IONTACH'S TOUR DIARY 2010

08.10.10

After a short delay searching for Jens' wallet, which of course was under our noses the entire time, we set off on our Autumn Tour 2010. The sun was shinning and donning our tour t-shirts and sunglasses we programmed the sat nav for Göttingen, the "Apex" in Göttingen to be exact!

One and a half hours later Jens realised that he didn't remember packing his whistles into the car....he has a good memory....he hadn't. His memory might have been better put to use to remember to bring them in the first place!!! Anyway, we exited the motor way so that we could stop and have a little brain storming session in the car. A session would have been nice, but rather less productive in the circumstances! Outcome? We figured out that if we could lay our hands on an F low whistle, that the day, and tour, would be saved. At this stage we were in Walsrode, so we figured that a diversion via Steinorts in Laatzen was possible. A quick phone call with Sandra revealed that she would be happy to lend us Claus' F whistle, fair play to her! Arrangements were made to collect it and we were all happy campers again!

Arrived at the Apex 15 minutes before schedule! Had a nice relaxing set up and sound check with a very yummy meal thrown in. The sound engineer was Andreas Thamm, and he, by all accounts, did a wonderful job. Thank you Andreas! We had a lot of fun with the small, but perfectly formed audience and in no time, our first gig of the tour was over. Then it was off to find our lodgings for the night. Our landlady had been expecting us to collect the key in the afternoon...... Unfortunately for her nobody told us that so she had to stay up, sorry Frau B! It was off to bed then and time to dream of tomorrow and SHOPPING!

09.10.10

Still in Göttingen, we set off to see a bit of this beautiful town, and also to see how much money we could rid ourselves of. Angelika won the challenge, she treated herself to a Lumix TZ8 camera, a book and a CD, trailing by a mile was Siobhán with her purchase of a pair of Birkenstocks and Jens who bought a CD.

Göttingen, in the city

Siobhán's new shoes

 

Iontach meets Iontach (look at the advertising column...) [Photo: Martin Wiegand]

We got on the road again at three and made our way to Marburg. Like the previous day, we arrived in good time to yet another venue that we haven't been in before, Waggonhalle. What a great bunch of young people were there to welcome and work with us. They were all so friendly, professional and accommodating. Again, they did a great job on the sound and looked after us very well indeed. We were lucky to meet another lovely audience, an audience who had no problem in belting out happy birthday to Jens' sister when we phoned her from the stage mid way trough the concert! Unfortunately Karen wasn't at home when we rang her, but she had a rather unusual message waiting for her on her answering machine when she got home! Thanks to all for joining in with such spirit!

Waggonhalle, side view

Jens had recently bought a "new" 22 year old Lowden guitar from a chap called Peter, and as the two had never met, Jens was delighted to see that Peter turned up for the gig, Peter was equally delighted to see his old guitar being played, and when asked if he missed it replied, "sometimes, but it's nice to see that it's in good hands!".

Accommodation was adjoining the venue (mighty stuff, this doesn't happen nearly often enough). This cluster of buildings was formerly a train station and a yard where trains were serviced, all makes for interesting surroundings. After the gig we had time to sit together by candle light with a glass of wine, a Bacardi & coke and a glass of water, a lovely way to round off the day!

PS those who know us can figure out which drink belonged to who!

10.10.10

A lovely date! And a lovely day to go with it - sunshine and a cloudless blue sky, could it get any better? Yes it could in the form of a breakfast fit for a king! In yet another area of the Waggonhalle is a restaurant where we sat back and enjoyed the most wonderful brunch before loading up the car and heading off to Kassel. In the midst of all that, Angelika took a few photos on her new Lumix at ten minutes past ten, so it was 10.10 on 10.10.10!

Church in Kassel near our hotel

Arrived at our hotel in plenty of time to relax for a couple of hours before the sound check. On arriving at the Schlachthof (abattoir!!!), we were met by Robert Sell who had everything ready for our sound check - no hanging around, a musicians dream... At the risk of sounding like a broken record, he did a fantastic job. The standard of the venues so far has been top class. The venue was full which is apparently unusual for a band's first appearance there, so that made us happy. Robert, you're a gentleman and we look forward to meeting you again.

