Ken Hensley

Finland, Russia, Russia and Switzerland… "96 tea bags and 2 pedal bins"!

Day 6

The little fridge in my bedroom kept attacking me during the night, making rude noises as its overworked and rusty thermostat clicked on and off far more times an hour than necessary but I probably wouldn´t have heard it if I had been in a proper sleep…. Which I wasn´t. So, after about 6 hours of semi-conscious wrestling I gave up and got up, made some tea and got to work.

I sometimes have the TV on for "company" but this one had a station in every language except the ones I can speak. But it kept changing channels on its own anyway, so it was entertaining in a bizarre way.

Breakfast wasn´t thrilling but I had made up my mind that, with just a little press and radio to do today, I could manage my body clock disruption with a few cat naps here and there and the first one worked well. Then the band arrived, seemingly in one piece (except for Sid who had broken his heel a month ago and was still on crutches!) and the day´s agenda began.

After a quick lunch and a bit of catching up, the guys went to sleep a while and I left for the radio station. The interview was good and reminded me that the music´s influence had reached farther than I ever knew or understood. One thing I found especially interesting was that their favourite songs are the same as those of people for whom it´s still not today yet! Everywhere I go the same song titles come up and I just find that…. well, fascinating.

Then it was over to the venue (see photo) for a really great magazine interview. I like talking about musical stuff but I also enjoy it when people want to go into other areas and this (frighteningly) young and well-dressed man had prepared some cool questions. My answers are sometimes designed to create more questions and I really enjoyed this particular interview. I accepted their offer to send me a copy, even though I won´t understand a word!

Helge, Harek and I then spent some time checking out the keyboards, PA and production in general so that any holes could be filled in plenty of time for tomorrow´s show after which we all met in the lobby of the hotel to go to dinner.

This was hosted at a restaurant owned by Oleg, the guy who also owns the club and it was delicious and noisy (see photo). I soon faded though and was the first to return to the hotel.

After a quick chat with my beloved Monica, I went to bed with Stephen King (Duma Key) but that didn´t last long. I was about to have the best night´s sleep I´ve had in a long time!