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Usser Holidays. It seems like ages ago now, our trip to eastern Europe. I wasn't sure how the gigs would go, how we'd be received, particularly because Catherine wasn't with us for the first show in Valmez. We arrived there a bit bleary eyed and unkempt, the weather was good and our gear had made it in one piece, or lots of individual pieces if you know what I mean. Not broken, like. We were driven from Prague airport to Valmez by Petr, a concert promoter who had spent a year in jail in the eighties for organising anti communist gigs. He was big with some impressive scars, and he gave us an impromptu lecture on Prague's incredible architecture on the way out of the city. It was a three hour drive, and Petr was listening to Lenny Kravitz, so once we hit the countryside we all tried to get some sleep. Valmez is a nice town, pretty small, but it had a bowling alley, late bar, and plenty of table football so you're never bored. We played in the courtyard of the town hall where we were staying for a few days. It was a beautiful setting for a gig, and the reception was amazing. Danielle Harrison was our singer for the day, she did us proud, it seems so strange that some people only know this band with Dani as the singer. It was surreal to hear a different voice singing the songs we know so well, but they asked for two encores (we ran out of songs Dani knew on the first one) so we owe that woman a favour. The next few days were spent wandering, lounging, bowling, eating and drinking. We made some great friends, Marik (whose name I probably misspelt) and family made us very welcome, it will be nice to meet up with them again. Sadly, we lost at five a side. Although we went into an early lead, our preparation (drinking) was not ideal and we lost momentum. I got stung by nettles for the first time since I was about eight, turns out it's not as bad as I remembered. Stevie was man of the match, he's a free scoring centre forward with blistering pace. Table football was becoming an obsession. It turns out Mike is practically unbeatable, and unbelievably cocky. It was the good life. On to Poprad in Slovakia, we were sad to leave Valmez but I think we would have been looking for the local AA branch had we stayed much longer. We settled in to our rooms, possibly the warmest and most stifling rooms on the planet, and went looking for the local entertainment. After a possibly dangerous/possibly misunderstood taxi drive had taken us to a rather intimidating looking industrial estate instead of a bowling alley (big buildings, blocks of flats, guys with hoodies, shutters down, no street lights, not the kind of place you ever want to get out of a cab), we headed back into town and found a late bar with free pool and table football. Happy days, another late night. Catherine arrived on the Friday morning, having travelled overnight. We showed her around, and got ready for the gig. Again, the reaction was amazing, but this time the gods were not on our side and it rained pretty heavily for the entire set. Not so good for an outdoor gig, but there were quite a few die hards willing to get soaked. We had the best hosts in Poprad, made some more great friends. Another late night... We made our way to Nove Mesto for our last gig, a two day festival called Zelena Voda. Like a mini Oxegen, it was very well organised and but for losing our in-ear monitors (expensive things they are, too) it was a great gig. At the front were about five skinhead nazi types, who tried to make friends but we kept our distance. When we said "the next song is called Gypsy", they started shouting "f*ck the gypsies, gypsies out." They asked us to sign their arms for some reason, we politely declined. Not our kind of people. Near the end of the set, we realised that there were some Irish people at the front. They didn't know us, we didn't know them, but they seemed like old friends for some reason. We met a Bosnian band called Dubioza Kolektive and enjoyed another late night with them. Great live act, and very funny people. It gets a bit blurry then... A long train journey, a bad case of the fear, and a whiney asthmatic American non smoking bint sitting in the smoking section of the train later, we arrived back in Prague. We were staying in the Hotel Europa. It had been taken over by the communist party for many years, but was given back to the family who had owned it during the nineties. They planned to renovate it, but ran out of money pretty quickly. This means there are some really expensive posh rooms, and some really tiny cheap rooms that haven't changed since the thirties. It's right in the centre of Prague, and has alot of character. For the rest of the evening, we looked around, commented a lot on the beautiful buildings (as Stevie says, they're amazing buildings, but they could do with an oul' scrub), enjoyed the weather, sat in a big square with some bottles of beer admiring the architecture, watching people taking photos, photos, and more photos. We couldn't get tickets for the White Stripes (missed out by about half an hour). It was a small venue for them, about the size Vicar Street. It would have been amazing. We found a nice little bar, drank many cocktails and celebrated a successful week. There was more table football long into the night. Catherine surprised us all with her prowess, finally we had a match for Mike. There's alot I can't quite remember, but those are the basics. We've been asked back next year. We'll be going. ps. huge thanks to Jens and Cristel for everything. And Alan for the tour managing. |