Day 1 - Sunday July 15^th – Ghent

By Charlie Presburg

Day 3 – Tuesday July 17^th – Furtherhof, Neuss

Not too much to report just yet with our first show tomorrow evening in Belgium so I'll keep this fairly brief. So we meet in Dover Sunday afternoon,  there's talk from Spider, our illustrious and now legendary soundman, of the Ashton Court festival being cancelled that day due to bad weather and PA's sinking into mud. Hard to believe on this very pleasant Kent evening with sunshine and blue skies (unlike the last time we played in Europe when we sailed through hurricanes and force 9 gales to get to the continent).

We've a rather lovely and very comfortable (if ever so slightly cramped) splitter bus, it even has a table and DVD player, very nice. Luckily, the JEBO boys have managed to get this van-packing malarkey down to a fine art form, good job really with Jeff's fabulous new drum flight-case, large enough for a small family to live in comfortably for a month.

After a very smooth crossing we arrive in Calais and drive straight to Ghent where merry hell seems to have broken loose. It's 10pm and there's thousands of people out in the streets, loads of stages with music and lights everywhere and on the stage nearest to us, some kind if Flemish blues band with a Yodeling keyboard player, how peculiar. At one point, the singer decides to throw a flurry of white polystyrene balls into the audience, just for kicks.

After much van turning (sterling job Jeff, you navigating genius, you!) and a little driving around the town to find our hotel (our original hotel's been booked-out sadly), we reach our home for the next 48 hours, Ghent's Novotel. Then a quick wander around the festival for a bite to eat, a couple of quick beers in a local hostelry and then bed.

By the way, why does Jeff have all the Camembert?  More tomorrow.......

Day 2 - Monday July 16^th – Ghent

Lawrie gives his bass a quick Flemish lesson

But enough of the tourism, this is rock and roll, baby! After a hefty lunch we stroll back to the hotel and take some down time in the run up to the gig. In the early evening, the boys unload the van whilst I'm off on some wild goose-chase to look for a phonecard, another feat in itself, shame I never found one public phonebox the entire time, oh well, thank gawd for the mobile phone! So the van's unloaded in the evening heat (yes, the sun donned its hat once again) before the impending down-pour. The sound-check goes well and the boys run through two songs. When I think about it, this is an amazing event, you have to imagine a small English town being totally taken over by music of all genres for a ten day period with tens of thousands of people walking about and live music on multiple stages until 4am. The sound on our stage is excellent and the production staff are fantastic.  

Sound-check done we adjourn to the dry tranquility of a backstage trailer where I get to try out the video camera we've brought with us, we're going to attempt to capture various snippets from the week on celluloid, well, when I say celluloid, I mean, we're keeping a video journal of some of the shows. 

The boys take the stage bang on time, 8pm and yes it's wet, very wet but this band are awesome wherever they play and in whatever conditions they play. They deliver a storming hour long set to a great audience reaction. Their work here is done so we adjourn for several beers under nearby canvass, the rain is tipping it down and we're hungry. An hour or so later we're dragged off by Christoph from the festival to a nearby dining room that resembles something like a soup kitchen for soup and mussels (I've never got the whole seafood thing so I didn't indulge, soup was nice though, very nice). Food and wine abounds here, there's a lot of giggling like fools and we decide that we're going to hit the Pink Flamingo (second best bar in Gent we're told, so, what's the best bar then, never mind). James and Peter retire to the hotel whilst the rest of us (Rob 'Ballen' Allen, Jeff, Spider, Lawrie, Nick and myself) find the Pink Flamingo, where we're subject to a great deal of 80's electro-music such as The Buggles and Nick Kershaw, great bar, not sure about the the music policy but that's just me, my ears did prick up when T-Rex and Black Sabbath were played. Needless to say, many beers were consumed, we laughed an awful lot, put the world to rights and headed back to the hotel around 3.30am to sleep. A footnote here to say that we were awoken at 5am by Jeff  looking for the keys to the van, only to find ten minutes later that they were in his bag, ta Jeff!  

It's been a long day, time to sleep, tomorrow we're off to Germany for the remainder of the week, our target audience and definitely something to look forward to, have some of that! 

Long live the Schnitzel, more in a day or so.......

