Hell in a Handbag

I shaved...




















I had a pretty good scruff going on for a bit, but I tried to trim it and cropped one side shorter than the other, so I trimmed a bit off the other side, and so on. It grows back. I spent the first of many days in Germany on this tour wandering around town. Let me preface this with a picture of the German flag in the gutter.



















That's nice.
So we lamped out of Paris the other night and woke up in Ludwigvonbeethovenschtien. I may have spelled that wrong, but it's in Germany, so that should do. It's a small town that seems to be kept afloat solely by the BASF corporation. They owned several of the tallest buildings in town, the venue and a few parks. The venue was a new, corporate-looking theatre, and the band was relegated to playing on the raised orchestra pit. No one was really pleased to have two dozen or so dirty, sickly touring types running amok in their new banquet hall, stealing ice creams from the freezer and such.

















BASF even own the blankets in the hotel...















The show went well, I suppose. The crowd was so quiet it was unsettling. I kept trying to take pictures of the people around me, gaping mouth, little slits for eyes. I wasn't sure if they were being polite, being German, or being tired on a Sunday night. Maybe all three. While Belle and Sebastian don't necessarily put on a rip roaring rock show they, like any band, do well with a bit of support from the audience.












Gully?
















There were some really neat little German looking side streets that were, no doubt created to mask the factory lurking beneath.


































The whole joint had an air of Willy Wonka-ish darkness. Whatever, I'm in Amsterdam right now, so anywhere in Germany, in retrospect, seems a bit bleak.