Planning, Prep and Parking Peril

Today marks the first date of my European tour with Chris Tavener. Me and Chris met at an open mic night in Alderley Edge a few years previously where he won over the crowd with his charming satirical songs and I nervously performed on stage for probably the fifth or sixth time. We kept bumping into each other and became friends and, eventually, after playing on the same bill countless times (and a trip down south to play Latitude Festival together) decided we wanted to tour and both of us were eyeing up Europe.

This tour has been our baby since January. We’ve been having planning meetings every couple of weeks trying to figure out how on earth we’d do it, lots of people plan to do ambitious trips but I don’t know many people who actually make them happen. That’s why I was keen on touring with Chris – he makes shit happen.

We’re currently sat in a dorm in Clink Noord Hostel in Amsterdam (which is where we are playing tonight) chilling out after a stressful two hour drive from Rotterdam (I drove on the wrong side of the road multiple times and broke into a blind panic going through the centre of Amsterdam. – I’ve only driven on the right very briefly in the past and still not a massive fan of driving in cities.) This last week has been jam packed with preparations. We failed to realise just how much stuff we needed to legally drive abroad, my car failed its MOT and needed a repair, my credit card almost didn’t come on time, our flyers were delayed getting to us and only just got here. I went out and bought a busking amp so we could make some money outside of shows and placed a large order on some new T Shirts, we had to get emissions stickers, first aid kits, tools etc all sorted and so so, SO many Air Bnb confirmations together. But all too soon we were stood on my drive a couple of hours before the ferry looking at the back of my VW Polo with 6 large bags and two guitars on the grass verge next to it thinking, “How is this all going to fit??”

Thankfully with some extreme tetris skills we managed to get the car full and set off to Hull. I’d put Chris on my insurance so he could drive too and the first stint was up to Chris to get us to Hull in my car. Chris did fine, we bought a ’50 best driving songs’ album en route and enjoyed an easy drive without any issues until we arrived at the ferry. Upon arrival we realised that Chris had stashed his passport in a bag right at the bottom of a very full boot and had to quickly rearrange our equipment while a queue of cars formed behind us at the kiosk. We also realised we didn’t know how to lock the car without the alarm being on (the crossing was supposed to be a rough one) Thankfully after a quick look through the manual we worked that one out. We found our room and hit the sky bar on the ferry and had a few very over priced pints and took some snaps for socials before going to chill at our room for a while. The rest of the night was spent getting our moneys worth out of P&O Ferries Kitchen Buffet and turning in for an early (seasick) nights sleep before the boat hit rough seas.

We woke in the morning to the captains wake up call but then fell straight back asleep and woke up 20 minutes before disembarking. We scoffed down a Belvita breakfast and headed to the cars, as Chris had driven yesterday I was tasked with todays driving. It wasn’t as bad as I first thought. The majority of the drive to Amsterdam was down Motorways next to large open Dutch fields with THE windmills, which was a wicked drive and despite being very tense the whole way I did fine, at least until Amsterdam. Confronted with the first roundabout we accidentally went down a no entry and only realised when we saw the direction that cars were parked in and had to do a cheeky nip over the central reservation to get onto the right side. We then got stung in the most expensive car park of all time €1 per 20 minutes next to the nights venue and were perplexed by the street parking situation before paying at a machine a fair walk away and hoping for the best. Right now we’re in the hostel before a video meeting with Stephanie; a Columbian film-maker who is filming us today and tomorrow and then we have tonights show; which looks like it will be wicked as Clink have really pulled out all the stops for us.

Tour has officially started. Show number one kicks off in a few hours time. Let’s see how this goes.