Just an unstructured series of moments and memories of my trip following Spearmint on 6 dates of their 10 date tour of Germany. I missed Hamburg and Leipzig - which might have been their best one they reckoned! - and picked up with them in Voerde, near Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund.

Belle & Sebastian, overrated or not? A big question on the tour and many differing views here. I say they're not as did Shirley but others were less convinced. Andy played a song during one of his dj slots... he also played a remix of "Julie Christie!" which was very different, stripped almost completely of the music only Shirley singing over a bit of drum n bass/dance beat, still sounded brilliant although I haven't found anything else out about the version yet!

Andy's dj talents are to the fore on quite a few nights with him giving the local dj's lists of songs they simply must play. To their credit they do very well indeed. One of them calling his night "Blow Up", meant he had a lot to live up to but I think he received a "highly commended"! Andy also celebrated his birthday whilst away... happy birthday again!!

Barracuda Bar, Kassel This was the smallest venue on the tour and there was a target of 11 audience members to beat. Sunday night is often the worst night of the week to play and that was the attendance for the last Apricot band to play there. Apricot are Spearmint's label in Germany and are three nice blokes, Johannes was tourmeister the last time and took a fair amount of stick. However, their enthusiasm is undoubted and James's impersonation is something I probably shouldn't mention.

Some nice people running the event in Kassel and Volker who put the show on is obviously a massive fan... he's dragged in loads of punters and the place is packed for another great gig. To get nearly a hundred people in seems impossible but it worked. This was my second night and I was surprised that the set was very different from the night before... I found out later there were 3 set lists for the tour, I think that's brilliant when it must be so easy to keep the same set.

Anyway, set 2 was... Happy Birthday Girl/The Good Of The Family/A Trip Into Space/Scottish Pop/Don't Get Me Started/ Stealing Beauty/Solace/I Went Away/I Can't Sleep/Julie Christie!/Sweeping The Nation/A Different Lifetime/The Flaming Lips/This Is Green This Is Grey/Best Ballroom/Go/Isn't It Great To Be Alive

In set 1 there's inclusions of Goldmine, Start Again, A Week Away, We're Going Out, an earlier Go, a much later Julie Christie! At the expense of The Good Of The Family, Solace, I Went Away, This Is Green This Is Grey and Best Ballroom. Set 3 sees Julie Christie! as second song and I think it works really well there, then in the middle we're treated to It Will End, straight into Scared of Everything, Single Again, Song for the Colour Yellow into Sweeping the Nation. Encore You Are Still My Brother, top song!

A Guaranteed Place On Earth Adam, the lights, the stage sets and the bubbles. The sets are simply gorgeous and Adam turns A Trip Into Space into his song with bubbles every night.

Autobahn mayhem Always interesting driving in Germany with vast stretches of motorway having no speed restrictions at all. I missed one horrendous crash by only a few hundred yards slipping through spinning debris to get out of the way as quick as possible. I looked back to see that I was the only one who was carrying on, felt guilty for a second but realised they really wouldn't need someone with my skills, both language and professional!

At least I wasn't searched at a service station by the police like some other people on the tour. Apparently they were looking suspicious... like a band from the UK are going to look normal anywhere! Most of them give me their version of events later and the single fact they all mention is how handsome, or was it pretty, all the German policemen were... bizarre!

Werner Herzog With so few German directors to choose from Werner gets his name into Spearmint history by replacing Woody Allen in The Flaming Lips. On my last night there's a German fan who turns to his mate telling him to listen out for Werner's mention... impressive spot I reckon!

"Nifty Fifty" My 4th gig on this tour was also my 50th Spearmint one ever - this includes a couple of in-store thingys and some very short sets but they still played live at all of them. I discount my trip to Oxford last year where only Shirley, James & Ronan made it due to a "chemical spillage" on the M40, although had the pleasure of bringing those three back to Acton after a quick Chinese.

Anyway, I'd mentioned it on my first night but wasn't too sure if they knew which date it was. So when Shirley kindly said "This song's for Neil" I was overjoyed... "Single Again" and every single note on the melodica was spot on, first time live I reckon! Afterwards, I was making my way back to help/hinder Jeff with the merchandise when Shirley called me back for a drink with the rest of them. On walking into the dressing room there's balloons all over the place and I get sung Happy Birthday for being 50... there's a card and a badge and Adam videos proceedings. I was so taken aback by it all - so kind, funny and one of those things you'll never forget. Magic!