11.10.10

We had an early start today, which is definitely not a musicians dream, but we did get to see a lovely sunrise, proving that every cloud does indeed have a silver lining!    We also saw the first white frost of Autumn, brrrrr! The reason for our early bird status? We wanted to drive by the Renault garage in Göttingen to have something checked out with the car (a warning message appeared on the dash board on Saturday)... We hoped that by being there before they open at 8:00, that we would be first in the queue, turns out that they actually opened at seven, but fair play to them, they fit    us in to their busy schedule and attached the car to the computer, thankfully there was nothing to be found, so we can head into the mountains with confidence, yay! So, it's off to Schweinfurt and Disharmonie, our venue for Oct 11th and our first acoustic gig.

Most of us have been island hopping in Greece in our day, but today we experienced a new kind of hopping, and that is hotel hopping. We arrived at the Merecure where we always stay when we play at the Disharmonie only to find that due to a big conference, they were booked out. The receptionist kindly rang our contact who told her that reservations had been made for us in the Hotel Panorama, (pity we weren't told), so we traipsed ourselves and our luggage back to the car and set off for hotel number two. We decided to leave the bags in the car this time, and as luck would have it, this turned out to be a good move. The receptionist there knew nothing about Iontach, or as she liked to say "eye-on-tack"! No sign of a booking for us under any name that we could think of. A few phone calls later and she found the email which confirmed that the reservations had been made, but admitted that the hotel had overlooked it....AND they also were booked out.... So, she started to ring around hotels to find us a couple of rooms, and low and behold she was successful on the first attempt. That's how we ended up in the Park Hotel, which, it turns out, is really lovely, and still enough time to relax for a few hours. Back in happy camper mode!

The building which houses Disharmonie is also home to a restaurant. The two work hand in hand so naturally we had a meal there. It was very tasty indeed and we would highly recommend it. Even better is the fact that the restaurant is run by a group which includes able bodied and people with disabilities together. What a wonderful project, and what a great result! It was lovely to be back there and meet a few new faces.

Restaurant Disharmonie, overlooking the River Main

On returning to the hotel, we discovered that the parking place that we had reserved was no longer waiting for us... The night porter was very helpful and gave us a private space, there was just one draw back - we had to move the car by 8am! Even so, the three of us rounded off the evening watching a DVD together, "the English man who went up a hill and came down a mountain".

12.10.2010

Siobhán's internal alarm clock woke her up at 7.20, so up she got to move the car. When she got to the car she found a notice under the wiper blade "nur vorwärts parken" (forward parking only), which would be fine, except that the night porter actually told us to reverse into the space!!! There were still no hotel spaces to be had, so it took half an hour to secure a spot. On the way back past the receptionist en route to her hotel room, Siobhán was informed by said receptionist that she could have left the car in the privately owned space.... All urges of murdering somebody were suppressed and Siobhán went back to her room too irked to sleep.

The Kennedy (!) Ring in Schweinfurt

We had a short trip from Schweinfurt to the lovely town of Würzburg, that meant that we could play the role of tourists for a while before heading off to the venue. We should have been playing in Wachenheim, but even though it was planned last year, the gig was cancelled about three weeks ago. Enter mister José Sanchez. Jens asked our fellow musician and friend José if he could help us out and help us out he did. Having asked almost a dozen venues, he eventually found one that was free, namely Theater Hobbit, a puppet theatre in the centre of town. It was a lovely little venue, perfect for what we do. Due to the hard work put in by José, the gig was well attended and the audience included many musicians with which we had a session after the concert. Its probably the first time we've experienced the audience lilting with us audience at a gig! Our thanks also to Sabine Pichler who also spread the word! More thanks to José and Ulli for putting us up for the night and for a fine breakfast the next day.

Getting the stage ready...

