Joe Black - Dresden Dolls Europe Tour Diary
CONTEXT: About 2 weeks before the tour, they decided to add supports and a Master Of Ceremonies to the show dates. I was originally asked to do London and Manchester, but couldn’t do those as I was in Berlin - Which Amanda misunderstood and thought I was just in Berlin at the moment in general and offered me the Berlin show. So when I explained that I wasn’t in Berlin then, I said that I could be if they wanted. But that I’d checked their tour dates and realistically I could also make the Prague, Berlin, Utrecht & Paris shows. So what I’m saying is - just putting stuff out there as a possibility works because that’s exactly what ended up happening. So here is my attempt at a casual tour diary as It happens.
DAY 1 - September 3rd 2026 - LONDON GATWICK TO PRAGUE - TRAVEL DAY
I’m choosing to believe my journey started not at home, where I’d tried to pack with a sense of calm instead of my usual ‘Oh god what if I shit myself 3 times a day’ packing - but instead at the Gatwick airport ticket gates. Where my ticket didn’t work and when I did my often used ‘My ticket has decided it doesn’t like me’ the man working the gates instead of letting me through with a blank expression, said “Well. I can let you through, but only if you do something for me”. “Sure. Why not” I agreed, silently plagued by the kind of anxiety reserved only for going on a small European tour at the last minute and you’ve never travelled like that by yourself.
“Sing me a song”
Which when asked, I suddenly have never heard a song. I don’t know what a song is. I don’t even speak this language. Despite songs being I would say maybe 50% of my job, they suddenly became a vague memory for me. So I just stared at him.
“ANY SONG!”
So I went into a kind of bizarre Tom Waits does singing in the rain in the middle of gatwick airport train station in the afternoon. Singing in the rain is not a musical or a song I ever think about, but in that moment it was the only song that I knew.
“Oh how lovely! I do enjoy some Fred good sir!” He patted me on the back. Then leant in and whispered “Usually people sing me happy birthday” then he pulled away and shouted “SO THEN IT IS MY BIRTHDAY EVERY DAY”
I couldn’t decide if this was an ill omen or the ideal start, being withheld at the airport entrance by a man who I reckon would have an absolute blast as a door that asks people riddles. Do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.
Inside the airport everything went as expected. Slight delay. Completely dead eyed teenagers working the food counter. Uneventful. Gate announced and I made my way over there and arrived to a fairly empty gate. The two men working just quietly tapping on their computers. One leans into the other and with an ominous whisper says ‘Ready when you are my friend’. I compliment him on how he managed to make it sound determined while also calm, he says ‘Of course, I must not give anyone false hope’ and laughs. Though I don’t really know what that means. Though what I do know is that this is a fantastic tactic if you haven’t booked the extra cabin bag that easyJet tries to sting you with. Remark about something that has happened or ask a question before they can clock you’re trying to be a sneaky little bastard.
Flight also uneventful, though late. Queue to leave airport absurd because of post Brexit admin and border control. Though I strike up a conversation with an English guy who used to live in Prague and is back to visit a friend. He tells me that since getting his new passport he’s been excited about collecting the stamps in them, though was disappointed that Canada didn’t give him one. The mother of his children is Chinese, so they go to China every April during half term. His son loves one piece which he calls ‘that pirate anime’, and scorns how many episodes there are. He loves attending running events across Europe and him and the friend he has come here to see just went to Serbia together 2 weeks ago. I thank him for helping pass the time in the unbelievable queue and wait time. I don’t catch his name.
My bag is now at a desk for pick up, as it took so long for us to get through that the carousel needed use for another flight. I call an uber - he asks me to go wait outside a nearby hotel for easier pick up. He says he will be a few minutes, I say ‘The app says 18 minutes?’ And he says ‘I will make faster’.
He arrives in once piece. He is not a race car driver but instead a middle aged man who doesn’t say a word the whole journey. I am deposited at my hotel. I shower. I sleep.
I’d pre downloaded a couple of interviews with David Sedaris to help make the journey more of a pleasure. Including a great one with him as a guest on Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud. As someone with a deep rooted suspicion of posh people, or people I perceive as posh. Bella is one of the few posh sounding podcast hosts I genuinely love listening to, rather than shaking my head in performative disagreement that they’ve led a life of privilege…. I assume.
