The Wishing Well Band

Thanks so much to all the wonderful people who supported us in getting to Europe and to all the enthusiastic people who came to our shows in the UK and Europe.

Special thanks to the over 1600 people who bought our CD during our 70 day, 11,000 klms, 9 country tour.

You paid for our petrol and accommodation, our beer (I means food) and a new recording that we will release at the end of 2009 and solidified our confidence both as performers and in our music.

We were overwhelmed by the success of our first international tour and could never have done it without you!

England

After 5 movies, sitting in one position for 27 hours and eating pretend sausages and fake eggs we cheerily arrived in London.  After a few days of getting over jetlag and picking up CDs, drums and bass cab we headed to York for our first gig.  Thanks to all the lovely people who came along to see us play and welcomed us so wholeheartedly.  The next day we did a street performance in front of a beautiful fountain surrounded by amazing medieval architecture.

Scotland

We then made our way up to Scotland and played great gigs in Aberdour, Edinburgh, Inverness and Glasgow.  Thanks so much to all the unbelievably hospitable Scots who jammed and smiled along with us and tried to convince us that haggis was yummy.  A trip to Scotland wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the hospital would it?  Well we didn’t think so either and since Jai and Sez were sick we decided to make our first hospital pit stop.  But the show must go on so chasing antibiotics with rum and coke made for a bit of adventure and got them better in the end too.

Ireland

Off to Ireland for some Guiness and lots of good times.  We played amazing shows in Galway, Ennis and Dublin and were blown away by the friendly and uber generous Irish.  Some how we managed to cram ourselves into the smallest bar ever Tigh Neachtain’s in Galway and played a squished and funfilled gig.  Special thanks to Peter Harkin and Adelaide who so enthusiastically photographed us live and on location in Galway.  The Crane Bar in Galway was an awesome gig with so many familiar faces and a genuine intimate atmosphere.

After 6 lovely days in Galway we managed to tear ourselves away and head to Dublin. With trepidation we entered The Auld Dubliner in Dublin where a blaring covers band belted out Irish tunes to yodelling locals sloshing their beers about.  Shoulder to shoulder pissed covers karoake sing – a – longers aren’t really our audience but somehow their enthusiasm peaked as we hit the stage – or should I say corner of the room next to the door.

Back to England

It was hard to leave Ireland and all that lovely Guiness and pear cider behind but we were excited to board the ferry for Liverpool to play the infamous Cavern.  The Cavern as the birthplace of The Beatles must be hard live up to but it doesn’t seem like they are trying all that hard.  We were surprised to find a DJ playing terrible dance music interrupted by Beatles covers to staggering tourists while bands play in the backroom.  Somehow it seemed the history and ambience of The Cavern that must have been the setting for The Beatles and other great artists had become subsumed by kitchy commercialism along the way.  They had awesome chips though.

We headed up to beautiful Oxford and jammed in the streets before playing a beautiful gig at The Chester Arms.  Then we thought, hey, we haven’t been to the hospital here yet so lets go check out the Emergency Room.  Sez was keen since she had lots of beautiful spots growing on her body and we thought hey what better way to spend some time together in 5:00 in the morning than in the ultra ambient hospital!

After swallowing the bad news that Sez managed to escape the chicken pox her whole life until our tour at the age of 22 and failing to convince the nurse to wave the magic anti-viral wand and make them go away we headed to Kate’s for some rest before our trip to Brighton the next morning.

A flat tire left us unable to make the gig in Brighton and Sez was getting more and more spots by the minute so we were happy to have the night off.  The next day, we busked along the promenade with Sez the trooper, spots and all.

France, Belgium and the Chickenpox

The next day we ferried to France and again thought Sez should get to another doctor – sensing a bit of a theme here?  After trying to explain to the French doctors that Sez had chicken pox not seafood poisoning and that no she did not work with chickens in any kind of factory to get them we started to get a bit concerned.

Then they decided that Sez should stay at the hospital for 10 days!  After tearing her from the a – little – bit – too – thorough – maybe – too – bored nurse we decided Belgium could be a better bet so the hospital tour continued in Belgium.  After finding out that Sez just had to stick it out and would be fine soon we headed to Holland.

We had to play the gig in Leiden, Netherlands without Sez and after having been to two hospitals that day we were struggling to get in the mood but nothing a little trip to the coffee house didn’t help. We still all looked at each blankly in Empires On Fire and in all the other songs that Sez plays her amazing solos.

We were happy to have Sez rested up and back with us the next day but the lovely Antwerpians decided to tow our car and so we spent the day finding our car and being told off by the police for trying to bring music to the streets to Antwerp.

We bid Antwerp a relieved goodbye and headed to Groningen, Holland.  We stayed with Peter and Michelle and played at their cosy pub to a sweaty but happy crowd where we were thrilled to discover our luck had finally changed and the chicken pox, flat tires and other mishaps were behind us.