JEBO take the Gent festival literally by storm, it was chucking it down!

James speaks to God on his vintage telephone

Morning, ouch, got a bit of a sore head today! I go down for a solitary breakfast, James has been up for a while as he managed to escape the previous evening's shenanigans and has had his breakfast already. Not a sign of the others at all this morning, I imagine they're all slumbering in their pits. A hotel member of staff tries to tell me breakfast is over but it falls on deaf ears, I'm a little worse for wear, what did we drink at the Pink Flamingo last night, blimey! A short while later we're all sat outside the hotel having checked out of our rooms, we're all rather hungover, someone mentions hair of the dog, we ignore the comment for fear of never leaving for the next show, grab our bags and take a slow short walk to the van.

The board outside the Furtherhof warns people that JEBO are here, free entrance?!
 

Peter Iserloh, Rob Allen and Jeff France enjoy a little down time outside the Furtherhof

Spider's listening back to the previous night's show. There's a lot of giggling as we watch Alan Partridge on the van's DVD system. In the front of the van, there's a meeting of philosophical minds as Jeff and Lawrie discuss Pizza toppings, Nick and I fall about laughing in the back of the van and there's talk of Waitrose doing the best frozen Pizza in history of Pizza making, I think we need to get off this motorway!

We arrive in Neuss around 4pm in dire need of beers which are bought to us by the wonderful bar staff, this is the Furtherhof, our spiritual home. It's a bar, restaurant, live music venue and hotel all in one so it's got the lot. It's also where we played a couple of shows in December last year and is very familiar to us, we love it here. Peter's here to greet us in his rather lovely 1937 vintage Jaguar, which we all paw over (I'll send a photo of the Jag tomorrow folks). We drink a few beers in the sun, life is sweet. We check into our rooms and a little later are treated to what can only be described as Death By Schnitzel bought to us by the lovely Kirsten who owns this place. I imagine there's now a shortage of Schnitzel in the Düsseldorf area! Being a vegetarian, James chooses the veggie option, he wanted me to point that out here so there you go James, job's a good'un. So now we're fed, watered and totally knackered, time for bed? Not just yet, there's more socialising to be done and more inane conversations to be had. We adjourn to Jeff and Rob's room for more libations and chat and then it's downstairs for a couple more beers in the bar. Now it is time for bed, the boys have their second show tomorrow night across the river in Düsseldorf at Tom's On the Rocks and we're all really looking forward to it.  

Today Düsseldorf, tomorrow the world, wanna know more? Be back later......

Schnitzel Heaven!

Spider and Lawrie make up after a major pool tournament

Our host Tom from Tom's on the Rocks with his signed JEBO flyer, a happy man!
 

Jeff with his bespoke drum flight case, he's asked the family living in there to take a break

Time is getting on and we need to find our hotel. We were originally booked in to the hotel across the street from the venue next to Cedric's but Tom tells me that it was recently flooded so he desperately begins finding us alternative accommodation, he succeeds, hurrah! It's time to hit the road again to find this hotel, turns out that Tom's not sure exactly where it is, as I'm in the car with him with the boys following, I offer my mobile as he's not brought his with him, he phones his wife to get directions and about a half an hour later, we come across a blue and white building that can only be described as a huge piece of Lego, I kid you not, behold, the Etap in Ratingen. I'll spare you the details but our rooms are odd, very odd, there's a double bed in each and a single bunk above the double, how peculiar, it looks more like a student room in a hall of residence than a hotel but it's a place to sleep. We dump our luggage and head back to the venue where there's a full car park. Finally, we manage to get our set list printed off across at Cedric's, all thanks to the proprietor Peter, you star!

The boys take the stage around 9.45 and play a stonking hour and a half set to a good sized crowd. It's loud, as ever, how we like it and Tom looks a little nervous due to the volume level, there's people stuck to the back wall with the G-Force. I'm then told that Wednesday is usually open mike night and that they weren't used to this level of volume, not tonight baby! We were particularly amused by the fact that the place was full of men in Motorhead T-Shirts, one even read 'Everything Louder than Everything Else', very funny.