"My Beautiful Laundrette" As Dusseldorf is only just over an hour from Munster I arrived quite early and dumped my stuff in the hotel and wandered around the old town for yonks. The weather was beautiful and the centre full of cafes, restaurants, bars etc. A really nice place in fact and most surprising! I spent about an hour in the film museum there which was pretty good. Then decided it was time for some grub and a return to the hotel for a kip before my last gig.

And then, the four amigos are in front of me, Andy, Simon, Ronan and John, appearing "as if by magic-style" from the laundrette... they have an hour to kill before it's done so I join them for a meal, and they want to eat meat... indeed John ends up with a whole chicken, it'd been a while apparently! He devoured it comfortably. Next, it was back to the river side... quite a big river, the Rhine, and one hell of a current on it too. The massive industrial barges go flying past down-stream, the one coming back doesn't appear to be moving at all, impressive.

Back at the laundrette everything's ready and I'm standing there waiting to go back to the hotel with them as they unload the machines and swap various items of clothing... what am I doing here never crossed my mind. Still everyone's delighted to have some refreshed clothes so that's good!

"True or False?" As well as being the man who owns and drives the yellow van Jeff becomes the merchandise guru on tour selling out of everything amazingly quickly and putting together some great stands. Jeff's next/current project is possibly the Spearmint bobble hat with the bobble being incredibly over-sized, as he said "they can always cut it off". It was felt to be essential for Sweden but also a necessary return to fashion for the item.

Jeff's favourite game was "True or False?". "I used to dress windows for John Lewis," "I worked Saturdays in Top Shop," etc. Was he telling the truth or not? The difficulty was he only came back with true or false when you had made your guess... work it out, it's difficult to know and you just couldn't bring yourself to believe him anyway. I did a short spell for him in Dusseldorf on the merchandise stand so he could get some extra kip ahead of ridiculously long drives from there to Munich, then to Berlin and then back to Blighty. That was the night he was found hanging like a bat from somewhere odd in the early hours, crashing down to numerous bruises. I wonder who drove that next day?

I haven't even mentioned the songs much... I'm obviously too biased to comment but after all this time you might expect to be perhaps a little tired of some songs... strangely, or whatever, I genuinely still get such a buzz from Sweeping The Nation, A Trip Into Space, Goldmine etc. We're Going Out is probably the Spearmint song I love least and we all know how good a dance record that is. It gets several outings on tour and sometimes live it's fantastic... it was again!

Don't Get Me Started, the first cover Spearmint play, takes a hearing or two. Clearly Northern Soul with a sing along refrain, by my third night I'm convinced by it. There's actually a great song here and some history to be discovered about where it came from... Shirley will tell all soon, I'm sure.

Spearmint History Simon tells me so many snippets from the early days of the band, he must have known I'd had too much to drink and wouldn't remember much of it the next day! Still, I may recall something later if I'm lucky. We also talk about missing our respective families, we've both not been away from our sons for such a long time... pining fathers hey!

My tour favourites Get ready for a long list... are Happy Birthday Girl going straight on into Julie Christie!, Go - simply my favourite track from the perfect album and James's guitar playing here is stunning - Song For The Colour Yellow into Sweeping The Nation, A Different Lifetime, Isn't It Great To Be Alive although no story in German as I thought might have been!, I Went Away, and I Can't Sleep, always a massive favourite of mine and meatier than ever.

So, the band had never played so many consecutive gigs and it was all going very nicely... the rest of it must have been ok as they're doing it again very quickly.

The sound was excellent, John on sound was rightly particular, deliberately hadn't heard any of the recorded stuff and put out six great shows. As well as his Chicken eating he won some great smiles for his shorts on a bright but freezing day...

After that it was home and it was great to get back so quickly! So finally thanks to Shirley, Ronan, Simon, James, Andy, Jeff, Adam and John for making me feel so welcome everywhere I turned up and for another great trip... pain I can't do Sweden.