (which would probably all be one compact noun in German) of the monthly songwriter nights at the Kultus Café. The audience in numbers were few in comparison to the previous gigs of the tour, but it made for a really nice intimate and attentive atmosphere.

You usually always get a fairly good reaction when you play a Bob Dylan song – one or two people will always make their love for his songs known. However, I’ve never had the entire room sing along and know all the words to “It’s all over now, baby blue”… clearly we should all be friends – how cool was that? So, Grevenbroich, you get the Dylan appreciation award from me, thanks for coming despite arctic conditions, hope to see you again soon. ‘Twas an honour to help celebrate! I also have to thank the lovely organisers of the gig for putting me up in my very first tour hotel – sweet! Was very tempted to chuck the TV out the window…

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