Following the gig, CD's were sold and autographs were taken, the boys were happy, we liked this place a lot and we were invited back in October when we're due to tour here again. We gave Tom a T-Shirt and CD, he then framed an autographed JEBO flyer and added it to his rogues gallery on the wall of the venue, you can definitely have some of that! The remaining hours are a little blurry, most probably because we started on the Jagermeisters, I do remember some of us jumping around to Supertramp's classic track 'School', I think.......

Here endeth the Schnitzel......

BO on stage at Tom's on the Rocks (the sign says it all I know)

Rob tries out the 1937 Jag for size and he likes it!
 

The boys outside Tom's before the gig

You'll forgive me if this is a shorter blog today, it's a day off and the next two days will be pretty full on so we're taking it easy. We wake up inside the giant Lego block that's also our Ratingen hotel and have a quick breakfast. Much as we are very appreciative of Tom's organisation and excellent hospitality, we need to leave here, it's a bit weird and the nice hotel lady is casting us strange looks. We throw our luggage in the van and drive back to Neuss, we long for the Furtherhof. The boys are due to play here Friday night and as I mentioned earlier, today's a day off: nice. We check into our rooms, again (ever get that feeling of deja vu?) and spend much of the day chilling out at our hotel and venue. This generally involves sipping high quality German beer, eating pizza (Nick finds an another enormously large cake from the across the street) and re-jigging the set-list for what is unquestionably the biggest gig scheduled so far, the Loreley Festival on Saturday. We recall tales from the previous night's shenanigans, somehow it feel like we've been here for months rather than just five days but all is good and we're loving it. There's a Barbeque planned for tonight at Peter Iserloh's so we're pacing ourselves somewhat this afternoon.

James strums Rob's acoustic before the Tom's on the Rocks gig

Hotel Legoland

Around 6pm, we take a short walk up to Peter's, he's made us various types of potato salad and shoves several steaks and large sausages on the Barby, fantastic. An hour or so later, none of us can move through overeating.

Can I just say at this point that even though it does sound like all we're doing is putting on weight and drinking, granted, we are doing that but there is a fair amount of work involved too. It's just that in-between the shows, theirs is some down time and we are growing lads after all, sadly, right now we seem to be growing outwards rather than upwards!

We sit on Peter's roof terrace and the beer starts flowing again, Peter's friends Kiki and Use join us, lovely people and Peter presents James with a handmade Spanish guitar, very nice it is too. The Germans are without doubt the friendliest people you could possibly hope to meet. Lawrie's not drinking and Spider assures me that he's had a responsible sleep. Peter has a lovely place here and there's much laughing and joking around the table (Nick reduces everyone to a quivering mess with his impersonation of Stephen Hawking in a garden chair), not wishing to offend anyone out there but my god it was funny! We chat until the wee small hours and retire back to the hotel around 1.30am. A fairly early one, tomorrow, we've a gig at the Furtherhof and we're expecting a good crowd.

More tales from the men of JEBO tomorrow, I know, this isn't a shorter blog after all, oh well.

Schnitzelsperger und Tortenwenschen!

Rob and Jeff look at the setlist for the weekend gigs outside the Furtherhof

Spider and Rob relax after the Tom's on the Rocks show

James talking with an appreciative fan post CD signing

We slowly filter down to sit outside the Furtherhof around 10am, Pete is there to greet us as ever. We have breakfast outside the venue and by lunchtime, the PA arrives. Whilst it’s being set up, we run through the set-lists for this evening and the following day as well as James’ spiel in between the songs. We also talk about the arrangements for the big one tomorrow afternoon at the Loreley Festival, this whole week pretty much revolved around this and as I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, it’s probably the largest and most important gig JEBO have played since I first saw them at the Royal Albert Hall back in April 2005.

By mid afternoon, the weather’s taken a turn for the worse, luckily we’re inside as the sound check begins, the rain becomes torrential and you can barely see across the street, 15 minutes later the sun re-appears as if nothing has happened. At this point, we’re all totally unaware that most of the West of England’s under water but we discover that there’s been some awful plane crash in South America. You tend to end up living in a totally different zone to reality when on the road and when you hear about such terrible things happening in the world, it makes you realise why.

