Hermannplatz

It was only a short drive of about 3 hours for the last night of the tour in Berlin. So after a leisurely breakfast I rang my saviour Josef, who confirmed that my bike was fixed and ready to ride away. Hooray, I didn’t ask how much. I told him that I planned to catch an early train and be with him by mid afternoon on Thursday. He told me to ring him when I was near and he would pick me up from the station.

I then started looking to book my train ticket when horror of horrors, the train I had planned to book had now doubled in price. I needed to consider my options. The Magic Bus departed Poznan at 10.30am, but within 30 minutes, our drivers had received news that their flights to Gothenburg the following day had been cancelled. We pulled over so they could make alternative arrangements. In total 4 of them were going on to Gothenburg to continue following the tour. Luckily there was a day off before Gothenburg, so 3 of them booked their flight for the next day, but Paul Rizos was due to meet his wife who was flying in the next day, so he booked a very early and expensive train to Gothenburg for the following morning. I booked an overnight train from Berlin to Leutkirch for the following night for £89. Sorted.

We continued towards Berlin, but before reaching the German border, messages started arriving on people’s phones to say their flights had also been cancelled. In fact everyone catching flights received a cancellation message, except those on British Airways flights. BA didn’t bother to send out any notification until late into the evening!! Luckily we knew that they would be cancelled because there was a 24 hour strike all day Thursday (home day) and all German airports were closed.

We stopped just short of the German border to fill up the buses with cheaper fuel, buy lunch and people desperately tried to make other travel arrangements. The airlines took advantage of the desperation and the flight prices rocketed. I was sitting pretty until rumours started circulating that the train drivers. Oh no.

We also had a final Magic Bus Tour photo, which was uploaded to Facebook and at the time of writing has got 229 likes.

We continued to the Mercure Hotel Berlin Tempelhof arriving just before 4.00pm. Most people checked into their rooms then met in the bar to continue making alternative travel arrangements. It was close to 6.30pm, by the time everyone had some sort of plan. A couple of people were getting early trains out of Germany to catch a flight from another country home. Others were forced to stay on in Berlin for as long as Sunday before they could get a flight home. To be fair, the airlines had agreed to compensate all additional costs including hotels and meals, except Ryan Air!

We headed straight out to the venue, Huxley’s Neue Welt, for the last gig of our NMA Magic Bus European tour. We had a couple of beers en route, then arrived at the venue with about 15 minutes to spare. Despite being a sell out and Germany having a reputation for quite physical gigs, after about 3 songs I headed to the front to join most of the rest of our group. Before long I was roped into holding Jack standing up on several different people’s shoulders and Stu who was sitting on people’s shoulders. It was yet another great gig - they never disappoint.

The encore consisted of ‘No Rest’, ‘High’ and ‘Get Me Out’ followed by a 2nd encore of ‘I Love The World’. We had the final ‘family’ photo, then a much needed refreshing, but watery beer, but soon we were being ushered out of the venue by the security staff. Not a bad thing.

As we were leaving, talk spread of where everyone was going for a post gig drink. It was at a bar virtually next door. Upon entering it was really strange to discover that people were actually smoking at the bar and it was quite a smoky atmosphere. Priscilla, Lex, Ramon and I sat at a table next to a table with a few of our Magic Bus NMA stalwarts, Red, Stu and Jo. It was not long before I noticed that Dean White and Michael Dean were now talking to Red, Stu and Jo. Nu the new keyboard player and the female roadie were also in the bar.

At an opportune moment, I went up to Dean White and introduced myself to him as being on the Magic Bus and my last gig of the current tour on the continent. Dean was an exceptionally nice man, who started off by apologising for not knowing my name. I told him about my journey on my motorcycle and the dramas along the way. He asked me which gig I enjoyed most, which was Bern, because it was so intimate and in such a quirky venue. The two of us spoke for what seemed like at least 20 minutes about life on the road with NMA. I proudly told him that I had assisted in raising Jack aloft on numerous occasions during the tour & it was bloody hard work. He said that the band thought that it was so funny that after attending hundreds of gigs, Jack still didn’t know all the words. Eventually I thought it best that I let Priscilla, who was waiting patiently, get a chance to chat with Dean, but before doing so I asked for a selfie, then made a total tit of myself by taking photos of everyone else but us. Dean had to take my phone from me to switch the view.

Whilst Priscilla was chatting to Dean, I saw that Michael Dean was preparing to leave, so I grabbed him for a quick chat, introducing myself, being on the Magic Bus and wished him all the best with getting his slipped disc in his back sorted out. Again a very nice and polite man who had the time of day for anyone who wanted to speak to him.

Eventually we left the bar and walked back to the hotel arriving at 1.40am. I had to strip off and bag up my clothes, then have a shower, because everything stank of cigarette smoke.

It was a fantastic way to officially end our NMA Magic Bus Tour.

Song of the Day - From Chaos To Harmony by Ian Brown.

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