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September 14th 2003
SHOWTIME!!
After a breakfast of extremely mysterious items we went to the venue
to see what wonders awaited us in the form of back-line and PA!!
Actually it was all quite good and because we are only using this
equipment for this one show, we worked for a few hours to get the
most out of it. The biggest problem was that the monitor engineer
didn't speak English so we knew we were in for a few surprises.
The Green Theatre is and open-air venue and is situated in
a beautiful park that used to be the gardens of some Count or other.
It was huge so I imagine it was quite easy to get lost in those
days! Nearby was a nice little restaurant where we went for lunch
and the plan was to go back to the hotel, clean up and return for
sound check. Well, guess what, President Putin decided to
come here for his holidays so the roads were closed again!! Those
of you who read the diary of my last tour here know that he was
following us around then but he's still not getting an All Access
Pass!!!! Time for a quick change of plans!! Back to the venue!
All the gear seemed to be working fine although Tommy had
to do some "service" work on the drums to get them to
his liking. The Hammond and Leslie had been specially packed to
minimise damage in transit and after re-fitting the valves (that's
"tubes" for those of you in Loma Linda!) it all worked
fine… which was a relief!
Eventually we did get to go to the hotel and back but the time we
had lost created a bit of a rush… the place was full and it
was time to go!!
Jorge hit the intro CD and we launched into the first three songs
without a break. It was a great show… lots of little mistakes
and one really big one from me… but overall a great first show.
We are doing yet another version of Lady in Black which features
John on violin at the end, reflecting one of the re-mixes that were
recently released, and it went down a storm!! All in all a very
satisfying day and night and we celebrated with dinner late into
the night.
Next
day...
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