Nick eats a cake from Deni's Bakerei across the street

Our hostess with the mostest, Kerstin and Salomon the softy
 

The band adjourn to the front bar where the gig will take place, this evening will be a mixture of both an acoustic and a full on set. We have a lot of fun running through some covers and I get to try the mic for a bit of Dire Straits’ Sultans of Swing, what a laugh, some Who and America is also played before the band try out a couple of their own songs for size. It’s a smallish space with a smallish PA but the sound is good, albeit a little quieter than normal (as I’ve mentioned earlier, these boys like to play live and very loud). Spider and I look at each other thinking the very same thing, this needs to be louder but due to licensing laws, we have to be quieter this evening as the gig’s in the front bar and not the back venue. Our hosts at the Furtherhof and Peter Iserloh, the band’s German agent have been so amazing to us that the last thing we want to do is to upset them so we’re very happy to live with a lower sound level than we’re used to, this is fine for us and all is well. The merchandise stand is set up, Pete’s been running this as I’ve been on photographic and movie camera duty this wek, we’re hoping to shift some product later. Sound check done and with the sun still shining, we take our table outside the venue and sit down to eat. By now, you know where this is going, Schnitzel is once again on the menu, this place does sell many other meals other than Schnitzel but we’re all addicted (apart from James who’s a veggie, he has the stuffed mushrooms which also look very tempting), delicious, or as they say here, lecker! 

The front bar’s getting busy now and people are filtering in, it’s a well known local haunt and has an excellent reputation, I know I keep going on about it but Kerstin the owner and Nicole behid the bar make us feel like we’ve been coming here for years, it’s kinda like Neuss’s answer to the Cheers bar but with Schnitzel and a live music venue!

Peter gives the band a great intro and the band takes the stage around 9pm, they begin an acoustic set lasting about 45 minutes and get a great response. They then take a short break to cool down, it’s like a sauna in here and the place is pretty full. We’ve been given about 5 million beer token between us so I get the boys some drinks before the second set starts. This time it’s all electric and the guys so straight into their first song full tilt. The volume’s still considerably lower than it would normally be but no matter, they sound great and it’s an excellent way of warming up before tomorrow’s biggy. They play another 45 minute set to a rapturous response and spend the next half hour or so signing CD’s and chatting with the crowd, we sell product and everyone seems very happy, the boy’s mood is as it has been all week, good and very positive. We load out the gear to the van, have a few beers outside and retire to our beds in the early hours, not too late as tomorrow’s the big one.                                 

Today Neuss, tomorrow Loreley…..stay tuned!

The band play out at the Furthehof, our most intimate gig of the
week and our spiritual home

Nicole takes a break from behind the bar at the Furtherhof

The rain hits Neuss

It’s an early start for us today, we’ve about a three hour drive down to Loreley. Jeff is once again behind the wheel, I don’t know how he does it but he’s damned good at this, cheers Jeff, you really are the man but then all these guys, James, Rob, Lawrie, Jeff and Nick and Spider are all total pro’s. We sit outside ‘Deni’s Backerei’ across the street and have a quick coffee and snack before we leave. Peter turns up in his 1937 Jag, always a sight to behold, you’ve seen the photographs so you know exactly what I mean.

It’s around 9.15am and time to leave, this is the JEBO tour machine firing on all 4 cylinders and we’re ready to go, Loreley here we come! We watch various funnies on the ‘in house’ DVD player, among which is The League of Gentleman, dark, brooding but very funny. As we get closer the traffic gets heavier and there’s a fair amount of road works but the scenery is stunning, this is once again picture postcard country, check out the photos with this blog. We arrive on site and drive the van backstage, collect our passes and Jeff manoeuvres the van behind the stage to unload. There’s just one stage at this event and it’s pretty famous on the festival circuit, it’s called the ‘Freilichtbuehne’ and rises above a natural amphitheatre made up of stone seats, it kinda reminds me of the Pompeii amphitheatre that Pink Floyd played their famous set in almost 30 years ago now, it’s very impressive.