Iontach in Theater Hobbit in Würzburg

Hobbit Angelika

Hobbit Jens

Hobbit Siobhán

13.10.10

Before departing from the hospitality of Ulli & José, we purchased an original piece of artwork by José called the "heartfelt fiddler", this we wanted to give to an old friend as a wedding gift...

Getting ready to leave "Studio Sánchez"

On the way to Homburg, we passed a road sign for Kirchheimbolanden which is where this friend of ours has a pub. A phone call later and we took the exit and within minutes found ourselves in the Weißenross, in the company of Hans Mohr. It was so much nicer to be able to deliver the gift personally rather than post it! It was great to see him again and we all went off to the ice cream parlour together and stuffed our faces and caught up on the craic simultaneously! All too soon it was time to get back on the road and head for Homburg and Bukowskis for the next gig.

Got to the venue spot on time, 17:00, but there was nobody there to greet us. Expecting that we wouldn't have long to wait, we unloaded the car and took all the gear to the door of the locked venue. Another 10 minutes and a couple of phone calls later and we found out that the boss understood our 17:00 to mean 7 o'clock!!! So there we were with all the instruments and no desire to load them all back into the car, (mostly because we were in a cellar), so we sat on them and waited...

Thanks to our old friend Chris Clemens who provided us with PA for the night. Chris used to be the landlord of Bukowskis, but it was called Planxty in his day. It was fun to play there when he and Gabi were at the helm, but the new tenants have attracted a different and very young clientele who are not very interested in our kind of music. Fair play to Sebastian for trying it out, but that was probably our last gig there.... You can't win them all!

Roll on tomorrow when we'll be back in the Alsace region of France with our friends in the Salles de Brasseurs, it's always a brilliant night there and we're really looking forward to seeing the wonderful Anne-Marie & René Ritter again.

14.10.10

Today was the first dewy, foggy morning so far, but it began to clear as the sun rose and a lovely new day dawned. We got on the road and set the sat nav to guide us to Culmar, where we planned to have a couple of hours strolling around the old part of the town.

We had a very pleasant couple of hours and a very filling traditional roesti meal. Angelika lost the "who can spend the most today" challenge as she bought nothing! Jens invested in some produce of a chocolatier!!! Siobhán bought a flan dish which Manne will be delighted to hear has a drawing of a cow on it!  (Kühe.....!)

Then it was on to Lutterbach.

Sign post for our concert

We set up our gear and met the lovely Solange who was handing her house over to us for the night....brave lady! Normally we stay in a hotel, but this time she offered to give us the run of her place. So off we went to Solange's, and the first thing we saw was the mountain of food that she had set out on the table for breakfast the following morning, enough to feed a proverbial army, and that was only the non refrigerated stuff! We settled ourselves in and got ready for the gig there. The gig itself was as great as expected, full house and a great audience who seemed to delight in our extremely poor French! We always have great fun in Lutterbach making complete eejits of ourselves!!! After the gig was the traditional meal at Anne-Marie and René's.

René & Jens with Angelika

As usual Anne-Marie pulled out all the stops to serve up a magnificent meal accompanied by a rosé champagne. After the meal we chatted in a combination of languages as there were a few other guests there! We even sang a bit but all too soon it was time to leave. It was a lovely day!

15.10.10

Before leaving Lutterbach, we called into Anne-Marie and René to say a quick thank you and goodbye. They will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary next month in Ireland, so let us be the first to offer our congratulations, and wish you both a wonderful celebration.

Today was the first grey day since we started out on the tour, up to now we had been spoiled with really blue skies.

Blue Sky

Grey or blue, we were heading in the direction of Basil and Tom Aebi's workshop. He worked his magic on both Angelika and Siobhán's flutes.

Siobhán also got the chance to try out some joints in which Tom has incorporated new ideas and was very impressed. They decided to spend a day or two together in the workshop next year to make these adjustments to her flute, something to look forward to. Tom also worked on the reed in Jens' chanter and improved the sound a hundred fold!

