Fantastic night in a sold out Festsaal der Karlsburg in Durlach. A talented cast rattled out nearly 3 hours of performance in glamorous surroundings in the music room of the old palace with yours truly closing the night ably supported by the Sean Treacy band. It was great meeting up with other musicians from the area and I made quite a few new good friends including renowned session singer David Hanselmann who Id met briefly before in Ulm with the SAS band. He closed the first set with some classic covers and got a great reception from a crowd who were very much up for the night. Fools Garden were on directly before me. I must have been the only one there who didnt know their massive world wide hit Lemon Tree and put it down to being on the road when it came out! Id met singer Peter Freudenthaler and guitarist Volker Hinkel backstage and Peter and I had a chat and a paddle in the pond outside before the show to cool off. Nice guys and they delivered a tight set of classy numbers that received a deserved ovation. I was pretty much in the frame with the Sean Treacy band after the 2 recent warm up shows and a decent soundcheck where we ran through the 2 extra numbers planned for the night. It was a more acoustic set than the previous outings and we started of again with Feast before launching into Just Good Friends, its first outing since the Fishheads Club tour. It sounded fresh and the audience were definitely on my side. Blind to the Beautiful went down a treat, the singalong at the end again indicating that this song could make its mark over here in Germany in the Summer when we take it to radio. Sugar Mice was dedicated to the Taras, both Simones daughter and mine both having by chance the same name. ( Simones because of the Indian princess and mine because of the Irish faery hill !) It was German Taras 18th birthday and she was heading off to Turkey while my Tara is in faraway Dubai. It seemed apt that they got the dedication for a song about missing family. I think I must have inspired myself with the dedication as we rose to a very emotional, powerful and dynamic performance that I have to admit brought a lump to my throat as it finished. Needless to say the crowd loved it. Kayleigh followed and it was thankfully a lot better than at the Burgfest. A lot more controlled and a semi tone down in an acoustic version made all the difference. As expected it drew a great reaction. Happy the keyboard player had done his homework and we started Gentlemans Excuse Me as the applause from Kayleigh was still echoing in the hall. I was on a real high and soared amongst the dynamics. It was perfect for the atmosphere and surroundings and incredibly poignant. I let loose with my faltering German to crack a long joke about the 2010 World Cup ( you know which one :-) ) which went down rather well I must say! :-) Lavender followed and tore the house down as we explored solos, dynamics, taking it to heights and bringing it back down into the melody before sending it back to peak with a band that was firing on all cylinders. The guys Andy on bass, Bucchi on drums, Michael on guitar, Happy on keys and Sean himself on acoustic guitar played out their skin and the smiles on stage were beaming. It was a fabulous end to the set and I thought the night. The crowd erupted and were on their feet and I was ecstatic and proud to have been a part of a fabulous evening. Sean then threw the curve ball. He dedicated the song to me and proceeded to launch into a solo version of Caledonia. I was genuinely touched and sat down on the stage to join in with him on the choruses. I again admit to choking up and I had a wee tear in my eye at the end. Huge long hugs at the end to a standing ovation from a fantastic crowd. Off stage to schnapps and cold beer and a welcome rush of cold fresh air outside as we took stock of a very special evening. I was in marvelous company and everyone wanted to do it all over again next year. Wed raised a nice wee chunk of money for the handicapped kids of Karlsruhe, had an incredibly fun time performing to a hugely appreciative audience and everyone was bouncing into the night with big beery grins. What more do you need? :-) Thanks to everyone who went out to make it a brilliant occasion both front and back of house but I especially want to thank all the guys in the Sean Treacy band who are now firm friends and who put a shed load of work into providing me with a great backing band. I take my hat off to you! :-) Same time next year guys! :-)
Posted on: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 11:44:02 +0000
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