There’s a huge round screen at the back of the stage where Echoes, the Pink Floyd tribute act headlining later on will project their images. Also on the bill are Sylvan, a German rock act, Asia, yes Asia featuring Steve Howe, John Wetton, Geoff Downes and Carl Palmer (the original lineup) and Echoes, the aforementioned German Pink Floyd tribute act who are topping the bill later on. What happens next directly before our soundcheck is somewhat surreal. We’ve unloaded the van and the boys are ready to load onto the stage to soundcheck when suddenly all hell breaks loose. I won’t name names here it’s as definitely not in our best interest so I shall leave those involved nameless, years of working for the live music media has taught me this. Turns out that one of the techs starts moving one of the other bands’ instruments off the stage and somehow one of the band gets wind of this, next thing we know, a member of the band is stomping around throwing an absolute fit

He’s shouting and screaming, our jaws hit the floor. If I hadn’t been so in shock, I’d have grabbed the movie cam and filmed it, second thoughts, if he had seen me, I’d probably have ended up in casualty having it surgically removed from the nearest orifice, man, it was fierce. Rob and Lawrie walked off in shock, the stage manager who was a total gent to us the entire time asked him to keep it down by saying ‘Enough shouting, you’re on stage and there are people watching’, enough said. Although the audience were not yet admitted, there were plenty of folks milling around the arena and stage area.

We’re still talking about this 48 hours later to be honest, luckily, it didn’t phase the boys at all, they just ignored it and took the stage for their soundcheck, all good and they sounded awesome in this environment. Those of you who know JEBO’s music will know that it totally lends itself to this type of open air experience. The men of JEBO go off and get changed, the dressing rooms are situated spectacularly behind the main stage and overlook a beautiful Rhein valley with various villages nestled in the surrounding forest.

Dry ice is now blowing across this huge stage, it’s covered by the most amazing looking canopy to keep off the rain and it is sadly drizzling (again) but no matter. The boys are ready to play the biggest gig to date in front on their target audience. People are now entering the arena and are taking their seats, some with umbrellas, others in waterproofs, Spider’s sat behind the hugest of sound desks located at the back of the arena, we’re all ready. It’s just after 3pm and as the opening chords of ‘Sane Man’ ring out, I get a huge surge of adrenaline and excitement, since I’ve started working with these boys, I always get nervous before a JEBO gig, it’s all part of it, I love this band and these guys (as I’m sure you’ve gathered). They play an hour and don’t let up the entire time, they play like they’ve done this event a dozen times. James has his spiel down pat and the band sound truly amazing. Needless to say, the crowd love them and there’s a good number of people watching, probably 1000 or more, not bad for the first band of the festival, but then this is Germany.  

As the final chords of ‘The Waiting’ die down, there’s very loud applause and cheering, they stormed it and everyone’s happy. I’m at the back of the arena filming the whole thing and am dying to talk to some of the crowd. I run down the front and have a quick chat with some of those that saw this great band and yes, they loved them. A short while later the boys return for the load out, they loved it too. I’m collared by Peter who introduces me to Micha Weber who works for Breakout Magazine, a national music mag which is both important and influential. Micha tells me the JEBO album has been voted best new album by their readers. He wants to interview the band, have some of that! We discover a little later that we’ve sold all the CD’s we’ve bought with us and there are advanced orders for more, so all in all, a job well done!  

A short while later, we’re sat back stage in the catering trailer (well, it is time to eat after all) and the chaps are sitting around a table with Micha answering questions and eating an excellent back stage lunch (man, that chocolate mousse totally rocked). The subject of the earlier ‘on stage incident’ is sat in the corner talking with his crew, I avoid any eye contact, I wasn’t taking any chances (even though the earlier incident had nothing whatsoever to do with us)!  

Following the interview and food we drive the van to the hotel, it’s located down the hill in the local town, about a five minute drive. It’s a lovely traditional hotel in a picture postcard town and is very comfortable, most of the bands on the bill are staying here. We freshen up, Jeff, Spider and Lawrie decide to stay in town whilst the rest of us take a taxi back to check out the Asia set. It was great to see some of the first Asia album being played live, as well as some unexpected tracks such as ‘In The Court of the Crimson King’, ‘Roundabout’ and wait for it, ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ (well, Geoff Downes was one half of The Buggles). When all is said and done, I  genuinely think that JEBO stormed it!  