Germany ja!

The next day we headed to Oldenburg for a busking session in the pedestrian strip next to a stone horse in the beaming sunshine.  After jamming out with the locals, we headed to beautiful Bremen to soak up the huge square towered over by hugh Gothic buildings.  The next day we did some more sweaty busking and then we’re whisked off to play a beautiful concert hall.  We played to large appreciative crowd and the lovely staff at Sendesaal even did a live recording of our set!  The next day we headed to Hamburg and played a packed gig at Music Star.  Thanks so much to all the lovely people who watched us in the sauna, er band room and to the awesome staff who took some great live shots of us and video’d and recorded our set

Denmark

Copenhagen hosted us for four beautiful days.  We played in front of a beautiful fountain across from the freshest raspberry stall ever.  Surrounded by smiling faces we played some great street performances. Thanks to all the lovely people who surrounded us with their enthusiasm and encores It was awesome chomping on raspberries and playing our tunes and then seeing a platter of pear ciders arrive!

Back into zee Motherland

We returned to Hamburg for another couple gigs and some more street performing.  We were really charmed by one woman who grabbed a plastic chair from one of the cafes and set up next to Mikey with her bottle of red wine.  She tried to chat with Mikey while he was playing along and they must have quite connection as after a few more songs she ripped some flowers out of a nearby flower bed and threw them down at Mikey’s feet.

Berlin hosted us for 6 fun filled nights.  We played some great street performances till the last day when the fun police arrived and tried to stop us from filling the streets with our music.  Thanks to the enthusiastic Germans who nearly attacked the police for forcing us to stop.  Most of our gigs in Berlin were cool except for one place in particular that demanded we play the worst ever electronic drumkit.  Although Mikey was into purely for the novelty factor we decided it simply would have been too unfun and would have sounded nothing like us so we opted for a night out on the town instead.

We left for Leipzig to pay homage to Bach and played a lovely gig there tarnished only by the fact that Sez’s violin broke after her solo in Empires On Fire so Riv lent her her fiddle for the encore.

As Sez’s fiddle was need of some tender loving care we headed off to Vienna but thought it would be nice to have a little stop off, in Prague but we thought wrong.  We left pretty quickly after being extorted by the Czech police.

Austria

We arrived in rainy Vienna for our gig at The Tunnel and were chuffed to see the rain had cleared the next day and managed to sneak in a few busking sets before our show before the fun police stumbled upon us.

Italy

In Italy, we played a wonderful gig in a beer garden and in between our sets feasted on meats connected into the shape of a pinyata and Mikey spent the night in a castle!  Afterwards, we headed to Milan where we played a sunset concert outside The Duomo.  It was a magical night playing as the sunset and encircled by the Italians who were so enthusiastic that one guy starting doing a striptease while we were playing “I Feel A Tension”!

South of France

Gelatied and cappucinoed up, we headed to the south of France for some sun and sea with some leisurely busking everyday to keep us in good form.  It was beautiful playing in the mall as the sun set and with all the amazing street performers choreographing dance moves to our songs.

Switzerland

After spending the night next to a beautiful but noisy church whose bells sounded every 15 minutes we made our way to Lucerne to play a huge festival with David Gray, James Morrison, Seal and Joss Stone.  It was so nice to be looked after so well by all the staff who pampered us and we were lucky enough to have a break in the rain during our set and the crowd showered us with their appreciation.

Paris

We reluctantly left the utopia of Urs and Iris’ house in Switzerland where we lounged by the lake during the mornings and listened to Urs stories of Van Morrisson in the evening in between busking in Luzern and Berne for Paris.  Of course we managed to find the dodgiest neighborhoood to stay in but our gig in Paris was fun with the staff donning floaties and snorkels.

London and Macclesfield

Back to London for the home run of our tour.  We played four nights in London.  We had been spoiled throughout the tour with packed gigs and so our gigs in London were not the highlight of the tour.  We spent hours driving through the traffic to each gig and hunting around for a park and dealing with disillusioned sound engineers and local bands.  But shopping in Camden was awesome.  We headed up to our last gig of the tour a lovely festival in Macclesfield.  It was a perfect way to end the tour with the lovely organisers and plenty of other great acts.

We were happy to be back on the plane headed back to Melbourne mostly for the opportunity to rest up from the tour.  It was such an awesome experience touring around Europe and meeting so wonderful people.  We are really looking forward to coming back in May.

Please send in your photos and videos: If anyone has any photos or videos of us playing along our tour that they could email to us that would be great.  Just email them to:  thewishingwellband@gmail.com

New European and Canada Tour Dates

We are planning our next European and Canadian tours for 2010.

If you would like to see us play a concert in a town near you, please email us with suggestions of venues and festivals in your area.

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