Looking Back at Gustav Summer Tour 2018: Part 1 (of 8) Intro

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The 2018 sequel to Gustav Euro Tour 2017 was formed together nearly at the last minute. Originally there were plans to go to Africa with the UC Alumni Chorus but that proved to be too expensive plus the May dates were problematic for a few reasons I won't get to.

There didn't seem to be any reason to repeat my Europe trip again so soon. After all, I already saw Depeche Mode's European summer leg plus they were already planning their second European leg in the winter (most, if not all the tour dates were already announced while I was in Europe the first time) so there wasn't much reason to think the tour would continue afterwards.

However, they started to announce some summer festivals they would be appearing in, plus a grand tour finale in Berlin at the end of July 2018. Around the same time, another act I was really into at the time, Gorillaz, was also announcing summer festivals. I started to keep track of all their announced festivals to see if there were 1. festivals they were both performing at and 2. festivals that were close enough apart that I could do both.

The announcement that sealed the deal for me was that The Cure were playing a 40-year anniversary celebration in London the first weekend of July. I knew that was something I wanted to be a part of. I quickly bought tickets and started planning. A festival I noticed was one the very next day in Glasgow with bands I enjoy such as The Killers, CHVRCHES, and Franz Ferdinand. I booked tickets for that too, but didn't really think about how I would quickly get from London to Glasgow. This proved to be a challenge.

With that weekend set in stone, I spent weeks making hypothetical schedules of where I would go. The plan I had my heart set on was seeing both Depeche Mode and Gorillaz in Paris at the Lollapalooza Festival. That was the weekend before DM's Berlin shows. The plan was to see The Cure and The Killers in the UK, then head to Paris and Berlin, with a few cities here and there nearby before and after.

The problem was that flights in June and July were pretty expensive and I wasn't making enough money from my part time work to afford it. I started thinking about the idea of flying to the east coast and then heading to the UK from there.

I also had to keep in mind that the Oakland A's were playing in Denver during the final weekend in July and most of my friends had already made plans to travel there and I wanted to join them. Since the Depeche Mode Berlin dates were close by, I kept an eye on flights from Germany or France to Denver. Furthermore, a few bands like The Decemberists and Erasure were announcing a USA tour so I wanted to wait around to find out when they were performing here to avoid conflicts like last year that were too late to fix.

The Depeche Mode Berlin shows sold out right away and were looking to be very expensive to get tickets to, and that combined with the Denver trip made me make the tough decision not to go to those shows. I started thinking about seeing them at the Open'er Festival in Poland, one of the countries I was most sad to miss in 2017. It was just before The Cure's London show so I'd need to find a flight to make that work. Gorillaz was also performing at that festival, but their headline night didn't quite work with my schedule.

Finally, The Decemberists announced their USA tour dates, and notably missing was a San Francisco date. I didn't know if they would later announce a show, or skip us altogether. So I wound up deciding that their June date in Brooklyn would be the excuse I needed to fly to New York, and then book a cheap flight from New York to the UK. This way I could also potentially see some tapings of some of my favorite late night comedy shows! Near the end of January, I booked the flight from San Francisco to New York, and then a flight from New York to Belfast, Northern Ireland (a city I missed in 2017) for a combined $225. (For the record, Erasure's San Francisco date was announced for late August, so it didn't wind up causing any problems in itinerary planning)

Getting back proved to be difficult. From Belfast I worked a schedule using Skyscanner that located the cheapest flights from each stop, and then worked that around the festival dates I had committed to. I also had to check in with my friends in Paris and Barcelona to see when they could host me.

Eventually, it all worked together nicely. From Dublin, Ireland I found a cheap flight to Madrid. From Madrid I found a cheap flight to Portugal, another country I missed in 2017 and was really interested in seeing. Although I could not find a cheap flight from Portugal to Barcelona, I found out my host could not have me around that time anyway. I actually found a cheap flight from Lisbon to Paris that worked with the dates my host there was available. The Paris dates would allow me to easily get to Poland in time for Depeche Mode's show.

Originally, I was going to fly straight to Poland but there were no cheap flights. In addition, I didn't want to completely skip Germany. I wound up booking an overnight bus from Paris to Berlin, and then another overnight bus from Berlin to Warsaw. Neither were all that expensive, but presented the challenge of trying to get two good nights sleep on buses. For some reason, there were no cheap flights going in or out of Berlin.

From Warsaw I could easily get to Gdynia where the Open'er Festival was. I wound up finding a good flight form nearby Gdansk to London, well in time for The Cure. I had to wait a while before I could book a cheap train from London to Glasgow, but eventually that moment came. I found a cheap flight from Edinburgh to Bergamo, Italy and would take a train from there to Lucca to see Gorillaz and that way I could see them as well. From Lucca I would head to Turin, Italy which was the only Italian city where I could find a cheap flight to Barcelona.

What to do after Barcelona became the issue. I decided the only real budget option for me was to fly from Iceland back to the United States, but getting to Iceland proved to be difficult. It was determined that the cheapest way to do so would be to fly from Barcelona to Palma de Mallorca, and then head over to Keflavik via Manchester. From Keflavik I would fly to Los Angeles (about $150 cheaper than flying to San Francisco) where I could get a cheap Megabus home.

With this plan, I would get home a week before the Denver trip was planned. This would also allow me to attend the Decemberists concert that was announced for Berkeley the Friday night of the Denver trip. Eventually, I discovered a cheap (about $150) roundtrip flight to Denver from San Francisco the following Saturday morning and booked it, completing my trip. I then booked the cheapest hostels and AirBnBs I could find and then I was finally able to relax.

There was one problem, all the potential places to stay during my 7 day New York trip were pretty expensive. I had relatives that I could stay with, but was hesitant to ask them for help. Eventually I asked my cousin Paul, who I missed during my 2013 NYC trip, and asked if I could stay. He could host me for some of the my seven nights, but not all. That was enough help for me and the trip itinerary was complete! (Click on the image below to see the itinerary and financial spreadsheet for my entire tour!)

The final trip cost was around $2500. I took money out of my savings but was able to put all of it back by the end of October.

The following is a retrospective that breaks down the trip into nine distinct legs..

1. The New York Leg (New York City, Trenton, Union City, Newburgh)

2. The Ireland Leg (Belfast, Dublin)

3. The Iberian Leg (Madrid, Porto, Lisbon)

4. The Central Europe Leg (Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Gdasnk, Gdynia, Sopot)

5. The Britain Leg (London, Glasgow, Edinburgh)

6. The Italy Leg (Lucca, Turin - Bergamo was cancelled)

7. The Paradise Leg (Barcelona, Palma, Reykjavik, Hafnarfjordur, Keflavik)

8. The Home Leg (Los Angeles, Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco)

9. The Denver Leg (Denver, Morrison)

Since some of the legs are short or don't need much storytelling, there will only be seven more entries. Legs 6 and 7, and 8 and 9 will be combined into one.

Thank you for reading! Click here for...

PART 2 - THE NEW YORK LEG

PART 3 - THE IRELAND LEG

PART 4 - THE IBERIAN LEG

PART 5 - THE CENTRAL EUROPE LEG

PART 6 - THE BRITAIN LEG

PART 7 - THE ITALY AND PARADISE LEGS

PART 8 - THE HOME AND DENVER LEGS