While I had a few meals with locals as I cruised through Berlin, my favourite meals that I shared during my two stops in Germany were beers with my volunteers.

The shows in Berlin and Gelsenkirchen were two weeks apart, but the experience was remarkably similar. It rained heavily the day before the show, cleared up and was fairly nice on show day, and the crowds, as one roadie put it, “know how to hang out”. After both shows there were solid crowds of people mingling about and having a last beer before heading home, and when our work was done at both shows, some of the volunteers who had worked a hard day stayed around a while to have a beer.

I suppose I wanted to seek out meals with locals as a break from the tour, and despite the fact that I was still at the stadium with people who had been working at the concert, both nights felt like more of a break than the meals in Barcelona, Milan, and Paris. The group was relaxed and just happy to be spending a couple of non-structured moments with each other. So prost to all the Germans I shared a cold one with, hope to see you next time I roll through.