Tom Aebi in his workshop

Next stop was back in Germany and in the black forest, Villingen to be exact. We arrived a little later than expected as we got caught in a traffic jam in Freiburg. Nonetheless, we got the sound check over in plenty of time and managed half an hour in the hotel! Back at the venue and we thought that we weren't going to have an audience! We needn't have worried, it seems that in the Folkclub Scheuer in Villingen they arrive about 15 minutes before the gig, unlike the rest of Germany where it's at least half an hour before. In the end the gig went well, we were even asked by the audience how we all met and how we ended up forming Iontach... Now that is definitely a first!

Playing in Villingen (Photo: Thomas Kreihe)

After the Concert in Villingen (Photo: Thomas Kreihe)

We weren't hungry before the gig and we were too tired after it to go for a meal, so we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep...we can eat tomorrow!

16.10.2010

RAIN!!! Now that was unexpected... I'm not quite sure we could believe that we woke up to the sound of rain on the window pane!

 

After eating breakfast (as late as possible) we set off on our next journey. Today's gig would be club Bastion in Kirchheim unter Teck. The last time we played there was very very funny, so we're hoping to have a good night, let's hope that we haven't set our expectations too high.

 

It was a rainy trip, and the traffic jams on the way didn't help, but we got to our hotel around 1.30 which gave us three hours to relax, shower, sleep....whatever! Club Bastion is a lovely venue which is actually situated within a tower of the old town walls. It is some meters underground and all stone walls and pathways, with vaulted ceilings. There is a fantastic team running the club and our contact people are Annerose and Herbert. The backstage provisions are excellent and we wanted for nothing.

 

After settling ourselves in and getting the stage ready, (no sound check needed as we play acoustic here), we were taken to a traditional Swabian restaurant. Suffice to say, it was good that we had an hour and a half between the meal and the gig as we had the most tasty meal and lots of it! During that 1.5 hour gap we were in our backstage room and at some point Jens, our chocoholic, grabbed a bar of chocolate from a tray of goodies on the table, tore it open and stuffed a sizeable chunk of it into his mouth. Too late he realised that it was sour cherry and chilli flavoured, neither of which he likes, so the moral of the story is "look before you leap"! He made up for his mistake by scoffing two bars of white chocolate in quick succession.

 

Iontach plays in Kirchheim/Teck, Bastion

 

This gig was our "Bergfest", that is, the middle of 17 gigs in a row, and it really was a peak to say the very least! The place was so packed that it was difficult for us to get to the stage and we got a huge applause before we even sang or played a note. It was AN AMAZING NIGHT! We all three agree that it exceeded all expectations and was in fact one of two highlight gigs of the year. Thanks to everybody involved, we can't wait to come back again!

 

Iontach in Kirchheim/Teck, Live in Concert

 

 

17.10.10

Its still grey and wet, but nothing can dampen our spirits as we are on a continuous high from last night, so it is with smiles on our faces we set off for Lohn in Switzerland. Today's gig is at 5.30, so we should manage an early night for a change!

We arrived in Lohn to be greeted by a big hug and a smile from Hans (der Pfarrer) Dürr! He showed us the beautiful church in which we would play and we checked out the acoustics - WOW! Why anybody would even consider setting up a PA for a concert in this church is hard to imagine. Accommodation was in Hans' house beside the church and in Ursula & Werner's place a couple of hundred meters away, perfect! Having parked the car we didn't need to sit into it again until the following day. Whilst we got the stage ready, Hans prepared a snack for us to eat before our afternoon snooze. He was afraid that there would be a very small turn out as it was school holiday time in the area... He needn't have worried, there was a huge turn out and only the back few rows of the church were empty. Everything about the gig was soooo unexpected.

 

Iontach in Lohn (Photo: Christoph Schneckenburger)

 

The audience were 100% receptive and appreciative from the word go! It turned out to be another really brilliant evening, and that is very much due to the hard work put in by Hans in spreading the word!

