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Archive Sunday #62

Added 2024-08-18 16:00:12 +0000 UTC

After London, we drove down to mainland Europe at about the halfway point of the tour. We checked into our hotel in Brussels that night, with the rest of the following day off before the show there to explore. It was our first time staying in the historic downtown area so there was plenty to see around the Grand-Place. We all got together to grab some local waffles for breakfast and walked along the cobblestone streets. I remember checking out the famous Manneken Pis fountain nearby, and we all were kinda surprised with how small the statue actually was. Later in the afternoon, we loaded in the venue called Ancienne Belgique. It was an exceptional venue with two tiers of balconies wrapping around a large rectangular floor. The whole venue was painted red with ambient red lighting further accentuating the bold coloring. I think we started the show with a cover of Lou Reed's Waves of Fear before a long set of originals. It was a great time stemming from the free time beforehand that gave us the added energy to match the crowd.

The next day, we drove back west to Paris to play this cool little indoor venue in the middle of a huge downtown park. It took us a bit to find the place, but once we got some directions we found the little red building hidden amongst the trees. The venue had these color-blocked walls and a tiered wooden color leading to the stage. It wasn't so bad at soundcheck, but once people started filling in we noticed the temperature and humidity slowly rising with the lack of AC during the warm summer night. Once it was time for our set, you could see the walls sweating with condensation from the excess body heat. The show itself was super fun despite the heat, and the house lighting designer was great at matching our dynamic shifts throughout the night. I think we all lost a few a pounds from sweating all night though haha.

The following day we played the familiar Paradiso in Amsterdam. It's pretty unusual we hit up this city in the middle of a tour rather than the first or last show, so it was nice to be totally focused on the show rather than flight/tour preparations. I remember we threw "Drugs with Friends" and "America" into the set and we all had a great time. I got to catch up with my Dutch friend Paul a bit after the show as we sat out by the nearby canal and talked. We had an early start the next day to drive to Koln, Germany. I don't remember too much about this venue because I was so tired that day, but I partially remember Will doing an impromptu intro on the microkorg to start our set.

From there, we went North to Hamburg where we played at the repurposed WWii anti-aircraft bunker. The venue was called Uebel & Gefährlich, and had a very imposing look with its thick concrete walls and old, retired gun placements. The venue was a few floors up inside the massive structure, but thankfully it had a working elevator. I remember watching the Naked Giants open up the night and I'm pretty sure Grant played an entire song laying down haha. That night was great, and the concrete walls probably gave John a headache wrangling feedback but it made the set feel especially alive.

Up next we had a show at Festsaal Kreuzberg in Berlin. It was definitely what we expected from our previous times visiting the city but this time it was less of a night-club and more of a beer-garden vibe. I remember Will, Andrew, and I went for a long walk in the nearby park before the show to escape some of the heat. I think this is where we started to add a cover of Crosseyed and Painless to the set which seemed to go over really well. We stayed at his music-centered hotel nearby that had guitars and stuff you could borrow from the lobby which was a pretty cool concept. We kinda go through phases with certain games/activities for each tour, and around this time we were kinda obsessed with looking up riddles/brain-teasers to see if we could collectively solve them.

I remember the next morning at the Berlin airport, Gianni looked one up we all spent way too long trying to solve. But I think Will eventually solved it right before we got on the plane headed to Barcelona. It was super exciting going to Primavera again, especially because they always get a great hotel with excellent catering. We had some kind of press interview when we first got there, but soon after we walked down to the buffet and saw Luc our tour manager from our previous Europe runs. He was out with another band before we got the chance to book him this time, but it was great to catch up.

At our last Primavera we watched Shellac's set right before ours, but this time we caught them doing a pop-up show right in the middle of the festival grounds. It was an awesome atmosphere with the growing crowd crowding around them from all sides. We played pretty early in the day, but this time it was on one of the main stages with the stage itself that seemed even bigger than some of the venues we had just recently played. It was a really fun short set, but I probably had an even greater time catching more music from bands like Grizzly Bear afterwards. I'm glad we capped off the whole tour with this festival because it certainly would have been hard to beat!