Basel & Ben

Pedestrian shopping street - Freie Strasse. The Rathaus (town hall) tower can be seen in the background.

The sundial clock on a tower of the Münster church.
(Original church built in 1019, but what is seen today was constructed post-earthquake in 1356. Also, this church is the final resting place of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.)

Dinner is served! We dined on bratwurst and pork tenderloin at this local beer hall, Brasserie zum Braunen Mutz. Yum yum! It was fun hanging with the locals too.

Ben and company, jammin out.



Ben Harper Live on Vimeo

Last night we went to Basel for some quick site seeing and a fantastic Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals concert. The opener, William White, put on a good show. (I recommend checking him out if you like Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, etc. His stuff is available on ITunes) The break between William White and Ben Harper was down right painful. It took over 45 minutes for the band to take stage, but in the end it was well worth the wait. They played for about 3 hours, and the show just kept getting better and better. Matt and I agreed that the crowd was quite tame. Very few people were actually dancing, mostly it was just a polite head nod along with the beat. (This didn't stop me from rockin' out though...) The tram and train on the way home was also unbelievable. It was hard to fathom that the group we were with had just attended a concert! It was as if our Tuesday night study group was heading home from the library. Not at all like the First Avenue club experience in Minneapolis, that's for sure!