It’s not often I get to Offenbach, but…..

(pic:courtesy OP-online.de)

…this weekend saw CHRISTIE re-convene alongside The Manfreds and The Searchers at The Beat Beat Beat Festival in Offenbach, near Frankfurt.

My own journey began in Turre, Southern Spain, and involved negotiating an Autovia that had collapsed in two places due to the catastrophic floods of the previous week in order to get to Alicante airport, where I took a flight first to Palma, Majorca, and kicked my heels for a couple of hours before I was Frankfurt bound.

Upon arrival, I received a message from Jeff. “There’s a bad road accident that’s prevented your driver from picking you up – get a taxi!”  almost without breaking stride, I swiped my bag from the carousel. slung my bass over my shoulder and walked outside to hail one.

I was soon heading out of Frankfurt towards Offenbach and the driver, with instructions to take me to the Stadthalle, turned and asked me what street it was on….I mean, it’s the Stadthalle!  It’s big, there are signs! How hard could it be? Thankfully when we arrived in the town, he decided to ask a taxi-driver (go figure) and we arrived safely.

I’d already missed the sound check, Jeff, Fos and Simon having arrived from the UK on an earlier flight, and Jeff was already back at the hotel. But the fun didn’t stop there….Rolf, the promoter came rushing in to say that the opening act, Racey, apparently had ‘the wrong sort of keyboard’, and a search was underway to find one. Meanwhile, could Christie open the show, around an hour and twenty minutes ahead of schedule?

“Oooh…” I said, “You’ll have to ask Jeff about that. ” I dialled him up and handed my phone to Rolf. With masterful Germanic efficiency and directness he said “Hi Jeff, it’s Rolf, you have to go on now”

Photo © hr1/Norbert Klöppel

Cue action stations, and as Jeff was whisked back to the gig in short order, we got ready, the ink barely dry on my boarding card, and hit the stage. The crowd were superb, behind us from the first number, and we locked into a groove we’ve been honing together for nigh-on 25 years.

After the show, we were hustled out into the meet n greet where we were signing everything under the sun, Jeff’s new album ‘No Turn Unstoned’ and my solo CD, Blue Odyssey, and amazing books published by Christie fans, with fantastic articles, photos, and scans of record labels of the entire discography in them, true labours of love.

© hr1/Norbert Klöppel

A nice dinner courtesy of backstage catering followed, where I was introduced to the delights of the ‘mini-cheeseburger’.  Not sure what the idea behind that is, except perhaps that you can get a few in your mouth in one go. Then it was time to catch some of the Manfreds show from the side of the stage.  What an amazing catalogue of hits they have to draw upon, and with not one but TWO original vocalists upfront, in the shape of Mike D’Abo and Paul Jones, the audience were treated to those classic songs as they were meant to sound. A word about Tom McGuiness, who should have been there but was injured in a fall the day before and couldn’t make it. Get well soon, Tom!  If you also factor in Mike Hugg, and legendary Family drummer Rob Townsend, ably aided and abetted by Marcus Cliffe and Simon Currie, you have some talent up there on that stage. Rob in particular, has played on three of my favourite songs of all time:
“In my own Time”, “Burlesque”, and “My friend the Sun”.  Days like this, you gotta love going to work!

We had a great time back at the hotel bar following the show, reminiscent of the multiple-bill shows we did back in the 90’s in Germany, and met up with some of our loyal fan base again as has become the custom on our German trips.

© hr1/Norbert Klöppel

A leisurely Sunday breakfast followed, where Mike D’Abo shared his secret of black coffee with honey, though the search for the latter proved fruitless… I said my goodbyes to Jeff, Simon and Fos and headed home to Spain. That’s another one under the belt!

Kev Moore

Germany – There and back, and back again!

Sound check: Crowds gather in Schwarzenberg, as do the stormclouds!

Weiswasser 22/23 May

So, as May sneaked up on us, the Christie rehearsals and Tour 2009 got underway, seeing us travel to the east of Germany, so far East, in fact that we were just a 5 minute drive from the Polish border!  the guys from Showaddywaddy took the opportunity to hop across and check out the local market, which is what most of the locals around there do, in addition to getting cheap Polish petrol.

For our first two shows of the year, we were in the town of Weiswasser, performing at a large outdoor event, for which the weather was just perfect.

Other acts on the bill were Dozy, Beaky Mick & Tich, Sailor and Middle of the Road. Between them, the bands had dozens of Top 10 hits throughout the 60’s and the 70’s.

It was great to take the stage as CHRISTIE again, and I particularly enjoyed playing the two songs from the first album “Inside looking out” and “Gotta be free” which haven’t seen the light of day for about 35 years.

I had flown directly to the UK for the two days rehearsals with Christie, and it gave me the unexpected and rare opportunity to watch my son Corey perform with his band Jilambis. It was the first time I’d ever seen them! needless to say, I was the proud Dad, his playing, and that of the band’s was awesome.

Flying out with Jeff, Fos and Simon from Leeds early Friday morning, we changed planes in Amsterdam, landing in Berlin just before lunch. Our promoter had mistakenly booked me to return with the others via Amsterdam to Leeds on the Sunday, but I wasn’t up for that, and booked my own flight directly from Berlin to Alicante. the downside of that being that I had to leave the hotel around 3 a.m. on the Sunday morning, devoid of sleep!