 

Iontach during the break... (Photo: Christoph Schneckenburger)

 

It was a real pleasure to play there. After the gig, Hans took us to a local restaurant where we all ate either wild boar or horse! Dessert was either edible in the form of ice cream or chestnut on meringue, or drinkable in the form of cöxli... It was all in all a lovely evening and we got to bed before midnight, lääs!!! :)

 

18.10.10

Hans  has been added to the list of those who've provided enough food to feed an army for breakfast. We were joined by Ursula, who by the way is a bee keeper, and had a nice long breakfast together. Afterwards Angelika, who has a bee or two of her own at home, went with Ursula to check out the Swiss way of bee keeping. In the meantime, Jens and Siobhán packed the car and had a look around the rest of Hans' place. It's obvious by all the photos and gifts on display that he does an amazing amount of work in particular with teenagers, and what else is also obvious is that they really appreciate, respect and like him, no wonder, he's a great man!

 

Iontach with our friend Hans Dürr (Photo: Ursula)

Armed with gifts of Lindt chocolates, very Swiss, and honey, very locally Swiss, we got back on the road. Next stop Sonthofen!

We had a nice journey through the Algoi alps, even if it was a bit foggy at times. We had hair pin bends, steep climbs and declines, forests, mountains, cows wearing bells all in the space of a couple of hours. Angelika and Siobhán had a walk around Sonthofen while Jens took the opportunity to have forty winks!    Purchases today? Angelika - mustard and chocolate, Siobhán - two bags of white mice!

The last time we played in Sonthofen was in January this year and there was a few feet of snow. It looks very different without it, still nice though! For the second night in a row we had the luxury of gigging and sleeping in the same place, great!

 

Kulturwerkstatt in January 2010

 

... and again in October 2010

 

The audience was small but great. We had another first when Jens was introducing the slow air "Limerick's lamentation" that he was about to play: a member of the audience quickly took out her phone to make a phone call....we were a little surprised to say the least, but it turned out that she was phoning people she knew in Limerick to let them listen to it!!! She wanted to know if they knew the tune, luckily for us they did. We had quite a cosy night, and at the end a particular group in the audience were really interested in the workings of some of the instruments, namely the bodhrán and the uilleann pipes - goodness knows why!    Angelika and Jens gave them a mini lecture on said instruments and they left happy with their newly gained knowledge tucked away somewhere in their heads. We had time after the gig to sit with Monika, who owns and runs the place, and Bernd over a glass of wine/beer/schnapps or you guessed it, water! Monika is a mighty woman who puts tremendous work into looking after and promoting the interests of musicians, and for that we thank her sincerely.

19.10.10

After breakfast and farewells, we were on the road again. The fog had lifted and we could see the snow covered mountain peaks, beautiful! It was also a beautiful drive which took us through very lush green sweeping pastures inhabited here and there with grazing cows. They are a strange breed to us from their grey/brown/taupe coats to their very hairy cream coloured ears.

Then we came to the grandeur of the alps.... The cameras nearly self combusted! Magnifico!!!

 

 

"Alpfel" - an apple from Angelika's orchard makes it to the Italian Alps...

 

Had we ordered the return of the blue skies, we couldn't have timed it any better. On reaching Bolzano, we found our lodgings, dropped off our luggage and then went in search of the venue. We got the sound check over and done with and went off to sample some local cuisine.

 

...and yet they let us in!

 

The gig was only organised a month ago as the originally planned concert didn't materialise in the end. Our thanks to Pietro Berlanda who secured not only the venue, but a sizeable audience for the concert. It was to start at eight thirty, and we were told a few minutes beforehand that we had to finish at ten, we were flummoxed to say the least. Ninety minutes to play two sets with a break in between? This was another first and it threw us a little! We had to omit a few numbers and cut out all the usual banter - that was the most difficult part of all! We usually like to have a bit of craic with the audience and it was strange not to do that. Right in front of us were the Hannover Bodes on one side and our Italian musician friends on the other...lots of lovely familiar faces! Pietro and Francesco joined us for a set on flute and pipes in the encore and we went over the time limit a little, but no wrists were slapped and we lived to tell the tale... The gig went well and we were nicely surprised.