I take a walk around the site a little, take some more shots and film the sunset over the valley. We eat dinner in the back stage catering area and I have a quick chat with Winfried, promoter of the festival, he seems very pleased. We eventually take a cab back to the hotel and adjourn to ‘The Little Tube’, don’t ask, I’ve no idea why it was called that but it didn’t matter, we required beer. Spider, Jeff and Lawrie were playing pool and before too long we were selling and signing CD’s and managed to sell a few T-Shirts, it’s all go on the road you know! The nice lady behind the bar plays the JEBO album. We decided to call it a day around 2am, it had been an excellent day and tomorrow, we’ve hundred’s of miles to drive back to Blighty. Not something any of us particularly looked forward to, after all, we were having the best time possible.  

Last day tomorrow, may the blog be with you!

Loreley Stage

Day 8 – From Loreley on the Road Home

The final day of this tour and it’s another early start for the men of JEBO. Time to drive back to the UK, Jeff’s been doing the driving and personally, I’ve no idea how we does it. He seems to have an in-built compass or it’s possibly that map he’s been referring to on one of the passenger seats, either or, he’s been doing a fantastic job and we all love him for it. We sit down to a fairly hasty breakfast at our hotel, one by one, the boys appear and by 9.30, we’re on the road again. Due to some local advice from local people, Jeff’s wisely decided to take the ferry across the river as it joins the Autobahn directly and saves us having to drive around the mountains, this will save us a lot of time.

Our hotel in Loreley

Spider and the Loreley mixing desk

We board the ferry with Peter leading the way in his vintage Jag (it’s been turning heads all week as our strange looking convoy makes its way up and down the Autobahn’s of Germany). It’s a short ferry journey across the Rhein and the view up and down the river is beautiful, seems a shame to have to leave. We say our goodbyes to Peter who’s been amazing and go our separate ways, we’ll be seeing him again in October when we head out again.

With Lawrie in one of the front passenger seats, the rest of us sit in the back of the van and enjoy The Who’s ‘The Kids are Alright’, great entertainment. Everyone’s tired but spirits are still high and we talk about the previous day’s gig, festival and general adventures. We make a stop at a service station and continue the drive to Belgium. We stop in Poperinge for a drink and the hope of something to eat but most of the cafes and restaurants have stopped serving as it’s already after lunch, around 3pm (plus it’s a Sunday). We still manage however to get a beer, it’s a lovely sunny day and a very pleasant afternoon for sitting in the town square sipping a beer. Rob and Jeff tell me that this very pretty town was the centre of British activities during the First World War. Nick discovers the only open bakery in the town that’s still serving cakes and the boys grab a snack . An hour and a half or so later, we board the van and settle down to watch ‘Peep-Show’ for the drive to Calais, our ferry’s due to sail around 6pm.

James prays for good weather

The band on stage at Loreley

The JEBO Convoy

Just as we get out of the van on the ferry, Jeff discovers a DVD screen in the front console, just as well really! We make for one of the lounges for a well deserved cup of coffee where we gather around the movie camera to watch some of the footage, yep, it looks okay to me. Rob will take it back to Bristol for analysis, so to speak. Another hour and a half later we pull into Dover Port, we board the van and drive into the Port proper where it’s time to say our goodbyes. This time, the boys are off back to Bristol and I’m dropping Nick in Central London before returning home, ah, the wilds of Palmers Green, how I miss it, not! It’s hugs all round, the boys drive off and there you have it. One week of pure joy on the road with Bristol’s finest, I miss you guys already, see you in October when no doubt, there’ll be another blog so keep your eyes peeled.

Footnote – I’d just like to say at this point that throughout the entire week we were treated like kings by our various hosts, they took care of most of our bar bills, pretty much all our food, placed us in comfortable accommodation and took very good care of the boys’ shows, a big thanks to all of you for that if you get to read this. You certainly set an example as to how it should and can be done, UK promoters and venues please take note.  

Did I tell you that JEBO shifted all the CD’s we took out to Europe? We’re taking more orders now. 

Yeah Baby!

More live shots

More live shots

(back row):

Lawrie Jones, Spider, Jeff France, James Hollingsworth, Charlie Presburg, Rob Allen, Kiki

(front row)

Nick O Neil, Peter Iserloh