News Tour Diary: The Whigs (Part Three - Hamburg)

Day 3: Hamburg

After leaving Berlin sometime after 5am, we climbed into our bunks to get some shut-eye, and when the bus stopped we were in Hamburg. Eventually we crawled out of our home on wheels, got some food, and then attempted to sort out the problems we had been having with our gear (see yesterday’s post on exploding amplifiers). KOL was generous as usual and agreed to let us borrow one of their amps until ours could be fixed. Thanks dudes! After soundcheck, they even let us take a few spins around the arena on their segways. Luckily no one was injured, and with what appeared to be fully functioning equipment, we were able to take the stage as scheduled to a near capacity 15,000 seat O2 World Arena. We ripped through our entire set without a single malfunction. But then, during our final number, SNAP! We lost power to both guitar and bass amps, and the stage went silent accept for the drums, which Julian, realizing what had occurred, continued to smash with reckless abandon. Thankfully the Hamburg crowd rallied around us despite our technical problems and sent us off with applause. Danke Hamburg! As usual, after the Kings set, we all gathered in the ‘games room’ for what has become an almost ceremonial round of whisky, beers, and ping-pong. There was a lot of Thin Lizzy and a lot of bad jokes. We had a blast.