 

There was no secure parking where we were staying, so we found an underground car park, left the car there and went from there to our beds with the plan to get up early enough to see a little bit of Bolzano before we had to set out on our travels again.

 

20.10.10

9am saw us fed, watered and en route to the car to rid ourselves of our ever expanding luggage. Then we had a a couple of hours to stroll through Bolanzo. Jens decided to find a quiet spot where he could do some schoolwork on his beloved apple MacBook Pro whilst the girls went off to see what they could see. They arrived in the market place first - what a display of tasty edibles!

 

Market in Bolzano

 

Angelika treated herself to fresh dates, cashew nuts and chilli peppers which will definitely look the business when hanging from the beams in her kitchen at home. Then they ambled through narrow streets, sprawling squares and bustling crowds. As they had been told that there was snow in Radstadt in Austria, the next gig, Siobhán bought herself a pair of gloves. Angelika purchased a book on chestnut trees in a shop that had an unusual pricing system - everything was either 1, 3 or 5 Euro! They also came upon the irish pub which has the name "Pogue Mahones"... a play on words if ever there was one!

 

Pub in Bolzano

 

On the way back to the meeting point, they bought a present for Jens in the form of a black towel! He had been talking about acquiring one to rest his pipes on on the stage, so he was happy with his gift. Siobhán was also pleased with the scarf that beckoned her to buy it...just in case it was too cold in Radstadt of course!!!

Then it was back to the car and on the road in search of Tante Fränzi, the aunt of our friend Monika in Sonthofen. Monika had asked if we could find the time to deliver some home made cake to her favorite auntie. Of course we said yes, and we were rewarded by some of said cake for ourselves, yummy! A short while later, cake delivered to it's grateful recipient, it was time to leave the South Tyrol and point the car towards Austria. The more we drove, the more breathtaking the alps became. Winter had begun to descend upon them and the caps were well covered in snow. It was a spectacular drive, and we even had a little snowfall on the way.

 

This photo speaks for itself

 

We arrived in Radstadt where there wasn't even a flake of the stuff...so much for the gloves and scarf! The venue was an old stone tower building which in former times was a fire station, it was lovely. Zeughaus am Turm also houses a café where many people with special needs work, a good few of whom came to the gig. They are also involved in music projects so they enjoyed the concert very much, interpreting correctly when it was appropriate to sing with us and when not! They weren't shy in letting us know which instruments they play, and one of the girls, who is also a singer, delighted in telling Siobhán "and I can speak German very well"! I guess she wasn't too impressed by Siobhán's flawed command of the language.

It wasn't snowing, but it was cold, so we opted to leave the instruments in the venue over night. The hotel was all of 50 meters walk from the venue, in other words, across the street. This meant that everything was easy to organise for the next day. We had eaten in the hotel earlier and as a dessert, both Jens and Siobhán opted for "fried ice-cream" as curiosity got the better of them. Turned out that fried ice cream is ice cream covered in corn flakes and drizzled with honey! We still haven't figured that one out...

 

21.10.10

Guess what? It snowed! Just a couple of centimetres, but snow is snow! The streets are clear, so no worries about driving. We get to the venue at 10.30 as arranged the previous evening with Elizabeth, our contact, to collect the gear.  Afterwards we had time for a coffee before hitting the road. The route back through the Austrian alps was as jaw dropping as it was in the opposite direction. Definitely more snow on them now! When we hit the Bavarian alps, it was as though somebody had pressed a "no snow here please" button. It was back to green trees and a landscape only beginning to be touched by the colours of autumn. In the north, the leaves have already fallen and nature is readying itself for it's winter sleep.

Today's gig is in Munich and will be videoed....what to wear? Siobhán knows exactly what she wants to wear, pity it's at home in her wardrobe!!! Jens has been to the hairdressers for a cut and colour whilst Angelika has been looking at a pair of 5 inch heels in a nearby shop! Joking aside, we're keeping all extremities crossed that we do a good gig and have a clip or two worth having!

