Box News #249 – August 29th, 2016

Mick talks about, flying to Hamburg with the ‘Sweet,’ driving to Bremen, dinner and the Rosé wine, Carsten and Caren Tanner, meeting hotel manager Frank, a memory from 1976, seeing behind the scenes at the hotel,  the New Yorker shop, buying T Shirts for my son Romeo, and the interview at the Ritterhude Festival. Mick also discusses the familiar front line at the festival, and the rockin’ audience despite the rain. He also talks about, staying at the gig after the show to meet everybody, the miserable security people at Hamburg Airport, the slight flight delay and the welcome break. 

Thursday the 18th August we all met at LHR Terminal 5 to fly to Hamburg Germany. Our backline equipment was being driven by Vic which was good, as we were headlining the Ritterhude Festival in Bremen. This was a 90 minute drive from Hamburg Airport and we met Liam there who was doing our monitors instead of Jonny. Liam had flown in from Ireland. I gave him my Priority Lounge Pass last week, which he said worked perfectly as he had a 5 hour wait in Serbia, so he was well chuffed. He remembered and gave it back to me, so that was cool.

On the flight were the ‘Sweet’ boys so it was good to see them all, as they were on the festival with us. However they stayed in a different hotel for some reason, so we did not get to see them much.

Once at our hotel we saw our friends Carsten and Caren Tanner who were sitting in the bar as we checked in. We said our hellos and then checked into our rooms before coming down directly for dinner. This had all been arranged for us which was good as we were all starving. They also had a nice Rosé wine which was most palatable. After this I joined Carsten and Caren for a nightcap before retiring to bed. Luckily it was last orders otherwise I was in the mood to devour the whole hat shop.

In the morning we had breakfast and then we left for an early soundcheck, plus lunch at the gig. Prior to this though the hotel manager Frank came to talk to us and he told us a lovely story about in the year 1976 he was staying in a hotel with his brother Peter who was a fan, and so where Heep. We had however played the piano in the restaurant, and when he enquired who was doing this they said Uriah Heep. Well this stayed with him forever and he just had to tell us the story. Then he invited us to go behind the scenes at the hotel where he showed us all of the offices. This was cool, but then we all went to a shopping mall in walking distance from the hotel. It had a New Yorker shop which we all like. I bought a couple of T Shirts for Romeo, Russell found some more stage clothes, Davey a T Shirt and Bernie was buying up big too.

Well after this it was off to the soundcheck which was only 20minutes away, and because we had our own equipment it went smoothly. We saw the German sisters there Andrea and Claudia along with Joana van Wüllen. With the mediocre lunch and soundcheck out of the way we went back to the hotel to relax. As the lunch was under par we decided to have dinner in the shopping mall at 6.30pm. We found a good Italian type restaurant that suited everyone, and we left there satisfied.

On the way back through the mall I spotted a surfer/skateboard shop, so I popped in there and bought Romeo some more T Shirts. The reason I am buying him so many T Shirts is that he is always taking all of mine, along with my jeans, shoes and jackets. The guy serving us was having a great day as a girl he had served earlier had come back into the shop and given him her phone number, and then he asked if we were in a band and when told him UH he was beside himself and had to have a picture taken with Moi, Russ and Davey who were there with me.

Once back at the hotel we had an hour to get ready before leaving for the show. I was the first down and Frank the hotel manager said come with me and he took me into his office to talk to his brother on the phone. His brother Peter was not there so I left him a voicemail and then joined up with the rest of the boys in reception to drive to the festival.

Soon we were backstage with the ‘Sweet’ rocking out with ‘Ballroom Blitz,’ and preparing for our show. I was dragged off to another room to do a TV interview. Well they had all of the cameras and lights set up and a lady interviewer doing the interview and we started. A couple of minutes into the interview one of the lights blew, and they fixed it, then a few seconds later the second one blew. We did manage to finish the interview but with the breakdowns it had seriously cut into my warm up time, so I had to get ready pretty quickly.

Well we ran out on to the stage and there were apart from the twins, Carsten, Caren and Joana and her boyfriend down the front of the stage, we had Elina and her husband Hans, and Marije and her partner from Holland, along with Birgit and Andreas from Germany, so it was a familiar front line which was cool!

The show was terrific and the audience tremendous, as half way through it rained really hard for a while before stopping, but nobody left, and most of them didn’t even bother to cover up. Wonderful! It was a rockin’ show despite a few monitor problems, and we had a great time.

After the show most of the band went straight back to the hotel after a meet and and greet, but Davey and I stayed and chatted with everyone that made it back to the dressing room.

The next day we left at 10.30am which wasn’t too bad and we had to drive back to Hamburg. This went smoothly, as did the check in, security and passport control. I have to say though that the security were the most miserable bad attitude people I had witnessed in a long while. They did leave a lot to be desired in the politeness stakes.

Once on the plane there was a 20 minute delay where we were left sitting on the aircraft, but we were soon back at LHR Terminal 5 to pick up our bags.

The following week was a bit of a break, so we will not convene again until we meet up to fly to Italy and 2 shows in Holland,

‘Appy days!
Mick
http://www.mick-box.net
http://www.uriah-heep.com