+ Sky Larkin +

Taking time out last week dear Nestor sent this over to Sky Larkin HQ.

Gutentag from Köln, Germany! We’ve just had a much deserved day off in this fair city after an eventful and action-packed first third of our European stint…

I’ll start at the beginning shall I? Well, as you may know, we said good bye to Horse in Birmingham so we could take everyone’s favourite Johnny Foreigner with us and all clambered into another van to start the tour in earnest!
I think we made it about 90 minutes down the M25 before things took an unexpected turn for the worse. With an “uh-oh” from Lea (our driver and stage tech and saviour) the engine puttered to a stop and we rolled gracefully to a halt on the hard shoulder. To cut a long and uneventful two hours short, we ended up hanging out by an abandoned (and almost certainlz haunted) Cuban restaurant before being taken to our hotel for the night by a very bewildered taxi driver.

We were met here a few hours later by our knight in shining armour, otherwise known as the van we are currently driving around Europe in that is as yet unnamed (any ideas would be very much welcome!). So without further ado, we set off for Dover and a lovely morning view of the White Cliffs before we hit Calais and cruised on over to Amsterdam and the Paradiso where we’ve never played before but had heard many good things, so it was great to finally get inside! As a little treat and by the power of the internet I believe you can watch some snippets of the show right here http://www.fabchannel.com/sky_larkin_concert/.

After that it was on to gay Paris and Le Fleche D’or, another venue hallowed by those we know but somewhere we had never visited. The venue used to be an old tran station and is situated literallz above the tracks which makes for some pretty spectacular views out of the windows… Oh and the gig was great too!

Then it was on to more familiar territory wth another trip to Le Botanique in Brussels, Belgium. We played there in the Orangerie with Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band back in September 2008 and then in the Rotunde with Los Campesinos! and Lovvers in November so it was great to come back and take in the lovely gardens again despite the chily breeze. That nights venue was the Witloof Bar which is actually in the basement, which as Katie pointed out made the gig feel like some kind of clandestine operation, still awesome fun, but awesome fun in secret. Shhhhhhh.

Which brings me to last night in Köln at Gebaude 9, which is an amazing warehouse with the most powerful bass bins that we’ve ever felt on stage. My drums we’re actually wobbling about with the sub sound!I It was great to see some familiar faces from our last time in Köln at Luxor, its great to know we made an impression, and makes us even more excited to get back onto the road.

Righto, my food is here and I am a hungry, hungry hippo so I’m signing off. There’ll be more banter from us and hopefully some pictures very soon.

loveyoubyeeeeeeeee!

n x