We got to Willi's house at the arranged time of 4pm. What a lovely person! We also met his son Killian who would be helping with the recording, and it could be said that the apple didn't fall far from the tree as he is also a gentleman. We followed them to the venue which was situated in the Olympic village. It was interesting for us to see this "little town" that was built to host the olympics in 1972. The "streets" are under the village, and resemble an over grown underground car park, but with roads, roadside parking and sign posts instead of regular parking. Over that are multi floored buildings in which we can only imagine were home to thousands of Olympians.

The stage was lovely, plenty of room and nice plush comfortable seating for the audience. We got the sound check over and done with by six, at which stage the camera crew of two (Dave and Luigi) arrived. We went off to grab a bite to eat while they set up. On our return, things weren't looking so good... We had a tiny audience, despite the good advertising done by the team, still, the show must go on! This was the biggest city we played in, and the smallest audience we played to, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. We made the best of it and chalked it down to experience. It will be interesting to see what Dave and Luigi captured on camera! We felt sorry for Willi as he was so disappointed at how things turned out, and as he had put so much work into it.

 

Iontach with our friend Willi Basler

The upside was that apart from meeting the lovely Willi & Co., we were staying in a particularly nice hotel in executive rooms. We certainly enjoyed our short stay there.

 

22.10.10

We were able to leave the gear in the venue last night, so we went to meet with Willi to collect it. Goodbyes said, we parked the car at the Olympic village underground station and took the train into the city centre.  This was a good tip from Killian as we probably would have wasted time driving there, trying to park etc.etc.  When we got there we arranged a meeting point and time, and went our separate ways. Angelika went shopping for clothes and having got that out of the way, became a tourist and gave her new camera a good work out. Jens and Siobhán headed straight for the Apple store and spent a great deal of their spare time there. Then they went their different ways and walked the lively streets of Munich's city centre. Siobhán was particularly amazed by the brilliant street music to be heard, from Vivaldi being played on an instrument created from water filled glasses to a quintet which consisted of violin, cello, double base, flute and wait for it - a baby grand piano! On the street! How on earth did they manage that? The most expensive item we saw? A Merc where you would get €406 change from a mere €896,000!!! After the previous nights gig, we weren't in the position to buy it so we gave it a miss... Siobhán won the spend the most challenge with her purchase of a hand made leather cover for her iPad and photo accessories for the same piece of equipment. Angelika bought trousers and tops, while Jens splashed out on an Apple's iLife 11. With our somewhat heavier rucksacks, we made our way via the underground to the car. Next stop Pfaffenhofen where we would meet with Thomas Waldman who was the organiser of tonights and tomorrows gigs.

We arrived a little late due to traffic jams, but it wasn't a problem. Thomas was as organised as ever and had everything ready for us, including a crew to help carry all the instruments in. The crew consisted of Merwe, Elke, Toni, Nikolaus and Torsten. What a great bunch, we are impressed every year by the team work and camaraderie of these people. It's a joy and a pleasure to perform at events in which they are involved. The gig was almost sold out in advance ticket sales, so it didn't take long before it was completely sold out and the Intakt Musikinstituit was full. Sound and lights on the night were by Michael who himself is a jazz pianist. He did a great job and was fascinated by what we do as it was his first experience of our kind of music. He is also the director of the venue and it would appear to us that he is doing a great job on that too! The gig was really fun, with the exception of a bar man who didn't seem to realise that there was a concert going on. You could've heard a pin drop along with his voice if it didn't distract you enough. Some members of the audience complained about him afterwards, so it wasn't just us. Having said that, the night was so good we won't let him burst the bubble we are floating in....or is it on?

After packing again we headed for Thomas' place where Angelika would stay with himself and Sylvia and the others next door with Sylvia's parents, Rita and Harald. It's always great staying there, very relaxed and easy going.

