European Tour

In early 2002, Suzanne Vega and Glynn Wood – her front-of-house engineer and tour manager during the Songs in Red & Gray era – invited me on a three-week tour of Europe. I’d been opening their shows in the U.S., and it had been going well; they felt I could get the job done, and knew how beneficial the opportunity would be in terms of career and personal development. The invitation, which caught me by surprise – I didn’t even know about the tour, much less lobby for it – was another in an exciting series of firsts at a time when the musical life seemed like a real possibility.

The existing connection to the touring party was essential: I could travel with them instead of arranging my own transportation through most of the major cities and a few mid-majors. Literally, I had no logistical responsibilities beyond booking my flights into Hamburg and out of London. I didn’t have to rent a car in a foreign country, study train timetables, triangulate hotels and venues, or suss out ground transportation. Instead of lugging a guitar and a bunch of luggage around Europe, I could nap in my bunk on our double-decker bus or take in the landscape or talk songwriting with Suzanne or watch the South Park movie with the guys in the band or etc. In short, I had it easy.

Since I didn’t have to think about planning, there was time to contemplate performance: how would my act go over in other countries? From the standpoints of language and culture, would they know what I was talking about during and between the songs? As it turns out, it varies by country. In Germany, for example, they laughed at most of my jokes, as I learned the first night in Hamburg. That night started at an Indian restaurant, where I sat next to Suzanne’s European agent, John Giddings, who also represented The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, and others along those lines. It would have been enough for the guy to acknowledge my existence, but he went above and beyond by being downright friendly, told a bunch of stories, and even complimented my set at the end of the night. Winning!

It’s possible that early success led to overconfidence, because I pushed the envelope on subsequent nights before settling into a groove. In a beautiful church in Berlin, I asked the audience to boo when I plugged in my guitar, as an homage to Bob Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. I explained what I was doing before I did it, but awkward confusion ensued. Maybe they didn’t know the story, or understand my instructions? That schtick worked well in the U.S. and, while I would have preferred a different result, it was probably worth a shot. How else would I have identified the line?

In Paris, we played in Le Bataclan, the site of the 2015 terrorist attacks that interrupted an Eagles of Death Metal concert. The promoter had worked with Suzanne many times, and even used a past show to introduce his protégé, a female singer/songwriter who subsequently achieved notoriety. Actually, he’d wanted to do that again, but couldn’t because I was in the picture. He literally told me that before the show! I didn’t feel welcome until I got on stage, where I deployed some of the French I learned in high school and developed during a brief stint as an employee of Club Med. I had the audience after that, and a journalist interviewed me in French during the interval.

I often tell the story of the Milan show. The promoter took us out to dinner, which I very much appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed until about half an hour before my supposed start time. Should I go back to the venue? No, he said, there’s no hurry. As a punctual person, I had to admit that this did not compute. In Italy, he said, everything starts an hour or more late. It’s expected! Sure enough, I started late and no one complained. 

If you ask Suzanne Vega, she’ll tell you that my best audience reaction was in Luxembourg, where we performed in a sports hall. After my set and at the end of the night, there were lines from the sound desk to the exit to buy my CDs. Mine was a “centralized” merchandise operation: I said hello, took the money, signed the CD, chatted for a moment, and moved on to the next person. It was hard to stay organized, and the empty CD box that held the cash overflowed. That sort of thing didn’t happen often during my career, but it was exciting when it did! I should add that, as a by-product of my consistently strong cash position, I served as a convenient, low-fee currency-exchange broker for the band.

The last show of that first tour was at Shepard’s Bush Empire in London. The legendary 2,000-capacity venue was sold out, and David Gilmour from Pink Floyd was supposedly in attendance. I hosted a new friend, Portuguese poet Alberto de Lacerda, who shushed everyone around him and protested his way through a bottle of white wine after my set: “No, I mustn’t. Alright, a little more.” More importantly, that might have been the one time I encountered groupie-type behavior, from a woman who was desperate to join the after-party. I didn’t let her in, but a band member did, and we all became friends. If she was a “groupie,” then “groupies” are normal people who like to hang out. 

One of my favorite episodes went down in Cologne, at a traditional beer hall/eatery where waitresses roamed with trays full of Kölsch – the local brew – and filled orders from a menu that had literally nothing but meat. I’m a non-drinking vegetarian now, but I was a drinking non-vegetarian then. The situation suited me fine, but almost everyone else was vegetarian and Kölsch-averse. I’m not 100% confident about this memory, but I can still see the other patrons looking at us in wonder, not because we were with a famous singer, but because we were so laughably not with the program.

The Cologne show was recorded, and I recently released the closing number, Valentine’s Day, as a single:

 

Incomplete Itinerary

02/24/2002     Fabrik (Hamburg, Germany)
02/25/2002     Pumpehuset (Copenhagen, Denmark)
02/26/2002     Passionkirche (Berlin, Germany) 
02/28/2002     Live Music Hall (Cologne, Germany)
03/01/2002     Babylon (Munich, Germany)
03/04/2002     Teatro Orfeo (Milan, Italy)
03/09/2002     Hall Omnisports (Bettembourg, Luxembourg)
03/13/2002     Shepard’s Bush Empire (London, England)