Littera Nova Hildesheim

Friday night Ray was back at Littera Nova in Hildesheim. He was here in June 2023 and you can see pictures of the venue here. The only thing that has changed is that the white piano is no longer on the stage – drummers didn’t like it being there and it was seldom used. However, Ray carries an electric keyboard on his tours. Nik, the technician, is still here and he engineers a great sound in this dark and atmospheric venue.

Ray began his set with Even For A Shadow which contains the line a visitor on Europe’s roads – AVOER is the name of this weblog.

On this tour, Ray is revisiting many songs from his earlier albums such as the keyboard tracks The Golden Age, Palace Of Tears, In Your Sweet Arms and Tynne Laine/The Wind from his latest album. His mandolin playing on The Unknown Soldier Has A Name brought spontaneous applause. He often combines Falling Like Thunder with The Beast, both commentaries on where we are in the world today and how we got there. The photo gallery shows the four main instruments that Ray plays during his shows.

Thursday night was a fun gig at Notenschlüssel, an Irish pub and whiskey bar in Leverkusen, just outside of Cologne. The audience were real music lovers and kept Ray playing for four encores. 

Travelogue 

Thursday we drove south from the green pastures around Einbeck to a much more built up and industrialised countryside around Dortmond and Cologne. Even though it’s very built up, the road system makes travel very quick. Often trees have been allowed to grow up on either side of the autobahn which makes it feel like you are driving through the countryside until you catch a glimpse between the trees. Wind turbines are a very frequent sight, sometimes a whole forest of them but this picture shows only two.

Hildesheim is a nice town just south of Hannover. We arrived in plenty of time for a walk around and a bite to eat. Unfortunately, most restaurants didn’t open until 5pm or 6pm so we had to make do with a wiener schnitzel and a hamburger.