She opens the interviews by asking them what they’ve chosen to wear today and why they picked that. So in honour of that, as I sit writing this the following day in a cafe in Prague on the first show day of The Dresden dolls tour for me. Today I am wearing a black linen Sea Salt shirt I ended up getting for free with a voucher from a gift bag I was given because I happened to walk into a shop at the right time and they said “You’ve got a few instagram followers”. I have paired it with some wide plain black Christopher Nemeth trousers, braces for a classic look rather than a belt. I am wearing some ribbed black Ralph Lauren socks with white bands on them, as they feel sporty in a kind of vintage way. A matching bandana as a small scarf. Some Y3 trainers that make me look like I’m going bowling with Tim Burton. Little green round sunglasses from Cubitts, which I have the same glasses in 3 different colours. More skull rings than would be considered tasteful, then finally a stiff fabric sort of vintage worker jacket from Jump The Gun in Brighton - as I felt like it would be durable to be thrown around for a few weeks without worry. It’s sitting somewhere between 1930’s airman and factory worker who loves Bauhaus. Both things could be true at once.
They are playing Ed Sheeran ‘I See Fire’ SO LOUDLY in this cafe and now I must see some of Prague before I meet people for coffee before getting ready for the show. I assume I will return tomorrow to speak of today in hindsight.
DAY 2 - September 4th 2026 - PRAGUE SHOW DAY
- Writing this bit on the day -
I’ve got a little break before soundcheck and having a quick hotel freshen up and I’ve gone to a cafe nearby to the venue called EMA, which the tour rep told me was ‘The best coffee in all of Prague! Well…. at least, it used to be’. Outside the cafe someones cup is being occupied by wasps, so it must be good. Enticing those little shits to do their hellish little dance. The people with the wasps entirely unbothered, just continuing their conversation. As a neurotic British person this kind of unbothered approach is unknown to me, as I only put my faith in and believe in panic. I’ve also seen teenagers smoking, which feels terribly European. It doesn’t feel like teenagers in the UK do that anymore? When I was at school it was the bad kid thing to do and now bad kids in the UK do… knife crime? I can’t keep up.
OK now I am back to talking about the past -
A really wonderful first day of the tour for me. Tired but fulfilled.
When travelling I never tend to sleep well, as my body believes that if I was to sleep that is when I am going to be murdered. So it makes sure I wake up every hour or so just to check whether someone has pushed a knitting needle through my neck or about to saw my legs off.
We had some time pre going to the venue, so Amandas friend Manta took us to a little island park and everyone (Not me though. I was just there for vibes and had to deal with emails) did Shin Tai Do, which to me appeared to be a sort of Butoh meets performance art meets stretching meets soul cleansing activity. I’d always considered myself to not be very ‘that’ sort of thing - but last year during my arts council development project I did a series of physical theatre sessions, as I felt like I’d lost touch with how my body moved and felt when I was on stage and I feel like it finally made me ‘get’ that kind of physical theatre. Though there was a point where they all began to run and scream and it did look like they were filled with an insatiable blood lust, which I didn’t attempt to stop. So if they had began some kind of violent murderous rampage I suppose I could be considered complicit.
It’s been great to meet everyone involved. It’s also really interesting to see what a small team of people can achieve production wise. On the big Drag Race season 2 tour we did, there were SO many people working on it. I can’t quite recall the actual number, because that part of my life is now locked away in my mind due to severe trauma. But.. more.
I also really enjoy that on these sort of things, in particular live event production - more specifically bands and music. you’ll meet people with nicknames that have somehow stuck and has now just become their name. On this tour it is Psycho Dave, who operates the sound. A giant striking figure of a man. Incredibly kind and mild mannered. Though he’s not called lovely Dave or Kindly Dave is he? He’s called psycho Dave. So maybe one day I hope I find out why.
The show in Prague was fantastic and the audience were so generous with their love. We did the thing. It was beautiful. I now get to do it 3 more times. Berlin show next! Which as I write this, I am on the train to. Where an American man has taken a loud obnoxious phone call and I wish he was dead. I shall return soon to talk of day 3. Goodbye.
DAY 3 - September 5th 2026 - BERLIN SHOW DAY
There was something really rather nice about walking through Prague before sunrise with a little bit of rain to get my 6am train to Berlin. As I hadn’t been to Prague before I wasn’t sure what the vibe of the city was, or whether during hours of darkness things were unsafe or unsavoury. I asked the person working reception if It was safe for me to walk to the train station at this time in the morning, and he just laughed. Which to be fair could point in either direction? Then he said ‘Oh you live in Britain? Ah, then your question makes more sense. Yes Prague is very safe’.
I was gobsmacked to see a Costa coffee in Prague station. I didn’t realise they had branches outside of the UK. As it was the only coffee place open when I arrived, I was thrilled to get one of the worst coffees on the British high street right there in the Czech Republic - for that little taste of home.
