Steve's Tour Diary

  • New York City

    2005-12-21: Now let's see. The last tour diary entry came from Hannover on the 16th of December. And then nothing. I'm sure that all of you are convinced that we were eaten by the German cousin of the Loch Ness Monster or that we proved Columbus wrong and drove off the edge of the earth somewhere around Dusseldorf.more

  • Hannover

    2005-12-16: Sitting backstage at the Blues Garage and waiting for Carsten to adjust the PA, set up microphones and ring out (i.e. eliminate the bad tones from) the monitors. Sorry to get all technical but this is our world before we sound check which is our world before we eat which is our world before we play our music formore

  • The road to Bremen

    2005-12-14: This particular road contains water. Right now we're on a Danish road, somewhere past Roskilde although I haven't looked out the window in the last 20 minutes. But soon we'll be on a ferry to Germany. And then we'll be on a German road. These are fixed details that provide some kind of order to themore

  • The ferry to Denmark

    2005-12-12: Here we are on the overnight ferry from Norway to Denmark. We usually have one of these treks on each tour and I really look forward to them. It's fun to have 12 hours of bouncing from bar to casino to duty free shop to restaurant to ship deck to bunk bed and then back again. Sleepmore

  • Leaving Egersund

    2005-12-11: I was talking to our promoter Roald a few hours before our show last night. He was recounting a conversation with American country songwriter Tom Russell who said "Oh yeah. Norway on a Saturday night. You know what THAT'S going to be like." And I knew. I completely knew. Norwegians are not shy about theirmore

  • The road to Egersund

    2005-12-10: I've been delinquent in my on-the-road dispatches lately. Sorry. It just seems that time has flown. Well, time hasn't exactly flown but we have. Since Thomas dropped us off at the Stockholm Airport Friday morning, we have had a 36-hour run that included two flights (one delayed, another missed), one very choppy four-hour ferry and amore

  • Halden

    2005-12-07: I came off stage at 8pm last night after sound check and I was fried--a magic combination of headache, exhaustion and disorientation. It certainly wouldn't have stopped me from playing a good show--I have all kinds of tricks for overcoming such a state--but I was glad to hear from our promoter (and old friend) Tom Skjeklesaether that wemore

  • The road to Halden

    2005-12-06: We're driving through Sweden with farmlands on the left and right side of the highway. There's not a building in sight. I've got Elvis Presley (Memphis Sessions, 1968) on the headphones and for all I can tell, I actually have been transported to another decade. In fact, it feels like it could be another century. Exceptmore

  • Kassel

    2005-12-04: We have one hour in the hotel before we have to leave for soundcheck. You learn to do a lot with the time you have. Maybe a nap is a good idea. Maybe organizing your suitcase, shifting the dirty clothes to the bottom of the case and encouragingly placing the remaining clean ones on top would bemore

  • Westerbroek

    2005-12-02: It's 11am and I'm sitting at the dining room table of my buddy Jaap Bos. Most of you reading these pages are acquainted with Mr Bos. I've known him since 1986 when we met in Groningen at Club Vera He came backstage after the show with a bunch of bootleg cassettes of my shows and wanted tomore