We have always enjoyed coming to this city. It must be a northern thing. Usually we stay in the very sophisticated and very upscale downtown area that rings the lake, this time the gig and our hotel are in the very unsophisticated and definitely downscale Reeperbahn district. For those of you up on your Beatle lore you will know that this is where the Rattskeller was located: the famous club in which, during the early 60’s, the fab-four honed their chops. For those of you up on your sex-tourism destinations you will know that this is the infamous red-light district of Hamburg. When we first visited Hamburg twenty years ago we played a club on this strip and we haven’t had the opportunity to revisit the area in the intervening years. Much has change. It’s still a whole-lot-sleezy, but one can sense a creeping Disney-fication. Don’t get me wrong, you can still find a blow-job on the street for 30 euros, but with Mama Mia playing in a theater at the top of the strip, it’s only a matter of time before the Reeperbahn goes the way of 42nd Street.

The theater that we played in tonight was once home to a live sex show. These days it houses short run plays for the theater going crowd. We played on the library set of the play that is currently in residence. It is a nice little theater, but unfortunately, the two shows were not very well attended. Those who came gave us a good reception and I think we had two good shows, but the formality of the theater and the sparseness of the crowd kept the energy level in the audience pretty low.

*****

We journeyed through the old corridor to get to Berlin. Blair trying to coax our VW van to challenge the BMWs and Mercedes that continually blew past us on the autobahn. This was a very quick visit to one of our favourite cities to visit. It is probably one of the most exciting cities in Europe as it continues to evolve in the post-Berlin Wall era. Unfortunately we didn’t get any time to take its pulse.

The gig tonight was in a small church that we have played on a few occasions. I would rank it as one of the best, so far, of the tour. The three of us are nicely settled in to the trio format, the venue was very good and the audience was excellent: very intense, very focused, and very appreciative. A great gig.