Michael Lington – Nils https://www.nilsguitar.com recording artist - producer - composer - guitarist Tue, 19 Apr 2016 16:24:25 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 114805641 London – On the road part 5 https://www.nilsguitar.com/london-on-the-road-part-5/ https://www.nilsguitar.com/london-on-the-road-part-5/#comments Sun, 17 Apr 2016 10:44:14 +0000 https://www.nilsguitar.com/?p=1642 Pizza express jazz club

This is the third day in London. The show yesterday was already quite a bit better than the first day. The room was pretty much packed to full capacity. And it feels more comfortable to play with the fellows after a few shows. I told Michael (Lington) “by Sunday we will be so tight, that we can take it on the road” He laughed in agreement knowing that after Sunday we would all go our separate ways.

Tonight’s show is sold out and I am really looking forward to it. I dialed in my guitar tone and I feel at ease with the set. Several people came up to me after each show, and noted that it is no small feat to get this room up and dancing, which is exactly what we did. I never leave the stage before I get everybody up and dancing. And I make no exception for the crowd here in London. They might seem a bit more reserved at first, but once you get them going, they are really good party crowd.

Nils & Michael Lington

Nils & Michael Lington at the Pizza Express

The hotel is just a short 3 min walk from the club. And it feels great walking through London. The small streets, old buildings, double decker busses.
london bus

There are crowds around the pubs at night, people just hanging out, talking and having a beer. The city is just buzzing like a bees nest. It feels so much more crowded than LA, mainly because the roads are smaller. Crossing the road at rush hour is like a game of jousting with two opposing parties trying to cross over to the other side. It’s fun for sure.
London weather
I am getting a lot of use out of the warm coat my mom got me last Christmas in Germany. After a little sunshine in honor of my arriving, the skies returned to standard issue London weather: cloudy with some rain. I looked at some umbrellas today and realized that I haven’t owned one in almost 30 years. I’m tempted to buy one, but that will just add another item for me to “shlep” around when its time to catch the plane to Berlin on Monday.
umbrellas

I found a laundry. They wanted 13.5 GBP (20 bucks) to do one load of laundry. I opted for buying some more underwear and socks for 10 bucks to hold me over until I get to my parents house in Munich. Problem solved.
read part 6

]]> https://www.nilsguitar.com/london-on-the-road-part-5/feed/ 1 1642 First day in London – On the road part 4 https://www.nilsguitar.com/first-day-in-london-on-the-road-part-4/ https://www.nilsguitar.com/first-day-in-london-on-the-road-part-4/#comments Fri, 15 Apr 2016 10:50:57 +0000 https://www.nilsguitar.com/?p=1628 LondonLondon has been great so far. I came in a day before our first show and got settled in the hotel. That evening I met up with my friend Paul Humphreys (keyboardist and singer of the band OMD) and we went to a London pub to watch football (soccer), as they call it here. There were several games going on and my team Bayern Munich as well as his team Manchester United had a good night and advanced in their competitions.
Nils & Paul Humphreys

Nils & Paul Humphreys


The next morning I met Michael Lington for breakfast. We are co-billing the nights at Pizza Express but we had never before played together. Then we went to the club and had our one and only rehearsal. It went very well. The house band was well prepared and consisted out very capable musicians: Sam Carter on keys, Julian Crampton on bass and Wesley …..on drums. The club exceeded my expectations. It had a great vibe and good sound system. After soundcheck we had a bite to eat, went back to the hotel to change and returned to the club to play. The show went over very well and we had an 80% full house on a Thursday night. Saturday is already sold out, Friday and Sunday will probably also fill up to full capacity.
The first night is always a bit nervy. A new band, new songs, different equipment, but I am really happy with how it went and it’s just gonna get better from show to show.Pizza Express
I had met Michael first at jam session at Spaghettini’s in the early to mid 90s. And we crossed paths several times over the years at various festivals. But it took Jimi King to get us both to London to finally share a stage and play together.

Tomorrow I will have to start thinking about laundry. Nobody tells you this, but it can be a major problem on a tour. My dirty laundry already exceeds my clean stuff. And I will definitely run out of clean socks and underwear before Berlin, unless I find a washing machine somewhere.
I’ll keep you posted
……to be continued
read part 5

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