Mesmerized in Mannheim

So it was back to show-day business on Tuesday. A day off is nice, but not what we're here for, right?

But before I continue, there's something I would like to talk about, and it's going to be a shameless act of self-promotion. As you all know, we're members of Lee's Street Team. Shortly before we went on tour, the founder of Lee's German Street Team page on Facebook, handed over the site to us (thanks, you know who you are :-)). It had been inactive for a while for different reasons. We're now doing our best with bringing it back to life and and after 5 days on tour we're proud to say that we have signed four new members already. If you're all reading - Nicole, Thomas, Rabea and Laura - welcome again! Looking forward to seeing you all soon at upcoming shows. Great to have you on board! Your Welcome Package is on the way ;-)

If anyone else feels like buying a CD or a concert ticket isn't enough and wants to get involved with promoting Lee, drop us a line at streetteam@leemacdougallmusic.com (headquarter in the USA) or streetteamleemacdougallgermany@web.de and get more information. Thanks.

And now back to the report of the day.

It was already 11am when we had packed up our stuff and realized, it was now too late to have breakfast at the hotel. Speaking of which: we stayed at the Ibis Hotel Köln City. Not an ideal choice for two reasons: their rooms are incredibly tiny, while their bathrooms are teeny tiny. It was clean, it was the usual Ibis standard, everything else was alright, but really... unless you travel with light luggage and don't want to stay longer than one night, that place isn't for you.

So we had again a late breakfast/early lunch at a service station restaurant on the Autobahn on the way to Mannheim, that consisted of a very small cup of coffee and a tomato/mozarella panini.They used dried tomatoes for it. :-/ Do we normally use dried tomatoes in paninis? I hate dried tomatoes. Stefie thought it tasted good.

Arrived in Mannheim at close to 2pm

and found out that our hotel didn't have it's own parking garage but that we had to use a public one... you guess it,,,, nearby.

Seems to be an ongoing situation on this tour: the difficult parking business, I mean.

And from the outside it looked as if we'd also have a suboptimal hotel situation. Turned out though that things looked much better inside than outside. Whew. After the check-in and some ST work, we took a quick walk into town to get something to eat. Took some pics along the way:

Former Town Hall and Church St. Sebastian

Monument on Market Square

River Neckar

The show took place at the Capitol Casino, which is a small venue with pub atmosphere. Very nice and intimate.

It was Lee again who opened up the evening. And just like all the times before, he had the audience's attention from the start and never let them off the hook anymore. It's not only his songs that the people love, but also the incredibly charming and witty way he's interacting with an audience. He's not only a very talented singer/songwriter but a brilliant entertainer!

Full setlist:

Joanna
Hindsight
London In The Summer
Don't Ask Me (played for the first time on this tour)
Star Hotel
She (unplugged)
You're Not Her (so beautiful!!)
Clint Eastwood/Prince of Bel Air/Rock me Amadeus/MfG/Billie Jean mashup (NEVER fails to amaze!)
Falling In Love For The Last Time (scroll down for the video)
Smile


Good news for all fans who can't get enough, or those who don't have a chance to see him on this tour, or those who came to see PA in the first place and fell in love with his performance... he has announced that his debut album will come out later this year (most likely in autumn) and that he will be back then for more shows. YAY!!! We might be financially ruined by the end of the year when - when, not if ;-) - we attend another tour, but... who cares ;-D.

So here's now the video for Falling In Love For The Last Time, which is the current single, also out on radio stations in Germany now. Make sure you watch 'til the end, because there's a little surprise.

See? Now you are surprised that the end is missing, aren't you? Wanna know how that song ends? Easy! Order your copy from iTunes (click the link on the top of the right side bar), or get it from Amazon by clicking here.

 

And the reason why we're posting a video where the end of the song is missing, is totally NOT because there was no memory space left on the damn iPhone. Not at all. This is just a case of super professional promotion, you know.

No seriously... there's no excuse if you don't own that single yet. And if you prefer a real CD: Lee's 5-track EP that also includes the song (along with 4 new and not to be missed tracks) is available at his shows.

Alright. Next up it was Paper Aeroplane's turn with an hour full of their beauttiful songs. While we're on this tour because of Lee, we still enjoy their set very much.

Sarah Howells

Richard Llewllyn

At the end of their set, Lee came out for the usual two songs that the three perform together: Girl In New York (Lee's song) and Newport Beach (PA's song).

At the last show in Cologne, they had played the latter unplugged right in the middle of the audience because of technical problems. That had worked so well, that they decided to do it again (or so I assume LOL). And just like in Cologne everyone loved it. Neither Lee nor Sarah need a mic to make their incredible voices heard.

Of course no one wanted to accept that this had been the last song and we all kept cheering... until Sarah & Rich came out one more time. Sadly - for us - without Lee. Rich said, they hadn't really practised another song for an encore.

:-/

Alright, Lee. As you have seen several times now: people want encores! And people love the three of you together. There's really no excuse to not practise another song (or two, just in case... ;-) ). That's what off days are for, non?

End of show #5. 11 more to come.

Another day off on Wednesday. See you in Magdeburg on Thursday.

Thanks for reading. Now please check out some photos of lovely Lee. The light inside of the Casino was brilliant, by the way. At last for pohotographers :)