The train had cost me £52 for a first class ticket on a 4 hour journey. Now, I’m not going to say that this is a blanket thing across Europe, because I am currently sat on a train to Utrecht from Berlin which for some reason cost substantially more that Prague to Berlin, for maybe an hour less of a journey and for the same amenities. I don’t know what the difference between first and standard is like on these trains. Back home I don’t (can’t) drive, so I’m forced to use British public transport - where on long distance trains the discrepancy between first class and standard feels like the difference between being cattle or being a cattle farmer. Except you’re also paying absurd amounts to be the cattle. Here a £10 class difference I gather gets me some extra level of comfort and more room, which I’m using to write and finish work that needs to be done. Back home £100 difference means I don’t get beaten with rods and have to stand in a hallway for 6 hours. This is by comparison a complete utopia. Though a utopia where no one has any common sense on how to use a luggage rack and has taken up the lower shelves for the big bags with… I don’t know, purses? Just the smallest bags anyone could carry to travel with. Whereas I have 2 weeks worth of work and daytime things with me in a bag that’s replaced my gym routine. At least its a workout. Do I lift? Yes. 22kg bags above my head to put on a train rack.
Favourite thing about the train - The English speaking train announcements are done by a sort of game show host sickly enthusiastic American voice, though not the station names - where it suddenly becomes a native speaker edited in and it sounds like they’ve replaced someone using a slur in a sentence.
I arrived in Berlin late morning and was staying with my friend Oliver (Drag queen Aubrey Wadonga - twitch streamer and good egg), who I took out for lunch as a thank you for dealing with my bullshit for 2 days. He grew up In Australia, but is half German so made the decision to grab that EU passport and move to Germany while he could. Which I’m incredibly jealous of, not just because I love Germany, but because he can now skip those horrendous post Brexit queues at the airport. Which I’ll have to face again when I fly back to Berlin later this week to do the Velvet Creepers show at Ballhaus. Except that time it will be worse, as I’ll be travelling from Paris - so I assume that sadly I will have had to travel with French people.
Berlin was an incredible show with such beautiful energy from the audience, though in what I’ve come to know over the years of performing there as a typically German way - feeling like they’re not bothered (because they don’t want to interrupt and are paying attention) and then giving you all the love in the world when you’re done. I was doing a slightly different/longer hosting bit for this show, so the crew very kindly leant me Amandas spare keyboard to use. My set was - St James Infirmary (classic), Minnie the Moocher (classic, but also worked as a nice call back because the Dresden Dolls have added bits of that into Mandy Goes To Med School. Which made Oliver question whether they’d added that because I did it) and I ended on what I believe to be the UK’s finest musical export. As I said to the audience on the night, Germany has given the world so many incredible musicians, with such a variety and depth to their contributions. Kurt Weill, Nina Hagen, Beethoven. So it was my duty to do what I think represents the best of British - The Spice Girls. So I finished off my set with Spice Up Your Life to cap things off with a real sense of national pride.
The Dresden Dolls did a mammoth 2 and a half hour set for this show, as they were also filming. I got a second hand exhaustion from watching them give it their all. I joined them for Delilah and at the end for Sing. There’s no feeling quite like walking in front of 1600 people with a conductors baton and getting them to act as a personal choir for the band. A bunch of Amandas friends and family had come over for this show, so there was a nice little social event in the catering area after the show where as I scuttled past to go to the bathroom someone jokingly shouted “PUT SOME SHOES ON” as I ran past just in underwear and a vest. So it was good to see German people with their priorities straight - no clothes is fine, but no shoes is where they draw the line. Next time I’ll do completely nude but with crocs or something. Lately I’ve been pushing myself to be more casual about my own body and nudity, as a kind of exposure (wahey!) test to myself - and I’ve not really had the time or space to take thirst traps, so running to bathrooms in underwear is just where I’ve gotta get my fix for now.
After the show on the way back to Olivers, we kept seeing seating outside convenience stores and apparently it’s become a thing in Berlin, because the shops also sell cheap beers - so of an evening people will buy beers from them and then hang out on the tables and chairs outside, and the vibes on the ones I saw were absolutely immaculate. This isn’t something I think we’d make work in the UK, because I just know that we would ruin it immediately with… something? Anything. Because we can’t be trusted and that’s why we can’t have nice things. Sometimes.
DAY 4 - September 6th 2026 - DAY OFF IN BERLIN
It was my day off and I shall not tell you of my devious exploits.
I can’t believe I’ve written nearly 3000 words about this all. Are they good? I don’t know. But I promised myself I’d do it and here we are. I think I’m going to split this into 2 parts so that it’s not too much of a task for reading. I’m not doing an edit on this as I just want to get it out there as a casual tour diary and not overthink it. So if there’s spelling mistakes, so be it.
Part 2 coming soon. Once that stuff happens. Writing this on DAY 5 on the train from Berlin to Utrecht where hopefully the WIFI is good enough that I can also post it while travelling. SEE YOU SOON.
- Picture of the bows at the end of the Prague show. I'm just saving stuff as I see it, so I don’t know who took this photo! If this is you please message me and let me know so I can credit you!!! -
