rock'n'rill

Three days on the road

A short recap of our three-day run  with Markus Rill & The Troublemakers.

Thursday, May 26: Red River Saloon, Heilbronn
I had been looking forward to this show because it’s the home turf of my record label Blue Rose. I had played in Heilbronn a few times before but never with my band.

We had an ok-sized audience but most of them kept close to the bar which kept them hidden from my line of sight because of a pillar in the room. In other words, we heard the audience between songs but we saw very little of them.
I felt like we played ok but kept hoping to establish more of a rapport with the audience.

We upped the rock factor in the second set which turned out to be a good idea. People really were with us in the second set and it turned into a very nice evening.
I’d like to thank Detlef Zasche for providing us with fantastic sound.

I was very happy to see some familiar faces in the audience, among them my best friend from school and some folks from Würzburg who had taken the trip.

My friend Jürgen gave us the best compliment: “You guys were all great and I really don’t want to favor anyone … but the lead guitarist was particularly great.”

After the gig, a woman asked me very nicely whether I could play “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” for her. I complied.

I found two reviews of this show online
Heilbronner Stimme
Heilbronner Echo

Friday, May 27: Harry’s, Mespelbrunn

This venue had been recommended by my friend and former guitarist Magic Ed. It really is a very cool place from the big Rolling Stones lips outside to the nice stage and huge backstage area inside but the heart and soul of the place are owners Katja & Harry who treated us exceptionally well.
Two eager fans showed up early and witnessed our soundcheck, more people showed up later. We played three sets to a good crowd.  We felt good, played well, had an interesting encounter with a special fan (read the blog post here) and a good night was had by all. We felt the new songs and the set coming together.

The only thing that bothered me was that people started smoking as the night wore on. Smoking’s been illegal in public places for awhile and I don’t miss it at all.

Saturday, May 28: Immerhin, Würzburg

photo by Andreas Malassa

For the last gig of our three-day run we had booked a moderate-sized venue in our hometown (it was only two months ago that we celebrated our CD release with a two-night stand at a bigger venue). The Immerhin has moved from its old location to a new one and I hadn’t been there yet. The concert room was very nice, we particularly enjoyed the stage that allowed us to move around a little – that hadn’t been the case at Harry’s.
Charlie who ran things that night was also extremely nice and helpful. I was most delighted to see a former school teacher of mine at the show and suprised to find out that Troublemakers drummer Aggi had also taken classes with him. I graduated from school with Aggi’s brother.

Andreas Kümmert did a great job opening for us. Andi is a tremendous singer & guitarist. I’d really like to hear more of his songs. He’s a little like a one-man southern rock band, rooted in the blues with a soulful voice. Good stuff.

In a learning curve we had changed our set (just one set this night) to start with three or four uptempo rock songs. I usually like to ease into a show and work my way up to the rock stuff but apparently the audience prefers to be swept off their feet right away. We started with “Killer On The Radio”, “Nowhere Begins” and “Skinny Teddy” and I gotta admit, it felt pretty good.
We had fun with the audience, they played along – it’s just a different feeling when you play to your hometown crowd. Things went swimmingly and I believe we played a pretty good show. And obviously, things that needed a major announcement on Thursday (“we’re going into the BRIDGE!”) only needed short eye contact between Aggi and me on Saturday.

I’m particularly pleased with our new song “The Facts About My Life” and last night a friend told me he really enjoyed the other new song we debuted on this run, “Complicated Mind”.

It was a very good night, lotsa fun.

There’s one nagging thought in my mind: As much as I love to rock, I hope I can still include enough of the more storytelling songs in a band set. Finding the right balance is a delicate thing. I don’t want to feel like I’m forced to leave some of the strongest songs out of the set just to please the audience. We will see how this will play out.

Come to one of the upcoming shows and see for yourselves.

1 June 2011 ·