However, all this sleep deprivation resulted in me being home in Turre by midday, whilst the others weren’t even scheduled to leave the hotel until around 2 that afternoon.  I emailed Jeff the following day to see if they’d had a good trip back. It transpired that, due to traffic jams and accidents, they got to the airport late and missed the plane, causing the promoter to have to try and find new flights for them later that evening, which took them into Luton in the south of the UK, where they had to hire a car to drive the 200 miles north! Suddenly, my early morning seemed “a whole lot better” to quote a Roger McGuinn song we do in the Christie show!

Schwarzenberg 6th.June

Barely two weeks later and it’s off on the road again, this time leaving home at 2.30 a.m., grabbing an hours rest on the way, and arriving in Alicante for my flight to Munich around 6.   When I touched down in southern Germany, I linked up with Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, and we were all driven up to Schwarzenberg, a good four hours North east. Once again our easterly location had us within spitting distance of other cities, this time Prague. The journey was accompanied by torrential rain, which only eased up a little on our arrival. We checked into a nice little hotel, Die Blauer Engel (Blue Angel, I think) in the nearby town of Auer, about 2o minutes from the gig, and put our feet up while we waited for other bands to arrive.

The Dozys postpone the soundcheck in favour of dinner....

Jeff, Fos and Simon were en route from Berlin, and I was driven to Schwarzenberg for the soundcheck. The rain was unrelenting, and I began to realize, as the car made its way up a switchback road threading across vertiginous slopes, that the show was at the top of a mountain!  Funnier still was finding Jeff, Fos and Simon’s driver had skidded their car off the track and they were forced to walk the rest of the way in a quagmire. I gave them a cheery wave as we sailed past. They gave me the finger. As we met up and unloaded guitars, etc, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when I peered front of house. An enormous stepped amphitheatre rose up and away into the distance, and, under the pouring rain, a crowd of around 7,500 was gathering, oblivious to the conditions, waiting for the show!

Amongst the throng, three of our most dedicated followers, Rainer, Toni, and Franz, stood right in front of the stage, waving hello!  This was Toni and Franz’s first time at a Christie gig, despite Toni having the most amazing Christie memorabilia collection., and we hadn’t seen Rainer for some years, so it was great to catch up.

Toni, Franz & Rainer brave the elements, sporting the new CHRISTIE T shirts by Miki

We were on early, at 7.30 p.m. just after opening act Chris Andrews, which meant we could then relax and watch the other bands. I particularly wanted to see the Spencer Davis group, and they didn’t disappoint. The other highlight of the evening was to be The Glitter band, which featured my BC Sweet bandmates Pete Phipps and Marc Pearson. It was quite strange seeing them onstage without me!  Catering backstage was pretty good, and also gave us a chance to catch up with friends such as Dave from Showaddywaddy and Sally and Ken from Middle of the Road. This weekend , the lads drew the short straw and had to leave around 6 a.m. for the first of their two flights home.  I had a civilised 10 a.m. breakfast with The Dozy’s and we left the hotel around noon, the sun making an appearance as we headed down to Munich.

Spencer Davis just keeps on runnin'....

The brave, rainsoaked masses

Next foray into Europe, after Miki and I slip away for a break to Portugal, is a trip to Bosnia with BC Sweet. I certainly can’t complain that my life is dull!

Kev Moore

Ideas Frenzy

You put your left arm in......

One of the things I love about our interaction on the blogosphere, and Cafe Crem and its members in particular, is the way we seem to support and inspire each other. our good friend, the American artist Susan Cornelis, recently posted a piece evoking her youth, and illustrated it with a phrase that just got my creative synapses firing. I decided there and then that I would write a song that incorporated MY perception of HER time, using her phrase as the chorus. I wrote the lyrics straight off without thinking in a stream of consciousness kind of way. I wasn’t going to share any of this until the song was completed, but since starting this Mooremusic blog, I think it would be interesting to share the process with you (however long it takes!)

A Ceiling, incomplete...

Obviously, as my studio is not ready yet (it’s coming along, see pic) I won’t be recording it any time soon, but I thought I’d share the lyric with you. you will see, as I post subsequently about this, that the lyrics may change to fit the tune, or perhaps, the lyrics will dictate the measure of bars. I have no set way of working, So it will be interesting to see where this takes me. Susan’s original lyrics are in red.

Oh my! What would they say
To that Boomer in me, who is ever ready
To get up and go to take that magical mystery tour?
Mom and Grandma, want to come along?

It was the high sixties
Boy, was it hot that day
We slid through the decade
On a doobie and a prayer

Feelin our way
Throwin’ away the rules
Made up new ones as we went along
A whole new constitution in a poem and a song
Ohio, Vietnam, a hundred new ways for us to stick it to the man

Oh my! What would they say
To that Boomer in me, who is ever ready
To get up and go to take that magical mystery tour?
Mom and Grandma, want to come along?

I take those rose coloured glasses from the dresser by the door
Look back with fondness to the freak I was before
Am I the same?, hey you’d better believe it sister
Just older and wiser, if not a little bit bitter

But I hang on to that ethos like a drowning man a straw
Cruise in Janis’s mercedes- Dance to Sly’s four on the floor
But hey Ray, I don’t need no J to recall our optimism from 40 years away
So I’ll pray so hard to whatever God you throw at me,
That all this peace and love will keep recurring throughout history
And all and all thats meant to be will fall and be at one with me
The sense and sensitivity the flower child thats within me…remains

Oh my! What would they say
To that Boomer in me, who is ever ready
To get up and go to take that magical mystery tour?
Mom and Grandma, want to come along?

Lyrics Copyright 2008 Kev Moore & Susan Cornelis