Day 9 Maastricht, NL to Potsdam, DE

We had decided to get up at 10 the next day so we could have a jam with Kees in his practice room downstairs. As per usual we got up late, but still went and had a jam. Kees has a totally cool set up; a beautiful piano, drums and a butt-load of synths. We jammed for about half an hour, a totally great way to start the day. We went back upstairs and wanted to get a nice photo of us all together on my birthday, here's what came out:

We said goodbye to our good buddy Kees and set off on our way to Potsdam. Having a 6.5 hour drive on your birthday isn't always the one, especially when you're running an hour late. We sent a text to Katja (in Potsdam) letting her know that we would be an hour later than we'd hoped and she replied saying that there was no rush!

It was motorways all the way on the 400 mile drive to Potsdam, 300 miles of that being on the same road. By the time we arrived we were feeling tired, smelly and a little bit mental. Tonight we were playing at the Black Flecke, a really cool squat in Potsdam, which is about an hour south of Berlin. We came here to party after our show the last time we played in Potsdam and had an absolute blast. We were greeted by the ever beaming Katja who had prepared and INCREDIBLE meal of soup, salad, mashed potato and baked vegetable parcels amongst other wonderful things. Katja had also made me a birthday cake!

We were playing with an Italian band called Fuzz Orchestra, who had already arrived and were sitting down ready to eat with us. We'd also be playing with them the night 
after in Leipzig, so it was wonderful to find out that they were super nice people and complete dudes to boot. We finished eating and had a beer, we were starting to feel a bit more like human beings. Sam had made my birthday super great by getting everyone we had played for on the tour to sign a card as well as bringing party poppers, some PBR (really great\crap beer from America), candles for the cake and giving me a book on Engrish. What a lad.

We finished dinner and went downstairs to set up the gear in front of the stage. Quite a lot of people arrived and we played at 11. We played quite loud and pretty well, I think we're starting to get into the swing of it now! Finally it was time to relax after a really long day... and by relax I mean have a lot of beers and watch Fuzz Orchestra. It was really nice talking to people after the show, some people had seen us play on our previous tour in Potsdam and other places. It's great to see that people are coming back to see us play. We went to bed at about 5.30am in our bunk beds (bunk beds!). What a rad evening.