The tour bus is on its way from Oslo and that’s about 1500 kilometers!  Ken, Magne and Eric found some cheap flights so they will arrive around noon but my first job was to do a radio interview at Rock Radio Antenne, one of the Bavarian region’s biggest rock stations so I took a taxi there, met Thomas, did the interview and headed back to the hotel, hopefully for some lunch and a siesta…… no chance!  What is it they say about “the best laid plans…..”?

The bus (with all of our back-line) was running at least two hours late so we began to re-schedule things in preparation.  The first show of a tour is always the most challenging, even when things go smoothly, so this was going to be “difficult”.

My first magazine interview was late too so it seemed that “late” was the word of the day.

As it turned out the guys were thrashing their way through various highway probems… accidents, detours and road works plus the GPS didn’t work properly outside of Norway.

To cut a long story short we were in a rush at the last minute and that’s never a good thing, let alone for the first show.  I was using a new synthesizer rig and we just didn’t have time to figure it out so we decided on a basic rock & roll show to minimize the risks.  The guys at the venue helped a lot and we knew what we had to do to make it happen… 

And, as it happened, that’s exactly what the audience wanted!  The stage was small, the audience was big and they were loud… almost as loud as we were.

One of the things I like most about working with the band, Ken, Sid, Tom Arne and Eric as well as Magne, Petter and Helge, our excellent crew, is that they never get negative about stuff…. they are just as determined as I am and so it all becomes a “team” effort.  Brings back some good pre-1975 memories.

Because of the synth problems and everything running late I had to drop two songs but that didn’t seem to matter and, after the show I signed literally hundreds of CDs and Vinyl covers.

All in all it was a great start to the tour and, as we said goodbye to everyone and got on the bus the atmosphere was animated and excited.

A glass of wine, a few episodes of Monty Python (thanks to Magne) and it was time to climb into my bed and grab a few hours sleep as we drove to Vienna.  Planet Music is a great venue to play and the guys will have time to fix the little things that need attention.

We’re on our way!