 

23.10.10

No pressure this morning, we have a lazy start to the day which includes a late breakfast at Thomas and Sylvia's. We were royally entertained by Jonas who is now eighteen months old and so different from when we last saw him a year ago. He even got Jens dancing...now that's saying something!  We left the company of this lovely family at 3pm, with the knowledge that we would see them again in two weeks!
On arrival at the venue, Thomas and team had everything ready, and that included the erection of a second stage. There would be dancers from the "Celtic Dragons" performing tonight on the regular stage and the additional stage was ours. Thomas was doing the sound and the sound check was over in no time and with no hitches. The concert was already sold out, so there would be no sales on the night, this was great as it was a 340 seater. You win some, you lose some, this was definitely a winner!

Then we went for a meal in a nearby Italian restaurant, which unsettled us a bit as they were incredibly slow and we were under pressure by the time the food arrived. To add insult to injury, the food was bland and tasted of nothing. The nice part of the meal? The arrival of Andrea and Herman, friends who not long parents themselves, managed to find a babysitter and made their way to the gig. It was lovely to see them.

Then it was back to the venue and down to business! The dancers opened both halves of the concert and also danced one more number in in the middle of our second set. The audience loved them and us. We really enjoyed the gig too! A lot of people took the trouble to come up to us afterwards to tell us how great they thought the concert was, and congratulated us on winning over an audience in "Lower Bavaria"!!! Tomorrow night we would be joining Liederjan on stage to help them celebrate their 35th anniversary, so this was a really fantastic night to have as our final Iontach gig before heading back home.

After everyone had finished their work, taking down the PA, stage, lights, seating etc. etc., the dancers provided a huge and very tasty buffet for all involved in the night. This was so much better than the disastrous meal we experienced earlier in the evening. We didn't delay any longer than necessary though as we have a long trip ahead of us tomorrow. In fact we had a two hour drive ahead of us tonight as we thought it would be good to get a couple of hundred kilometres over us already. So off we went in high spirits after a very good night and made our way to a hotel that would bring us 208 k's closer to Hamburg...

24.10.10

We got on the road at 10am, plenty of time to drive the 604 kilometres to Hamburg. As we drove north, the trees became yellower and eventually barer! We were also back to rain, something we hadn't seen a great deal of in the last couple of weeks on the road. Tonights concert was originally planned to be an Iontach gig in Vienenburg , but when it turned out that the band Liederjan, our friends and partners in our Liedertach project were to celebrate their 35 years of being on the stage on this very night, we managed to postpone the planned gig for a week so that we could join them for their big night.

Parking in Hamburg was difficult, but we were very lucky and got a space right beside the gate that led to the stage entrance. When we arrived the three current members of Liederjan, Jörg, Hanne and Lemmi (Michael Lempelius), were sound checking along with three past members. Then we did a quick "Liedertach" check which was followed by sound checks for the remaining guests which included "Le Clou", Eddy Winkelmann, Rainer Prüss, Jürgen Leo and Klaus Irmscher. Then we all mingled and before we knew it, it was show time!

It was a great night and a lovely celebration to mark Liederjan's 35 years in the business. Congratulations again from us, especially to Jörg who as a founder member has been there for each and every one of those years. Thanks for inviting us to be part of this momentous occasion, it was indeed a pleasure.

 

Liedertach, Live in Hamburg

Celebrations continued into the night, but sadly we still had another couple of hundred k's of motorway ahead of us, so we had to leave them to it!

And that was the end of our tour 2010. Thanks to Jens who not only organised a great tour, but drove every one of the almost 5,000 kilometers. Thanks to everybody along the way who made us feel so welcome and put their time and energy into the success of our concerts. Thanks to Claus Steinort who's F whistle came to the rescue when we discovered we had only two on board instead of three! Thanks also to all who came to see and hear us, we hope to meet you again, and a final thanks goes to those who followed us on our journey by reading this tour diary, feel free to comment in our guest book if you so wish! We're all tired and looking forward to our own beds, but having said that, roll on Friday when we'll be on the road again!

Please keep live music alive and continue to support concerts in your area, it is much appreciated, but for now it's "Auf Wiedersehen", "au revoir", "slán" or "until next time" from Iontach.

All the best Jens, Angelika & Siobhán