Simon Little

Hello folks
Just got back from playing a festival in Struer with Maggie Reilly. Struer is a city in Region Midtjylland on the Jutland peninsula in Western Denmark (I nicked that little snippet from Wikipedia… to be perfectly honest I have no idea where most of these places are in reality… I just get get off the plane and play my bass. I also found out that Struer has a population of 11,364.. so there you have it). Anyway, it’s a very pretty little place by the sea.
Because of it’s location (particularly relative to Copenhagen), there really aren’t that many flights in or out at useful times of a weekend. Hence we’ve been away for three days to do the one show! And, let me tell you, three days in Struer is plenty. We soon discovered that there was really only the one place to be (day or night) and that was a little bar/restaurant called The Happy Penguin (translated into Danish of course). We managed to visit said establishment a grand total of five times in the time we spent there. Everything else seemed to shut as soon as they saw us coming.
The show was a big outdoor affair with just over two thousand people in the audience. There were five bands on that day with us being the only non-Danish act on the bill. We were preceded by a Danish band (the name has gone I’m afraid) who were apparently big in the 80’s and have just made a comeback. I really didn’t get the point of the band that went .. us. They were a tribute band for a start. The word on the street was that they were a very convincing copy of Denmark’s biggest ever band (again, the name escapes me I’m afraid) who were massive in the late seventies. It was that kind of generic bluesy rock that regularly graces the stages of many a sweaty pub up and down the country. But the audience went berserk. They were singing along to all the tunes. The locals were raving about how authentic the band sounded and looked. Didn’t get it I’m afraid. I could never imagine a tribute band playing on the same stage as proper bands at any festival in the UK. Needless to say, we made a swift exit about five tunes into their set.
We had a really great show (particularly since we hadn’t played together for six weeks!). The sound was one of the best I’ve ever had on a festival and what began as a really cold blustery day suddenly turned into a beautiful Summer afternoon the exact moment we stepped onto the stage. We got a fantastic response from the audience and everybody at the festival really looked after us. They put on a big show like this every year for the locals and this was the first time they’d had a foreign band so hopefully we’ll get to play there again another time.
The Danes have a great music scene. It seems a lot of the small town put on shows like this every year and a lot of them are state funded. They really support their local artists far more than we do in the UK and on a much grander scale. Danish folk music and jazz also has a massive following. They are very proud of their own music. I think we could learn a lot from that attitude.
After the show we retired once more to the Happy Penguin for some food and drinks. As the only decent place in town it soon filled up with merry festival goers and we had a great time chatting with the natives!
Our next show isn’t until July in Poland with Chris Norman from Smokie. Maggie’s been checking out the venue and she says it looks beautiful. It’s somewhere near Gdansk… that’s all I know. We’re all looking forward to that one. I’ve never been to Poland…
On another note, if anybody’s knocking about town on Tuesday, this month’s “Wall To Wall” show with Lea Delaria features Julian Seagal on sax and we’ll be playing the music of Stevie Wonder. Should be a corker!
Simon

Phew… We’re back home after the last epic leg of Maggie’s tour in Denmark and Germany. If I see another plate of cheese and speckled ham I’m gonna puke.
We started off with a one-off show on Easter Sunday near Gothenburg on the way into Denmark. We arrived in heavy snow (in fact it was snowing in London too… we all ended up dumping our cars in any old place at Stanstead, I could barely find the road let alone the spaces) and all we knew was that the gig was at a racecourse. ’How exciting!’ I thought, envisioning an enormous outdoor show with thousands of people all stood out in the snow whooping and screaming. Little did we know that they’d set up a stage at the bottom of the grandstand in the vip area. This not only meant that we did the whole show craning our necks to look up at the audience, but it also meant about six flights of stairs to load the gear in. We played for a small but enthusiastic audience and everyone had a great time. Then we had the pleasure of lugging the gear down all those stairs on the way out and loaded the van in a full-on blizzard. Definitely ranks high on the weird gigometer.
The Danish shows were fantastic. We played some great venues in Horsholm, Skive, St. Hedinge and finished up in Fredrikhavn.
On April 1st we went to Berlin to record a TV show called ’Hits Giganten’. No idea when that’s being aired I’m afraid; but if I find out, I’ll let you know. We were on with a bizarre mix of artists, all performing their ’Hot Hits’ in front of a studio audience. Obviously a number of these were leather trouser-clad moustachioed German artists I’d never heard of, but Sam Fox was there doing ’Touch Me’, the finale was George McCrae singing ’Rock Your Baby’ under a glitter-cannon and (my personal favourite) Baccara did ’Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’. Class. It was a long day with an unbelievable amount of hanging around, but we all had a laugh and it all looked good on camera. I still can’t stop singing ’Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’…. I don’t seem to have any control over when it’s gonna come out….
We then had five shows back to back in Germany, starting off at the Kammerspiele in Ansbach. A couple of the venues were so small it was untrue, but we all managed to squeeze on the tiny stages (Maggie was virtually in Steve’s kit on a couple of occasions, and he’s not the quietest of schlagzeugers). Chrys valiantly had to invent a PA from a seemingly non-sensical pile of leads and speaker cabinets at the venue in Bad Hersfeld (or bad hair day as we’ve taken to calling it). I really don’t think they were quite ready for a band like us to turn up with our van-load of gear, but nevertheless we managed to put on a great show under some extremely difficult circumstances.
On Friday we went back to Twist again (like we did last summer). After the show, Mark and Steve came up to the dressing room declaring ’Simon! There’s a couple of people that want to talk to you downstairs’. ’Finally!’ I thought, ’fans of my own!’ After roaring off a quick post-gig fag, I went out into the hall to be greeted by a tall bloke and his nervously giggling girlfriend. ’We loved the show’ he said. Good. ’And my girlfriend really likes your hat’. Right… ’And she was wondering if she could have it?’. What?! No she bloody can’t! I couldn’t believe it. Cheeky bastards. Needless to say I gave them my thanks and made a quick exit… I’ve still got my hat.
Last night we played Lubeck in some kind of arty-farty/veggy/hippy centre. After five shows in a row and seemingly endless drives, we were all shattered and Maggie had all but lost her voice by the end of the previous show. We had a very subdued soundcheck and the acoustic was horrendous. Miraculously, this turned out to be one of the best shows we’ve done thus far and a really good end to the tour.
We must have driven all the way around Germany about six times over the last month. We all agreed that we’ve seen enough conifers and wind-farms and eaten enough leiderdame and speckled ham to last us a lifetime. We’ve got a bit of a break now. There’s a couple of bits and bobs over the summer, but Maggie and Stuart are busy sorting out a big Autumn tour so watch this space for new dates.
Until then…

Yes Sir, I can Boogie…. Boogie-woogie all night looooong!
Aargh!!
I can’t help it now…