catchin' up

to get caught up a bit:

the zurich show was at a little rock club. very smoky, but real nice peeps and a good time was had by all.

i tried desperately to get a photo of a crazy little dancing man who was getting DOOOOOOWWWN in the front row. his moves seemed to be a combo of burning man-esque hippie dips and waves, with the occasional tai-chi thrown in just to mix it up. a couple of times he twirled around on one foot.

shara had her own personal smoker in the front row. throughout the gig, he continually puffed a pouf of smoke right into her face as she sang. i counted his little pile of butts at his feet, and there were eight of them by the end of the hour.



shara believes that when they were in stonehenge, merlin put a hex on her and tried to turn her into a frog. it is quite possible, because despite a visit to a swiss hospital (which was free and during which she received the most thorough exam of her vocal chords ever) she has not fully recovered.

(aside: this is what came up when i looked up "merlin frog" on google images:)



from zurich we drove to geneva....an absolutely, incredibly, breath-takingly BEAUTIFUL city...all curves and archways and opulent wedding cake facades. i may have left my heart there...i've been longing for it ever since we left.





the band played in a traditional concert hall type of setting--this place. probably a bit of a departure (velvet seats, old fogeys, etc.), but i thought it was an amazing show regardless.



after geneva was a long ride through switzerland and france to belgium. we twisted and turned up and down the mountains, through foggy countryside of green. i peered through the window with tears rolling down my face. as a child, i loved the grimm's fairytales--really any children's book with beautiful illustrations of the french countryside: thatched roofs of heaps of straw, mossy stone walls, rolling hills


....i felt like i had awoken to a dream. even writing about it makes me misty and warms the cockles of my heart.

it looked a bit like this:







in a complete juxtaposition, we arrived at trix, a very modern dance club-ish type of place in antwerp.




antwerp seemed to me to be a very modern city...we were in more of an industrial area and we "bedded down," as bdub is wont to say, in a (lovely) backstage area from the time of our arrival until after the show. i think we were far from the city center, so exploring was not so much of an option. luckily, there was rooftop access, which was fun.

moon from the rooftop:



three words for the opening band, soy un caballo: "cute band alert".

they were like a lovely bit of stereolab mixed with camera obscura. good stuff.